Suggestions. First pack the produce (rice, beans, etc) into smaller vacuum sealed foodsaver bags & then place these into the large mylar bag. In this way when you open the bucket, the entire contents is not all exposed at once. Also, put say a gallon of rice, gallon of beans, etc, in each bucket so that opening only one bucket provides complete meals. Finally vacuum the mylar bag first. Since foodsaver bags are permeable to oxygen, the large outer mylar bag still needs an oxygen absorber.
another good trick is reactivate old o2 absorbers is put them in the oven on a pizza pan at 200 for 15 min this drys them out and they are ready to go, also drop a small chunck of dry ice into the bag no bigger then your finger tip just before you seal the bag this will take out all the o2 and your absorber won't have to work so hard and will help keep contents fresher longer do the same before you seal the bucket and a small bead of silicone around the rim there you are good for the next 15yrs.
The key to survival in fallout or emergency situations is combat rations. Most of the bulk buy DIY preserved food are not professionally made and may result in contamination when you open it and you have no food to eat when you needed it the most. Additionally, because you bulk seal a lot at one go, when you open the seal, you have to finish the big batch compared to the combat rations which is professionally sealed in one meal size. In the event of a human or animal attack, your big batch of opened food is hardly portable. Most combat rations are precooked with flavourings according to different cuisines which cut ancillary costs and risks from opening multiple pre DIY sealed condiments, sauces and other food. Simply put, you put all your eggs in one big basket, and if the big basket dropped or broke, you don't have any food to eat, then your length of your lifespan gets greatly shortened. You can buy both USA and Singapore combat rations to max the permutations of flavours of both East and West. I also read somewhere that mylar bags when eaten is toxic to human body. I might be wrong, we should check with toxicologists, pharmacists and doctors from different world regions to verify. Please feedback to management.
Basic foods in bulk I have stored are: wheat, rice, rolled oats, variety of beans/lentils, sugar, flour, pasta, salt, milk pdwr, dried soup mix & sweet drink pdwr mix. 2 electric wheat grinders; 2 manual & two food dehydrators. Folks, don't forget lots of batteries, matches, candles, firewood/other fuel, & lime for your very own home-dug toilet. Lots of H20! First Aid. Cases of canned meats, soup, fruit, condiments, etc. My storage for Y2K lasted abt 5 years. Learn how to can butter & dried eggs
You can seal almost all the way across each of the 10 bag BUT keep a 3 inch opening on each bag. Then after that is done, it is quicker to drop the absorber into each bag, push as much air out, and seal the last 3 inches.
I don't use food grade buckets specifically. I store the food in sealed mylar bags inside whatever 5 gallon buckets I get my hands on. The mylar keeps the food safe. The benefit to doing it this way is that you can pull out a serving at a time and not worry about using 5 gallons at a time. For that matter, you don't even need to use 5 gallon buckets. You can use larger tuperware bins if you want.
I believe in case you need to use the bucket for water. Or take mylars out of buckets throw into closeable totes use buckets to store water which is what I use
Hi, Drying may work to remove moisture from silica gel, but the O2 absorbers work by allowing the oxygen and moisture in the container to cause the iron in the packet to rust - forming iron oxide. Heating the rust will not cause the O2 absorber to be renewed. If heating worked, I would warm up my old 1967 Austin Mini Countryman to get rid of its rust.
I open my Oxygen absorbs and take out what I am going to use right then and then re vacuum seal the rest of the absorbs for later use. They stop working on removing the Oxygen when back into a vacuum.
Hard red and hard white wheat will store 25 years or more. A 6 gal. bucket will hold 45 lbs of wheat and a 5 gal bucket will hold 35 lbs of wheat. White flour will store up to 5 years if packed with oxygen absorbers in buckets. Store in a cool, dark place. I have some white flour that is over 2 years old that is packed in a bucket with a screw on gamma seal lid without oxygen absorbers and is still good.
HEADS UP! Even properly stored beans will become so hard they won't cook! LDS gives these instructions: soak beans in water over night, rinse. Bring water to rapid boil ......then and ONLY then pour beans in. The water will stop boiling but wait till water resumes boil. Add 2 generous teaspoons of baking soda. Boil for 2 minutes. Shut off heat, cover for at least 1 hour. Rinse. Now THESE 15 year old stored beans are ready to cook as desired. Must follow these instructions to a tee......
