How to Package Dry Goods in Glass Jars for Long Term Storage

did you know you can repurpose glass jars to store dry goods for your long-term storage [Music] hi i'm jonathan and Kylian jones and we are the Provident Preppers glass is an ideal storage container both for bottling your home preserves as well as for bottling some of your dry goods both for short-term and long-term storage in our house we go through a lot of pickle jars and peanutbutter jars and it seems like such a waste for them just to end up in the landfill so we fill them with our dry goods and store them in our pantry that's right in this video we will teach you how you can use both mason jars and repurpose glass jars to store your dry goods today we will talk about packaging dry goods in glass bottles there are definitely some advantages to storing your dry goods in glass first of all glass creates a true oxygen barrier and it's durable and can be reused many times there's no leaching that occurs it's inexpensive and glass is so easy to clean thoroughly its moisture proof and it's rodent proof unless of course the rat knocks it on the ground and breaks it open then it's no longer rodent proof these are some beautiful antique canning jars that I have that I always store the dry goods in just because they're pretty and decorative and you can see they are very old and have lasted for many many years and there are few disadvantages to glass obviously the first being that they are fragile they can be easily broken so it's important that you protect them they are a bit heavier than other packaging methods and they don't provide any protection from light and light does degrade your food so that is certainly a consideration when we talk about candidates for long-term food storage we're talking about those dried goods that can be stored for 25 to 30 years and still be good to eat these foods are always low and moisture and low in oil on the screen you can see some of the items that you might want to consider for long-term food storage when it comes to shelf-life whole grains will store longer than any type of milled product for instance wheat stores a lot longer than white flour but here we are filling up a jar with white flour because it's to have some white flour in our short term food storage where we'll rotate through that within three to five years whole corn stores longer than cornmeal rolled oats store longer than oat flour and dry beans store longer than bean flour whenever possible store the dry good in its original form just to extend that shelf-life now I do packaged foods that are high in moisture or oils in glass canning jars but these are for my short term food storage remember that three to five years you'll notice I have sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds there's coconut there and even some dried leeks all of those I need to rotate through I would never store those with an oxygen absorber storing foods that are high in moisture or oils in a low oxygen environment can create an atmosphere where you might grow botulism so you would never put an oxygen absorber in with these types of foods but they're perfectly fine and helpful in foods that are low in moisture and low and oil the first step is to select the right glass jar these jars must have lids that create an airtight seal they must not be chipped or cracked and they must be easy to clean and sanitize or sterilize mason jars are my favorite I literally have thousands of mason jars and they are perfect for storing dry goods as for me I'm a huge fan of Adams peanut butter so we accumulate a bunch of these peanut butter jars rather than throw those in the trash we find a way to repurpose those to store food and you can see a whole variety of other jars here that we do as well it is critically important that you start with clean jars and lids so we're gonna talk about some of the ways that you can ensure that your jars and your lids are squeaky clean from my experience the lids are the weak point and they are the place that has the potential to grow your bacteria and your molds and just get nasty so we want to pay really special attention to those lids use hot soapy water and scrub them out then either sterilize them or sanitize them before use the lid on the right really should not be used for storing food I'm not sure you could do an to make that clean enough to do it again I just throw it away and move on to a different bottle when I grab some bottles out of the storeroom for this video I noticed that some of them had not been cleaned as well as they should have before being put away in storage that's the best time to do it when you initially remove that food from them before they've sat for a while so to make sure that these lids were really clean I just dumped straight chlorine bleach in each lid and I let it set for a half an hour and you could see how any mold that was in there suddenly started to kind of disappear and that was my way of trying to make sure that these lids were just incredibly clean if your lids clean you don't have to do this it's just one way of taking a dirty lid and maybe salvaging it you can sanitize bottles and lids the same way that you would sanitize dishes by just putting a couple of teaspoons of chlorine bleach with one gallon of water and soak it for at least two minutes and then air dry it the reason it needs to air dry it is because that continues to allow the bleach solution to have contact with that surface and do its job or probably the easiest is just to sanitize them in the dishwasher another way to really make sure that your bottles are cleaned is to sterilize them using heat now most yeasts and molds are heat sensitive and destroyed by heat treatments at temperatures of 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit when I want to heat sterilize my jars I just put them in an oven 250 degrees and leave them in there for a little while 15 minutes or so and then take them out after they've had a chance to be completely heated through and that will kill just about anything that could possibly be living on them another method that's super easy and doesn't take any energy or heat up the kitchen is to just put them in my son of it when I purchase this container of old-fashioned rolled oats I can realistically get a shelf life of two to three years just by taking this container and putting it on the shelf in my pantry if I take those same rolled oats and put them into the glass canning jar with an oxygen absorber suddenly that two to three years shelf life changes to a 25 to 30 years shelf life and I can ensure that there won't be any growth of insects during that period of time this is a picture of a bag of split peas it's just looking up from underneath after we removed some of the split peas that's what can happen when you don't treat for insects because most of the dry goods that you bring home from the store will have some form of insect or eggs in them it's just what happens and so we just want to make sure that they don't get a chance to multiply and destroy my food one really great way to package that food in glass jars is to use a vacuum sealer most vacuum sealers come with these attachments or you can purchase these attachments to allow you to use either wide mouth or regular mouth jars but this only works on standard mason jars remember how we discuss the difference between long term and short term storage this is hot cocoa even though I'm packaging it in a jar that has been vacuum sealed I'm still never gonna get a 25 to 30 years shelf-life because it's