How to store food that you buy in bulk - Do’s and don’ts!

hello and welcome back if you haven't been to my channel before this is vicki's country home i live off grid on 40 acres in northern nevada and i have goats and chickens and dogs and cats i cook can make sourdough bread dehydrate all kinds of things and you never know what i'm going to try next if you like what you see please go down below and hit the subscribe button and be sure and click the notification bell make sure it says all notifications but also make sure your device shows that you get alerts for the notifications because a lot of people say they're not getting any notifications and that could be why so check that out if you're already a subscriber and if not i would really appreciate you subscribing it helps my channel and helps me provide more content for you i have done several haul videos on azure standard and i love their products i buy a lot of things in bulk and especially non-gmo organic grains all kinds of bulk foods from them i also buy them from other sources i just pick and choose where i want to be organic and where i can do without that and where i can find it locally so i like buying in bulk i live an hour from the closest grocery store it's not feasible to run into town when you run out of something so for that and many other reasons i store food we've been cut off from going into town for a few weeks at a time also so that there's a lot of considerations for me for you it may look totally different but i do like buying in bulk and then the question has been asked multiple times how do you store it and i have been asked to show how i store it i can't show you everything how i do it because i use a lot of methods but i'll try and cover a good amount today just give you some ideas i have a local grocery store winco and some of you may have it too and they have bulk bins ours are back open i don't know if they are in other places but our bulk bins are open i have never had amaranth and i wanted to try it it's a grain and not keto so that's why i haven't used it yet but i wanted to buy it while i had the opportunity so right now i my other bag was leaking so i just put it in a zip lock temporarily until i had time to do this and so you're going to get to see that so i try and choose a jar that it fits in and i'm thinking it may be a little bit much for this pint so a lot of my storage is in canning jars and you know if i've got some that aren't really nice for you know maybe they've got imperfections and those do happen you have to always check your jars if i find those those are the ones that i will use for bulk foods dry food storage i also have a whole lot of antique that have been given to me and i'm not going to use those for canning so those are all great for dry goods so i'm going to take this amaranth and let me put the camera down so you can see these are tiny little grains and the reason i had to do this in the bag was because some how it got poked and with these being such tiny little grains they were going everywhere so that wasn't great you know that will probably fit you know what i'm going to try i think that will fit in a pint jar and it fits perfect so that can be cleaned and used for something else now the question is is this short term or is this long term i don't think this is going to be long term because i want to try it i want to see what it's like and see if i want to buy more so that would be a shorter term product you make sure your rim is good that there's no nicks or anything like that and i use old canning lids now i have a tool and this is vintage you can't just go down to the local grocery and buy it or hardware store whatever i ordered these off ebay and they are not inexpensive however they do the best job ever taking lids off without destroying them without bending them causing any damage and effortless it is perfect for people that have any kind of problems with their hands and so i like to use used lids since that does not bend my lids and this one has pretty good sealant on it so i'm not too worried about it but it's got this writing on top we can take care of that for now i'm just going to go ahead and put a ring on it but i will be vacuum sealing this but i'm gonna do them all at once so i don't have to keep getting it out but if you can go and find these i bought myself a backup just because i will be very upset if i ever misplace this or anything happens to it so i went online and bought another off of ebay and this is what it is prior lid i'm going to tell you they're worth every penny i spent um and they almost look like two different brands but they basically do the same thing so if you're interested again i can't give you a link it you know how ebay is but look up priya lid this is another bulk that i bought somewhere else i think it's our local organic grocery store they don't have a lot of bulk and last time i checked they were still packaging everything up and you couldn't just get whatever quantity you wanted but at least they still have their bulk goods these are roasted unsalted organic sunflower seeds and i have some keto recipes that call for that you grind them up you make sunflower butter but i haven't done it yet so that's gonna go in a jar and that i'm putting this antique jar now you have a problem finding these gaskets i