Oxy pax are easy to store after opening. Heat seal the bag they came in using a Food Saver, Dazey Seal-a-Meal, or clothes iron. Alternatively put the unused ones in a canning jar with a new lid and a ring. Tighten the ring down and the oxy pax will absorb enough oxygen to pull a vacuum. A quart jar hold about 75 of the 1-gal sized ones from an LDS cannery. Larger-capacity pax will require more jars.
Very good video. We do our buckets the same way, except I take advantage of the remaining excess bag, the top of the bag, to yet a second seal. I seal all my bags, then go back and add a second seal just a few inches above the original. This way, I am adding a second line of defense against leaks. We also write the contents on the bag's section between the two seals with a date as a back-up to the markings on the ourside of the bucket.
I have been getting garden foods ready for long term storage. Dehydrating and learning about storage is important to preserve my goods. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
@Yunginspirit - Oh, I forgot...I also bought bulk potato buds & they last for more than 4 yrs for me...still tasted good. None of the food I sealed in mylar bags went bad...even those that still had some air in them. I used the 5lb bags & filled & sealed them on the ironing board while watching TV. I sealed the bags up except for a tiny bit at one end so I could stick a straw into it & suck out as much air as I could. The oxygen obsorbers did a great job of getting the rest of the air out.
I don't know if they used to be, but the orange Home Depot buckets are NOT food-grade anymore. 1) Home Depot says they're not food-grade. 2) I left several outside side by side for a few months. Some turned yellow. Some stayed orange. But the color change was not consistent, which tells me their plastic wasn't made to the same standard.
I saw today on YT a real good tip. Get real cheap grain by buying them at a feed store. It is the same grade and quality but miles cheaper. I'll be checking out the feed store first.
@@nikkitobin8356 No, that's not the point I was making. What difference would it make to use FOOD grade buckets or regular buckets if everything inside is sealed up completely? The food can't come into contact with the bucket.
@@SandcastleDreams Yes, excellent question. I left the US after Iraq to Costa Rica and I cannot get food grade buckets here, heck I can barely get any equipment for prepping here. I would love to read an answer to your question. Semper Fi
Beans are a great idea and taste great. Also nuts of any kind have a real long shelf life. I am eating 17 year old walnuts as I type this. Best of all they were absolutely free.Our neighbor gave us as much as we could crack and shell.
I buy my food grade buckets from local restaurants for 2 dollars. They come with lids and the rubber seal. I then bleach them in my bathtub in HOT water and dry thoroughly. Some restaurants might give them to you for free. It's so much cheaper than buying them from a farm store or Home Depot. Store the buckets in the coolest, driest place you have. Don't store them directly on the floor though. Prop them up off the floor. Make sure your room is mouse proof also.
I wonder why your storing things in such large bags. In a true SHTF scenario you cannot open a 5 gallon bucket for 2 cups of flour, another for 3 cups of potato and yet another for 2 cups of beans- because there won't be any way to get more Co2 absorbers to reseal the bags or electricity to reseal the mylar. You should (IMHO) make buckets filled with smaller bags of what your family will use in a weeks time. Number the buckets 1 through however many you have. Then when you start using the buckets for food to live on, take out bucket #1 first since it was the first bucket stored. Following week bucket #2. In this manner you will have a weeks worth of food in each bucket (minus meats (assuming your canning) Fruits - dehydrating and veggies either canning or dehydrating). In each bucket have smaller mylar bags of that weeks sugar for use, that weeks beans, that weeks flour, that weeks potato, that weeks pancake mix. Instead of opening all ten buckets to get a weeks worth of food and no longer anyway to protect the food - you will be using one bucket per week or two.. or for a large family maybe two buckets. I am just starting this process and that is how I am planning to do mine. I don't want to have to worry about a 5 gallon bucket of beans. I want to use them and then replace as I shop. Assuming you will use things in 5 years or start using them in 5 years if we have that long. I know shelf life of foods vary, but unless you can keep this food colder than 50 degrees constantly the shelf life at 70 degrees is about 5-10 years on products no matter how you package them.
