I'm startin' to take this food shortage & price inflation rumor more serious, and would like to lay in provisions 19th century style. ...
My wife says things like flour, rice & cornmeal would most like go rancid or "buggy" before we could use up 50-100# bags, I'm considerin'. Any solution ideas for storage, type of provisions & quantities?
???Thanks,
Fence
Greetings My Dear Fence -
Having had a large sack of rice go rancid and all weavilly I sympathize...
One can readily store wheat, rice, beans, corn,etc in their natural state or ground, by sealing them in any kind of airtight container and KEEPING OXYGEN OUT. Several University studies have been made in Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah, which showed that one of the easiest and cost effective ways sealing grain in a container and of removing Oxygen is this:
1) obtain clean buckets with lids that seal (Wally World has them)
2) put several layers of newspaper on the bottom of a Wally World bucket
3) drop a small brick of dry ice (about the size of a pack of cigarets or larger) on the newspaper
4) fill bucket with grain
5) PUT LID ON "LOOSELY", letting it burp - as the dry ice "melts" it makes CO2 displacing the Oxy
6) when it stops burping seal the lid tightly.
some folks add food-grade heavy duty ziplock bags, inside the buckets.
the studies showed that the grain stayed good, no "live" bugs, smut, rot or rancidness for several years. The funding for the study ran out before the grain in the buckets went bad.
hope this helps
yhs
prof marvel