How to Package Dry Foods in Plastic Bottles for Long Term Food Storage

did you know that you can repurpose some plastic bottles to stir your dry goods in your long-term storage hi i'm jonathan and Kylian jones and we are the Provident Preppers sometimes we need to get a little bit creative in order to package our food storage on a budget and yet it's vitally important that it's packaged correctly for long-term storage one way that we have found to do this is by packaging dry goods in use peat plastic bottles in this video we will teach you what you need to know so that you can store your dry goods in these plastic bottles we have had viewers asking how they can package dry goods in plastic bottles and so based on your request here you go so why don't we want to repurpose these peat bottles well first of all they're inexpensive it's something that most of us have around our homes usually it just ends up in the trash sometimes recycled but in any case that's available to us almost free of charge it comes in a variety of sizes that are readily available and it does reduce waste for those who can't recycle they are convenient and they do a great job of storing dry goods and water now let's talk about what foods are good candidates for packaging in peat bottles first of all we're only gonna do the dry goods and those need to be low and moisture and low in oil that means that you could store white rice and peat bottles for a very long time however brown rice due to its high oil content is not a good candidate for a long-term storage and can only be stored for a short period of time before it goes rancid it's important to understand that the whole grain will maintain quality and storage much longer than a milled grain will so we stores longer than flour whole corn will store longer than cornmeal rolled out store longer than oat flour and dry beans store longer than bean flour you are packaging your food storage if you are wanting to get the optimal shelf life that you can make sure that you start in its whole form and there are some foods that just should not be packaged in peat bottles with an oxygen absorber some of them will go rancid in storage some might actually develop botulism in a reduced oxygen environment we don't want to ever do anything risky when we're storing food storage the items listed here are all on your don't store these in a peat bottle with an oxygen absorber list let's learn how to package dry goods in the peat bottle first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna select the right bottle turn the bottle upside down in at the bottom you will see some type of a recycling symbol the plastic bottles that we want to use have a recycle symbol with the number one and we'll say PE T or PE te underneath the symbol and they must have a screw top lid so that they can create an airtight seal that means no flip top or Popoff tops not of these type of lids will provide an airtight environment if you're questioning whether or not the lids a good lid take your container screw the lid on tight put it underneath water and squeeze it if you see any air coming out of that bottle it's not a good choice these are some great examples of bottles that you can use soda bottles and juice bottles just worked really well I don't use any of the bottles in my pantry that are difficult to clean such as these oil bottles they meet all the other criteria for being able to store food but they're very difficult to clean well which could be problematic when it comes to storing dry goods there are some white mouth jars that are good candidates for peak bottles for your long-term storage however many of them are not I don't like to use the peanut butter jars for one they're difficult to clean like the oil jars if I put them in the dishwasher they tend to melt but it just doesn't have that airtight seal that the smaller bottles have on it that being said I do have a few favorite widemouth jars that I will use for long-term storage of dry goods these are some bad choices and ones that you do not want to use for example the vinegar contain doesn't have the right kind of cap and also the vinegar odor is embedded into the plastic and the milk type jugs are just a bad choice all around they've been engineered to degrade and they will not work for this in addition it's important to only use bottles that have held edible foods or liquids in them in the past I'm a huge fan of the quart size bottles for packaging dry goods the quart bottles hold about two pounds of rice or beans which is just about the perfect amount to feed our family of six if you don't want to purchase your food in the bulk size 25 or 50 pound bags every time you go to the grocery store pick up an extra package of beans or rice and put it into a clean bottle and package it and build your food supply very quickly very easily and the two liter or two quart bottles are about the right size bottle to hold the wheat that I need to make one batch of bread and the gallon jugs hold about the same amount as a number-10 can I especially like to repurpose apple juice jugs because of the easy to carry handles another important part of the process is protecting the food from insect infestation one of the best ways to do this is to use oxygen absorbers they protect against insect damage but they also preserve the quality of the food and they prevent the growth of aerobic pathogens Brigham Young University published a study entitled feasibility of reusing pete soda bottles to exclude oxygen during storage of low moisture foods pretty much what this study says is that it takes 12 days in an oxygen reduced environment to kill insects at all stages of development and that the Pete bottles have the ability to maintain that low oxygen environment for at least a year oxygen absorbers begin to work the moment they are in an oxygen-rich environment in order to keep them viable I always take my oxygen absorbers and place them into a canning jar and only use one or two at a time oxygen absorbers come in a variety of sizes for pete bottles up to a one gallon size you only need a 300cc oxygen absorber Paquette now if you use a 500cc packet it's not a big deal what happens with the oxygen absorbers is they will absorb all of the oxygen until it's gone and then the reaction stops until more oxygen is present so if you use a larger oxygen absorber it's not a big deal however you need to make sure that you use at least one that is large enough to do the job for our purposes the 300cc oxygen absorbers are plenty for packaging in a peat bottle oxygen absorbers are the best way to go because