+Diana Smith Hill I agree with you.. It seems in this field, people want to have things on a large scale but don't consider the actual end result, just the quantity.. Another thing.. How much will a 5 gallon bucket weigh when it's packed full of flour or beans? Will a small child or weaker/injured adult be able to move it easily?
+vanhalenps4 It's true, you have to think of these things What if you have to bug out you want everyone hauling to the car. 2 gallon buckets are better.
Many grains will last in the oxygen-free sealed buckets for hundreds of years if kept out of the heat (2000+ year old wheat berries that can still germinate have been found in Egyptian tombs), and will last for 5+ years once opened as long as the lid is kept on between uses to prevent insects or rodents from getting in. That's plenty of time to work through a variety of different types of grain at your leisure. Removing the oxygen is just to kill any bugs that are in there. Once it's bug free, it's incredibly stable.
Many thanks, I've been looking for "best food for survival" for a while now, and I think this has helped. You ever tried - Proutklarton Surviving Technics Plan - (should be on google have a look ) ? Ive heard some super things about it and my mate got cool results with it.
@SpiritS: My flour stored for Y2K lasted more than 3 yrs & was still good. I bought them in large sacks/bags & mylar-bagged them with oxygen absorbers. Field mice got into some of my mylar bags, then the ants. Now I'm learning how to dehydrate fruits, veges & make beef jerkey. Dried foods bought at EmergencyEssentials last for more than 30 yrs they say. Home produced lasts only for 6-12 months. I ordered some dried meals from Emergency Essentials...they come in large cans...#10, I think.
Important! Please see UA-cam videos on "Seeds of Death" "BBC Documentary 2013 Genetically Modified Foods in America 2013" and "Top 10 GMO foods to avoid" before you start on long term food storage. You would want to store the right and healthy stuff.
Oxygen absorbers will last a long time if you cut just a small corner of your bag and then roll the air out and place that bag in a zip lock bag, I have some a year open that still seal mylar bags in bricks. Also: White Food grade buckets are sold at home depot also so are gamma seal lids. Myself I get the gamma seal lids at cheaper then dirt @ a better price. One more thing; adding food grade diatomaceous earth on top of your mylar bags in the buckets will take care of critters.
Not nearly as bad a mistake as a guy I saw on Doomsday Preppers tonight. He tried to test using a metal garbage can as Faraday cage to protect his electronics from an Electro-Magnetic Pulse. His test was to hook battery jumper cable to the outside of the can for several seconds and then to see if the devices inside still worked. I worked on Army missiles for several years, we had to test their readiness by creating a VERY large spark above the equipment. Keep it up, Dan...
If the lids are on tight, how would an animal get into it? Unless you are talking about a grizzly bear. I can barely get the lids off after they are on. They go on TIGHT.
If using mylar type bags you don't need food grade. Use food grade only if storing unlined food or storing water or liquids. I also store only quart size bags so I only open what I need to use!
We joined Restaraunt Depot, just get a business license and we buy BIG bags of grits, corn meal, semolina flour, and 2 cases of salt. I also get cheap meat there to Can. Any business license will let u shop there. Of course, we have made 4 trips to the LDS Bishops cannery, and now have 300 lbs of wheat we grind. I made GREAT bread yesterday with the fresh wheat! Get your SKILLS to date, Hunt, fish, gardening, camping, Skills are # 1 !!!
@eyewarnedyou NO!! The difference in food grade and non-food grade is the chemical they spray on the mold to make the plastic not stick to it when they make the bucket. Food grade uses a non-toxic release agent. If you buy used food buckets from a restaurant , you can be sure they are food grade.Make sure they had food in them and are not from cleaning supplies. Check out gamma-seal lids, too.. Makes life a little easier.
Most vacuum sealers will not work with mylar bags. They usually require special bags with channels in them for air flow. The only one I have seen that I know for sure will work is the VS 280.