have anyway i have had so much trouble finding them so far my solution is because these antique jars they're dried they're cracking and they're not any good my solution so far i have harvest guard reusable lids they're like tattlers and these are just a tiny bit small but i found if you stretch them just carefully you can put them around and that will form a seal and there we go and to label these it doesn't always work but i will try to take the label off of this sometimes you can peel it off just gently enough and that label will go on the jar which is perfect because it has all of the information that you want on it and again just peel very slowly very carefully there we go so i'm gonna put the label on this jar and my cat is saying you're you have food why don't you share it with me i don't think i will you get plenty believe me you're not getting any of this so there you go the label works perfect a little bit crooked but i really don't care it has the information that i want and that i need tells me what it is tells me nutrition and even tells me when it was packed and everything else right here on my jar and since that is not long term i'm not worried about vacuum sealing that i'll be using it fairly soon now this i bought from azure standard and this is dry diced celery stock i don't use a whole lot of celery in my cooking and i'm not going to buy a lot of it and keep it my refrigerator that then goes bad i've wrapped it in foil and it does keep it very good i'm not sure how safe that is but it does work it may not hurt it but that's just not something that i want to do unless i'm just going to buy it and use a whole lot so here i have a half gallon big ball jar now this is probably going to be more than enough to fill this jar i do shake it down and it settles pretty well [Applause] [Applause] now this one again always check your rim this one will be for longer term storage um and it'll go in my extended pantry so i'm going to vacuum seal this one also now you can use oxygen absorbers if you want i haven't found it to be necessary i have them i use them but i usually use them in bigger quantities and for different things although this is long-term [Music] i would say more mid-term i'm not going to use that much immediately but i will use it not too far down the road and i have this much left so that will go in a quart jar so i'm just going to take what's left and put that in a quart jar now this will be closer at hand in my kitchen pantry because this is what i will work out of now this is one of my pre-used lids and again it's not bent it's not dented anything like that the rubber still looks pretty good you'll notice you might be able to see faint writing because what i've done is i'll do this while the jars are closed i write with sharpie and normally that stuff just doesn't come off but if you use nail polish remover and i'm doing this while the jar is sealed and it took the writing off so that's just a little tip if you reuse your canning jar lids especially nowadays when you're lucky if you can find the lids [Applause] and on the celery and it's not going to come off clean most of the time i can get the azure standard labels off very cleanly but when i can't i take a pair of scissors cut around it [Applause] and i'll wipe off the back is going to go outside the jar and i don't want food to be outside of the jar now for the celery powder since i could not peel the label off cleanly i have packing tape and i still use the label but i tape it on i don't know if this is what other people do but this is what works for me so once i vacuum seal this this will go in my pantry too this one since it's not long term and i don't have another label i'm just going to write on it because again if i need to i can always remove that but this is in my working pantry so it doesn't matter too much sometimes if something is in my working pantry depending on what it is i will also use these plastic lids not too often because most of the time i'm trying to protect from moisture and i want a good seal on it these don't have a really good seal now i have found that you can buy silicone gaskets that fit these and that does give it a good waterproof seal but most of the time i'm not going to get those out and do that so i don't use those too much unless it's just in the refrigerator for a few days something like that now to vacuum seal my jars i have two choices i have actually three things three ways to do this but normally what i'm going to use is either my large vacuum sealer i have weston so it's pretty big and heavy i also have this fresh saber and this is okay it works alright and i have a video on that it's another option most of the time that thing's not charged i don't think keep things plugged in all the time because of power use even when they're turned off so my other option is a break bleeder and i found this from heidi at ring country and it works it's a little bit of work to do it make sure that the hose is attached well and you've got this little adapter on it again you make sure your lid and your ring are your lid and your rim are clear if anything you put on just the lid not the ring and then you have this vacuum sealer attachment and they are purchased separately you have to get one for wide mouth and one for regular mouth and then i'll try to do this so