they both kill the bugs and they help preserve the quality of the food however you can store food without using that method just by using the freeze-thaw method start by packaging the grain in the bottles and sealing the lids tightly and then you're gonna place them in the freezer for two or three days Utah State University Extension recommends this process for containers from 1 to 15 pounds they say we should put them in the freezer for two to three days to make sure that they're frozen that should kill the adult insects then we remove the bottles from the freezer place them at room temperature where they are allowed to thaw for 24 hours then we will place them back in the freezer for that two to three days and repeat that cycle it should be noted that multiple freeze thaw cycles may be required in order to kill all insects at all stages of development the key here is that you only need to use one of these methods we prefer the oxygen absorbers I think that's a better way to go but if that doesn't work you can use the freezing method but you don't need to use more than one and now with all the details either way it's time to get started talking about how to package food storage in Pete bottles and the first step is to empty the bottles and it always is best if as soon as that bottle is emptied you rinse it out immediately we start by removing the labels next we wash the bottles in the lids in hot soapy water make sure that you scrub those lids well you can see on the right a water bottle cap that has grown something nasty in there it seems like the lids are a weak point and a place that we really need to pay attention make sure you rinse the bottles thoroughly to remove all the soap residues and then take those clean rinsed bottles and we need to sanitize them I just fill up my sink with cool water and put a half a cup of fresh bleach Clark states that you should use 2 teaspoons of fresh chlorine bleach in one gallon of cool water and soak for at least two minutes to sanitize your bottles I have a really large sink and so half cup is about the right amount for us I let these bottles actually sit for five or ten minutes much longer so that they have plenty of contact time and during this process I will occasionally spin the bottle around so that every part of the inside of that bottle comes into contact with the bleach solution take those bottles out of the sanitizing solution don't rinse them and allow them to air dry on the counter I like to lean them up against my backsplash to allow better airflow count on this process taking a couple of days more or less depending on the temperature and it's important to select the right funnel the dry foods come in a variety of sizes and the next sizes vary from bottle to bottle so you're just gonna need to pick out the one that works well for you or in our case we even made one out of a piece of card stock and some tape we then put the oxygen absorber right in the bottom of the bottle and fill the bottle with your dry food and while you're filling make sure that you take time to tap the bottle and help to settle the contents and then keep filling and keep tapping and fill that bottle completely to the top there is no benefit to leaving headspace at the top of the bottle when you're packaging dry goods for food storage take a slightly damp cloth and very carefully clean the edge to make sure that there's no debris on that rim that might prevent you from having an airtight seal then put the lid on tightly and make sure you snug that down we really want to make sure we get an airtight seal and to help ensure that we do have that airtight seal it's important to secure that lid with tape this is some fun duct tape that the girls used to secure these lids one of the things I really like about these bottles is that I can see through them but we always label the bottles with both the contents and the date that it was packaged sometimes the black sharpie will rub off a little bit and so you might want to use a good quality mailing label and stick on there but most of the time we just stick with the permanent marker one of the things you might want to consider doing if you are packaging food in smaller containers is to cut the label off of the original packaging that has the cooking instructions on it I found that this can be very helpful and we just attach those to the bottle using some packing tape as with all food storage we want to make sure these bottles are stored in a cool dark and dry place we like to store our bottles in these Apple boxes they protect against light but they also help us to organize them and we can stack these on top of each other to maximize space usage warning these bottles are not rodent proof so you need to make sure that you protect them against those critters we don't have any issues with rodents in our storage room if you do have rodent issues make sure that you package these in a heavy tote or a metal garbage can or some other way that will protect against those rodents and there you have it this is a simple method where you can package your long term food supply in containers that you can get for free no more excuses it's time to get busy and start building your food storage for lots more details on this check out our post Packaging dry foods and plastic bottles for long-term food storage you might also be interested in a video that we created using mylar bags to package your food storage at home and finally check out the video on enemies to your food storage if we are going to make this food last a long time we have to battle those enemies that shorten that shelf-life check this out no more excuses you can do this you can build your family food supply by purchasing it commercially already packaged and ready to go you can package it yourself in mylar bags plastic buckets or even in free recycled Pete bottles with a little bit of consistent effort you can build your food supply so that a regardless of what have in the world around us you can feed your family and now for the questions of the day what experience do you have packaging food in plastic bottles and what advice do you have for our viewers comment below and thanks for being part of the solution [Music]

Channel: The Provident Prepper

Views: 174,401

Rating: 4.9577355 out of 5

Keywords: PETE Plastic Bottles, The Provident Prepper, Prepper, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI, Food Storage, Plastic Bottle Food Storage, Long Term Food Storage, Survival Food Supply, Packaging Food Storage at Home

Id: j0iOiwhVzQk

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020