Thanks for the info,I have about 500 lbs of beans and 300 lbs of rice 400 lbs of flour,and lots of other foods in self storage containers(soy sauce ext..) Looks like I have a job ahead of me storing. After listening to Alex Jones today I am afraid we are headed for the big implosion. Need to get ready for total chaos.I have been trying to get my family and friends on board but they wont listen.Their minds are on stupid drama and they cant see the signs of whats to come. What are the magic words?
you should seal all of them almost all the way leaving enough room to just drop the oxygen absorber into the bags and that way you can close just a small corner and not the entire thing.
@cjaytch Yes you must use mylar even if you have lids that seal on the bucket. That bucket seal will keep out mice, roachs, etc........ The seal will not keep out those little bugs that you can barely see with the naked eye. Plus the bucket itself lets in light and light deteriotes the food. Mylar does not let in light or those little bugs and once the o2 absorbers get rid of the o2 any bugs allready present in the food when packed will die and not be able to re-produce with no air..
Ive worked in "food grade facilities". Because certain residual chemicals can seep thru plastic bags and into prcious food supplies. Food grade buckets along with plastic baggies further your chances of long term fod storage.
This might sound stupid..sorry ahead of time lol... but wouldn't it be better to put a little of each of the items that you have in 10 buckets..into 1 bucket 10 times so when you open a bucket you have a variety of foods to eat without having to open all the buckets to get stuff out?
You don't need to use food grade buckets if you are storing the food in mylar bags. You only need food grade buckets if you are storing the food loose in the bucket.
Why not mix and match each bucket with several small bags of food? That way you could keep up a good rotation. Also if you need to evacuate quick you will have a balance in every bucket. That is my plan when I go to do mine.
Buckets from Home Depot are NOT food grade. It states it in their description. If your food is in a food grade Mylar bag, why does the outer pail need to be food grade?
You may get used food grade buckets from restaurants. If you are a regular customer,that may help. Wash them out well and clean with a bleach solution to get rid of residual smells.
We have 38 buckets of people food and 4 of dog food! And shorter term is 3 closets, as our daily grocery store! And 1 yr of meat I pressure canned. We had really bad luck , with FRESH o2 absornbers, brand new, we now only use the vacuum to remove the o2. To seal with the iron and metal level is best with 2 people! I pull the vacum tube out and spouse seals Immediately!! With o2 absorbers,? placed them in a mason jar and removed the air with my Food Saver device, STILL they did not work!
Non-food grade buckets emit chemicals when they get heated even slightly. If you accidently get a tear in the bag that can leach into the food. The whole point of a bucket is extra protection in case the bag gets damaged. You diminish that by using something that will turn the food harmful.
o think the oxigen absorber will take the oxygen to form some sort of solid compound so the internal air will have a real small quantity of oxygen in it... i suppose
Silicon absorbs oxygen as it dries. so if you gamma seal or just put wet silicon caulk in a bag it will dry pack as it absorbs. otherwise dried grains do not need hermetically sealed containers. the Viet Cong had mass grains in open air Vats as long as Ambient Humidity is 20% or less cured grains last up to 10 years in open air. sealing is not essential just climate control
very good video I seal both ends first on all then drop the absorber in the center and go back & quckly seal the center it works for me ..it seems quicker thats all. God Bless Mercedes in Las Vegas Nevada
The Food Saver with the Port, is th eone you should buy, then, go get the jar attachmenta, wide and regular, to seal all your Mason jars, we have 20 lbs of hershey cocoa sealed in 6 jars, and soup mixes and bread mixes and parm cheese and coffee, LOTS of bas of coffee, and 8 LARGE vacum sealed coffees.. We use the Pressure canner weekly to store beef stew and meat and chili I make from scratch. GUNS, AMMO, good 2 go!
Once you open a pack of 02 abs you can store any unused 02 abs in any air tight container. Mason jars, peanut butter jars and so on. I use GAMA LIDS on all of my 5gal buckets, their great.
It's an extra back-up in case of emergency. The bags could get pierced or chewed by animals. Also buckets are easier to store and arrange and I think it adds another layer of freshness. Just my imput. I'm not a prepper but I do use alot of those pails around the place. I got a TON of them from our local high school home ec department for free.
This is fantastic, but I was wondering if we could pack food with the original wrapping but using a typical foodsaver vaccum sealer machine instead of the milar bags and then storing it on buckets?!?!