you can see but kind of backwards so i've got that attachment pressed onto the jar i'm not sure if you're going to be able to see and i do find it easiest to brace it on the countertop while i use it and you just want to do this until it stops moving and then we'll see if it created a seal so i heard a little bit of a hiss my cat is playing with something and that is sealed i can pick it up by the lid i add a ring and i do tighten the ring up pretty well i want to make sure that it keeps that vacuum seal so there we go that's one i'll do these others later partly to give my forearm a rest but that's how you vacuum seal jars or again you can use your attachment that goes on your vacuum sealer that's the easiest except getting out my machine so i don't always do it then we come to buckets and when i really buy something in bulk i use buckets depending on what it is how much and how long term i want to store it i go i normally will get a gamma seal lid and these are wonderful they're not for every bucket if you if you're storing grain long term you're not going to be accessing it for whenever you can just use the regular pop-on lid and that works just great however with a gamma seal it's not attached i'm not ready to use it it's a two-piece lid so you have this ring that gets attached to the bucket and it's a press-on and these usually go on pretty good i have some that are not the same brand that i buy at winco and they work great once you get them on the bucket they're a little bit harder to put on but the wonderful thing and these cost a little bit but the wonderful thing about it you're not prying off a big lid and believe me i i do that with my soap making things and others and it's kind of a pain so if you can use the gamma seal you can get in and out of your buckets when you need to and i store things like i buy sugar in bulk i don't use a lot but it just works better for me to buy it in bulk i have it when i need it i do some grains with gamma seal i do some flour with gamma seal some beans and they may be in individual packages within there but it keeps them protected because they're sealed i'm not saying rodents couldn't get into this but they you know it's a little bit harder than thinner packaging several years ago and one of the reasons i had these insane cats in my house is because we did get some field mice in here and oh it was horrible i had to totally take everything out of my pantry boxed and bagged things got thrown away i had to clean every jar every container and i don't really want to deal with that so if i can prevent them then that's what i'm going to do and that is one of the reasons for the buckets and also it allows me to buy in bulk and again that's what i like to do for many reasons i also have this is a five gallon i do have six gallon buckets also which are good for some things but for a lot of things the five gallon bucket will hold it again get a gamma sealed head this is a different size than the i think that's two or three gallon i don't remember um i think it's three and a half gallon these are the five gallon lids and five gallon bucket and this would be for your 25 and 50 pound purchases this is a good size for storing that six gallon buckets are even bigger and those will hold most bags that i buy they are heavy though you can feel so i have to be mindful of that because sometimes that's hard for me [Music] now if you're using your buckets for long-term storage i highly recommend for most things not all mylar bags go online and find them in bulk they have some at azure standard in fact i just bought these these are one gallon zip top mylar bags and these are one quart zip top mylar bags which allows me to put in smaller amounts and mylar bags are wonderful they are easy if you can get the ones with the zip top but they do cost a little more and with the zip top you do have the ability to get in and out of it as long as you don't seal it any other way for five and six gallon buckets you use a big one and these i have done many times they're very good the one problem with my lauren you have to be very careful storing it somehow this one got a puncture and that i can fix it as long as i'm going to mark it so that i know in fact i'm going to just draw around it i can fix this the same way that i seal these bags and believe me i never bought this for my hair because it's really not a problem but it's a hair straightener so with this i have used an iron and a 2x4 and that works fine it's awkward but it works and then i saw a tip on using this and it was like that is a great idea so i went and bought myself a hair straightener so to to repair this bag what i'll do is i'll cut just above that puncture and then i'll heat up the iron and it's not hot right now but i will just go along the end of the bag just like that with the hot iron and i'll do that two maybe three times just to make sure that it's completely sealed that will allow me to use this bag so that i don't waste it to use this to seal the bag if this is long-term storage for most things it might be a good idea to put oxygen absorber in there which is looks like this this is a whole bunch of them but they're the air is sucked out of there so that they don't go bad so depending on the size of the bag depends on how many ccs and that's how they're sold packs different size