hot cocoa but once it is packaged in these jars I can easily get a 10 year shelf-life another great way to do this is by the use of oxygen absorbers obviously oxygen absorbers take that oxygen away so that insects cannot live or multiply it also improves the quality of the food and it prevents any growth of aerobic pathogens and this works for all styles of jars when we use this method we like to put the oxygen absorber right in the bottom of the jar and then fill the product on top it will work the other way around it's just easier to do it that way if your packaging sugar or salt do not use an oxygen absorber it tends to just make it a hard brick and remember you never use an oxygen absorber with any foods that are high in moisture or fats so don't put them in granola or raisins or anything like that oxygen absorbers should solely be used with low moisture ten percent or less and low oil foods another method that you might want to consider is the freeze thaw method now you can package the dry goods in your bottles and then put them in the freezer and continue with this method that way but do the expansion sometimes the bottles will break and make a mess so my preference is to use the freeze-thaw method before pouring it all into the bottles this method is super simple you just place the beans or grain or the dry good in a moisture proof packaging the container of oats I placed in a bread bag and tape that shut and I put some of the smaller bags inside gallon ziplock bags whatever you need to do to make sure that the contents inside your bag is protected from the moisture in the freezer and then freeze for at least three days if you forget about it for a week that's great don't worry about it you will need to freeze any bags of foods that are 15 pounds or larger for more than that three days then place them on your counter for 24 hours or more this tells the eggs then it's springtime and it's time for them to hatch and then once those insects are hatched you refreeze for three days or so and that will kill them in that stage it takes a few cycles of the freeze thaw to kill insects at all stages of development and one caution make sure that you bring the food back up to room temperature before you package it to ensure that you don't get any moisture into those jars because moisture is our enemy when it comes to storing foods then you just take the dry goods and you pour them into the jars fill them up all the way to the top and of course using a funnel is usually a lot easier especially for those jars with small necks make sure that you wipe the rim of the jar clean to make sure there's no debris that'll keep the seal from being complete and put the lid on tight and then make sure you label that product with the contents and the date we should point out that you only need to use one of these methods either the freeze thaw method or the oxygen absorbers or the vacuum sealing you don't need to use more than one of those methods and now a huge warning we've given you some really good safe methods for preserving dry goods in glass jars however there is one method that is being promoted that is absolutely not safe and we are begging you to avoid it's dry canning I always put a lot of research into any Content that we produce to make sure that it is safe and that it were giving out really good advice I had a really hard time finding good information on dry canning and finally I came across Elizabeth Andrus she is a professor and extension Food Safety Specialist and she is very much opposed to dry canning I will leave a link in the description always look in the description of our videos because we put valuable information in there but I will leave a link to this entire article that she has written on dry canning a couple of the main points of it is that the dry oven process used at home has never been shown to sterilize these various dry foods or produce claimed extended shelf-life with quality so first of all it doesn't work then second this heating could even make the quality of some foods worse and it can actually cause rancidity to occur a major manufacturer of canning jars and lids in the United States does not support the use of their jars and lids sealing compound in this manner I do not use dry canning method I know some people do and that it works for them however I'm never going to do anything knowingly to put my family at risk the reason why I prep is to keep my family safe we have given you three really good ways to preserve your food in canning jars how about just choose one of them instead of choosing one that could be risky after you've gone to all this work you want to make sure that you protect that jar and the product that's in it we want to make sure it's stored in a cool dry dark place and if you live in earthquake country like we do make sure that you protect those jars I'd like to think my old socks and cut off the bottoms and use the tops as a way to cushion those jars on the shelves this is my beloved bottle broom I think these are actually jars but in common bottles I've put first trip guardrails on to keep the jars from coming off and you can also see some of the jar socks as we plan and prepare our family wants to be in a position where we able to share with those in need these smaller repurpose jars that we filled with beans or rice are just the perfect size to be able to share with someone in need isn't she cute this is the reason we do what we do we want to make sure that you can build your family food stores and take care of your family I'm gonna challenge you here and now to take a step towards accomplishing that goal you don't have to eat the whole elephant at once break it down take small steady steps and you will get there we encourage you to visit the Provident prepper we've written a post entitled packaging dry foods and glass bottles for long-term food storage much of the information in this video came from that post and if you go and visit it you can learn a lot more we also created two really good videos about packaging your food storage the first one is plastic bottle food storage where we teach you how to use peat bottles that you normally would just throw away to package your food storage for both long-term and for short-term the other video is on packaging food in mylar bags for long-term storage in this video we go into great detail about exactly how to package it both in liners inside of a plastic bucket and in smaller packages as well as had a vacuum seal mylar bags this video would be really worth your time to watch check them out you got this you can build your family's food supply by simply repurposing glass jars that you normally would have thrown away every time you go to the market simply pick up an extra bag of white rice dry beans pasta or rolled oats and package it in the jar then store it in a cool dry dark location and protect it from earthquakes a full pantry brings so much peace of mind especially during challenging times and now for the questions of the day what experience do you have packaging dry goods in glass and what advice do you have for our viewers comment below and thanks for being part of the solution you

Channel: The Provident Prepper

Views: 187,959

Rating: 4.9377942 out of 5

Keywords: The Provident Prepper, Prepper, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI, Emergency Preparedness, Emergency Food Storage, Food Storage, Storing Dry Goods, Glass Jar Storage, Long Term Food Storage, Short Term Food Storage

Id: 5IEk1jhyXB4

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020