Need this info during pandemic of 2020. Once you need to use your surplus, do you keep resealing the mylar bag and you have to put a new oxygen pack in there too? I'm brand new to all this. Never thought once thought about the grocery stores being out of food and supply chains collapsing. I'm starting now. It's just me and my little home but the uncertainty of it makes me want to have some things on hand.
We haven't had to open them yet, but I think that if we do, we would maybe take out half and reseal the rest. Probably repack the half we use in cans or Mason jars.
Now when you want to cook and use just two or three cups, what do you do? What happens when you open the MYlar bag? Do you keep resealing the mylar every time you use some out of the bag? No on cau eat five pounds of any of it at one time.
Thank-you for the video. I don't know if anyone mentioned this but, why don't you seal it at the end so you can have enough room to reseal if need to after you open it?
@donnyab critters can chew through mylar bags. heck, they can even chew through my plastic garbage pails so even the bucket is iffy, but at least it helps. it should be okay as long as squirrels or bigger critters don't get to it.
Reseal the oxygen absorbers with your food sealing machine. They keep fine. You can also buy a small hand held chip bag sealer on amazon or eBay, for pretty cheap. Make sure the used frosting buckets are totally descended using white vinegar and water.
i was told that to kill bugs in rice , beans , wheat you put in freezer for 4 or 5 days . i have done this , but woundering how long do you let them warm up before you put bags in the containers . my rice has been out for two days and are still sweating i know you don't want mosture . got any iteas? thanks
Where do you purchase the obsorbers? I could use up 10 at a time but 100 in an order seems wasteful. If not all of them are used, could the remainder be vacuum sealed for later?
I have the same used frosting buckets from my work. Are the lids that come with them ok to use for food storage? or should I get the ones that you said come from home depot?
Quick question...if you are using mylar bags to hold the food contents...do you REALLY need food grade buckets? I just want to make sure because I don't want to spend the money on food grade buckets if it really isn't necessary with mylar bags inside.
I just bought 6 - 2# bags of brown rice. Why can't I just keep them in the bags and put the bags in the tall Pub Mix plastic containers from Costco? Good thing I bought plently because Costco now cut the container in half. Why doesn't Flour keep as is? Can it be stored for at least 2 yrs?
This info is awesome..... Thank you for sharing with us. most of us don't really know what to do properly in this area but all is understood now.....thank you my friend.
Suggestions. First pack the produce (rice, beans, etc) into smaller vacuum sealed foodsaver bags & then place these into the large mylar bag. In this way when you open the bucket, the entire contents is not all exposed at once. Also, put say a gallon of rice, gallon of beans, etc, in each bucket so that opening only one bucket provides complete meals. Finally vacuum the mylar bag first. Since foodsaver bags are permeable to oxygen, the large outer mylar bag still needs an oxygen absorber.
another good trick is reactivate old o2 absorbers is put them in the oven on a pizza pan at 200 for 15 min this drys them out and they are ready to go, also drop a small chunck of dry ice into the bag no bigger then your finger tip just before you seal the bag this will take out all the o2 and your absorber won't have to work so hard and will help keep contents fresher longer do the same before you seal the bucket and a small bead of silicone around the rim there you are good for the next 15yrs.
The key to survival in fallout or emergency situations is combat rations. Most of the bulk buy DIY preserved food are not professionally made and may result in contamination when you open it and you have no food to eat when you needed it the most. Additionally, because you bulk seal a lot at one go, when you open the seal, you have to finish the big batch compared to the combat rations which is professionally sealed in one meal size. In the event of a human or animal attack, your big batch of opened food is hardly portable. Most combat rations are precooked with flavourings according to different cuisines which cut ancillary costs and risks from opening multiple pre DIY sealed condiments, sauces and other food. Simply put, you put all your eggs in one big basket, and if the big basket dropped or broke, you don't have any food to eat, then your length of your lifespan gets greatly shortened. You can buy both USA and Singapore combat rations to max the permutations of flavours of both East and West. I also read somewhere that mylar bags when eaten is toxic to human body. I might be wrong, we should check with toxicologists, pharmacists and doctors from different world regions to verify. Please feedback to management.