these are two i think it says 2000 ccs and these would probably be the size i would use in a bucket but if i were storing grain or beans or something like that i would probably put them in mylar and use oxygen absorbers with them what you do is you get the bag fitted into your bucket you pour your grain or beans or whatever into the bag and then you want to get it as straight as you can and it's going to be awkward because this has to be in a circle but it it can happen it just takes a little bit of effort and you pour everything in you make sure it's all smooth then you're going to gather the you're going to get the top so that it's mostly flat which is one of the reasons you have such a big bag and what i do is i will seal about two-thirds to three-quarters of the top of the bag and i will go over it a couple times i want to make sure it's totally sealed because once you open those oxygen absorbers they're going to start absorbing oxygen and you want it to absorb from the contents of the back so once i've got it sealed to here i'll drop in the oxygen absorbers press out as much air as i can but i don't obsess on it that's what those are for and then i'll continue to seal the bag it's a few steps it's not really hard and once you get into the rhythm it's pretty easy to do but that is how i would store long-term grains beans anything like that that you need to protect from moisture from light and oxygen so that's what i would do now there's other items that you don't want moisture in and that can cause you a big problem so i have two things here i have humidity indicator cards that will show how much humidity is in something and i have desiccant packs this is silica gel desiccant and these are food grade they're good for food medications anything like that so you can put that in there and that will help absorb any moisture that may be in it and moisture can do a lot of damage so if it's something that you're concerned about that way you might look into these now we are going to fill a bucket but we're not going to use a bag now one of the things that i told you first we're going to get this snapper [Music] oxygen absorbers [Applause] that's what this is for i got this at harbor freight when i was making soaps and going to soap shows and selling them and all that and i use this thing all the time and i have another one outside that i use that's bigger in the winter for breaking up the ice on my goat's water that becomes a problem for me so i've got that on there and let's just test it because we want to make sure it's on and that the lid works smoothly and it does [Music] so now this bucket is going to be easy to access now this is another azure standard purchase and i got this on my last purchase and i just haven't put it up yet and it's not something again that i use all the time but it costs less to buy in bulk and store it and so that's why i do it this is organic clean sugar from evaporated cane juice and i've bought it in smaller amounts from them i love it that's what i use whenever i can when i use sugar some things don't do well one of them is hummingbird nectar you can't use this in hummingbird nectar you have to use white sugar so i do buy white sugar in bulk and i'm going to put this down to fill it so you might not see it just because i'm not tall enough for that okay that is 25 pounds of organic cane sugar and you can see it doesn't quite fill about to here but that's okay it just costs less buying it this way than five 10 pound bags now you do not use oxygen absorbers on sugar or salt they don't need it and you want to have one solid cake of sugar that's what you would get so if you don't need it don't waste the money and don't make more work for yourself so now i've got my organic cane sugar it is sealed in there tightly this lid has a great seal and this is another one there i'm going to try and peel this label off and sometimes they come so well [Applause] this one took the paper off so i'm gonna have to tape it on but that's okay and on a bucket you have plenty of room so it's not a problem now anytime you're packaging food up for storage it's a good idea to wipe down the container when you're done just to make sure that there's nothing that can attract insects or anything else and you don't want to lose your hard earned food storage so i hope this was helpful i hope it gave you some ideas on how to store foods i also use vacuum seal bags but that's for usually different purposes that's freezer refrigerator things like that occasionally something that's dried but normally i like to use glass or buckets just because they protect so much better so i hope this was helpful i hope you got some ideas on how maybe you can buy in larger quantities and store it save money in the process and make sure that your family has what they need when they need it thank you for watching god bless and we'll talk soon you

Channel: Vickie's Country Home

Views: 49,504

Rating: 4.9559412 out of 5

Keywords: Vickie’s Country Home, Food storage, Off grid, Bulk food storage, Azure Standard, Storing food, Nevada Homestead, Prepararedness, Prepping, How to store food, How to store bulk food, 5 gallon buckets, Vacuum seal jars, Food storage methods, Protecting food storage

Id: xW1m3wGioGM

Length: 38min 15sec (2295 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021