Basic foods in bulk I have stored are: wheat, rice, rolled oats, variety of beans/lentils, sugar, flour, pasta, salt, milk pdwr, dried soup mix & sweet drink pdwr mix. 2 electric wheat grinders; 2 manual & two food dehydrators. Folks, don't forget lots of batteries, matches, candles, firewood/other fuel, & lime for your very own home-dug toilet. Lots of H20! First Aid. Cases of canned meats, soup, fruit, condiments, etc. My storage for Y2K lasted abt 5 years. Learn how to can butter & dried eggs
6 years and this is still relevant. Thanks for sharing.
food grade buckets have A4 WRITTEN ON BASE
use a mason jar to store your
02 absorbers
You can seal almost all the way across each of the 10 bag BUT keep a 3 inch opening on each bag. Then after that is done, it is quicker to drop the absorber into each bag, push as much air out, and seal the last 3 inches.
You can get free food grade buckets from the bakery at your local super market. They normally discard them.
I think prepping is also good for high school students preparing for dorm life in college.
I don't use food grade buckets specifically. I store the food in sealed mylar bags inside whatever 5 gallon buckets I get my hands on. The mylar keeps the food safe. The benefit to doing it this way is that you can pull out a serving at a time and not worry about using 5 gallons at a time. For that matter, you don't even need to use 5 gallon buckets. You can use larger tuperware bins if you want.
Thanks for the details on how you did it. Appreciate the video.
Why do they have to be food grade buckets if the mylar bags keeps anything from getting into the food. Your thoughts?
Exactly what I said to myself!
I believe in case you need to use the bucket for water. Or take mylars out of buckets throw into closeable totes use buckets to store water which is what I use
both for water but easier for storage and movement around, the bags, though thick can rip
Hi,
Drying may work to remove moisture from silica gel, but the O2 absorbers work by allowing the oxygen and moisture in the container to cause the iron in the packet to rust - forming iron oxide. Heating the rust will not cause the O2 absorber to be renewed. If heating worked, I would warm up my old 1967 Austin Mini Countryman to get rid of its rust.
I open my Oxygen absorbs and take out what I am going to use right then and then re vacuum seal the rest of the absorbs for later use. They stop working on removing the Oxygen when back into a vacuum.
Hard red and hard white wheat will store 25 years or more. A 6 gal. bucket will hold 45 lbs of wheat and a 5 gal bucket will hold 35 lbs of wheat. White flour will store up to 5 years if packed with oxygen absorbers in buckets. Store in a cool, dark place. I have some white flour that is over 2 years old that is packed in a bucket with a screw on gamma seal lid without oxygen absorbers and is still good.
HEADS UP! Even properly stored beans will become so hard they won't cook! LDS gives these instructions: soak beans in water over night, rinse. Bring water to rapid boil ......then and ONLY then pour beans in. The water will stop boiling but wait till water resumes boil. Add 2 generous teaspoons of baking soda. Boil for 2 minutes. Shut off heat, cover for at least 1 hour. Rinse. Now THESE 15 year old stored beans are ready to cook as desired. Must follow these instructions to a tee......
Thanks for the tip. I dug out some 6 year old beans packed in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers that were totally inedible no matter what I did.
Oxy pax are easy to store after opening. Heat seal the bag they came in using a Food Saver, Dazey Seal-a-Meal, or clothes iron. Alternatively put the unused ones in a canning jar with a new lid and a ring. Tighten the ring down and the oxy pax will absorb enough oxygen to pull a vacuum. A quart jar hold about 75 of the 1-gal sized ones from an LDS cannery. Larger-capacity pax will require more jars.
Very good video. We do our buckets the same way, except I take advantage of the remaining excess bag, the top of the bag, to yet a second seal. I seal all my bags, then go back and add a second seal just a few inches above the original. This way, I am adding a second line of defense against leaks. We also write the contents on the bag's section between the two seals with a date as a back-up to the markings on the ourside of the bucket.
I have been getting garden foods ready for long term storage. Dehydrating and learning about storage is important to preserve my goods. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
@Yunginspirit - Oh, I forgot...I also bought bulk potato buds & they last for more than 4 yrs for me...still tasted good. None of the food I sealed in mylar bags went bad...even those that still had some air in them. I used the 5lb bags & filled & sealed them on the ironing board while watching TV. I sealed the bags up except for a tiny bit at one end so I could stick a straw into it & suck out as much air as I could. The oxygen obsorbers did a great job of getting the rest of the air out.
Really informative video! What's nice is that you can find everything you need for these projects at your local hardware store and grocer.
I don't know if they used to be, but the orange Home Depot buckets are NOT food-grade anymore. 1) Home Depot says they're not food-grade. 2) I left several outside side by side for a few months. Some turned yellow. Some stayed orange. But the color change was not consistent, which tells me their plastic wasn't made to the same standard.
I saw today on YT a real good tip. Get real cheap grain by buying them at a feed store. It is the same grade and quality but miles cheaper. I'll be checking out the feed store first.
Home Depot buckets are not food grade, but it is not necessary if using Mylar bags.
Yes, the orange buckets are not food grade but Home Depot does sell food grade buckets (i work there)
IF everything inside the bucket is sealed up in food grade plastic or mylar, then why would you need the extra expense of buying food grade buckets?
@@SandcastleDreams
I believe its to keep the rodents out
@@nikkitobin8356 No, that's not the point I was making. What difference would it make to use FOOD grade buckets or regular buckets if everything inside is sealed up completely? The food can't come into contact with the bucket.
@@SandcastleDreams Yes, excellent question. I left the US after Iraq to Costa Rica and I cannot get food grade buckets here, heck I can barely get any equipment for prepping here. I would love to read an answer to your question.
Semper Fi
Beans are a great idea and taste great. Also nuts of any kind have a real long shelf life. I am eating 17 year old walnuts as I type this. Best of all they were absolutely free.Our neighbor gave us as much as we could crack and shell.
salt holds for a very long time and has many uses. and using it as seasoning is one very important use. but you can also do this with honey and sugar.
I buy my food grade buckets from local restaurants for 2 dollars. They come with lids and the rubber seal. I then bleach them in my bathtub in HOT water and dry thoroughly. Some restaurants might give them to you for free. It's so much cheaper than buying them from a farm store or Home Depot. Store the buckets in the coolest, driest place you have. Don't store them directly on the floor though. Prop them up off the floor. Make sure your room is mouse proof also.
I wonder why your storing things in such large bags. In a true SHTF scenario you cannot open a 5 gallon bucket for 2 cups of flour, another for 3 cups of potato and yet another for 2 cups of beans- because there won't be any way to get more Co2 absorbers to reseal the bags or electricity to reseal the mylar. You should (IMHO) make buckets filled with smaller bags of what your family will use in a weeks time. Number the buckets 1 through however many you have. Then when you start using the buckets for food to live on, take out bucket #1 first since it was the first bucket stored. Following week bucket #2. In this manner you will have a weeks worth of food in each bucket (minus meats (assuming your canning) Fruits - dehydrating and veggies either canning or dehydrating). In each bucket have smaller mylar bags of that weeks sugar for use, that weeks beans, that weeks flour, that weeks potato, that weeks pancake mix. Instead of opening all ten buckets to get a weeks worth of food and no longer anyway to protect the food - you will be using one bucket per week or two.. or for a large family maybe two buckets. I am just starting this process and that is how I am planning to do mine. I don't want to have to worry about a 5 gallon bucket of beans. I want to use them and then replace as I shop. Assuming you will use things in 5 years or start using them in 5 years if we have that long. I know shelf life of foods vary, but unless you can keep this food colder than 50 degrees constantly the shelf life at 70 degrees is about 5-10 years on products no matter how you package them.
+Diana Smith Hill I agree with you.. It seems in this field, people want to have things on a large scale but don't consider the actual end result, just the quantity.. Another thing.. How much will a 5 gallon bucket weigh when it's packed full of flour or beans? Will a small child or weaker/injured adult be able to move it easily?
+vanhalenps4 It's true, you have to think of these things What if you have to bug out you want everyone hauling to the car. 2 gallon buckets are better.
Many grains will last in the oxygen-free sealed buckets for hundreds of years if kept out of the heat (2000+ year old wheat berries that can still germinate have been found in Egyptian tombs), and will last for 5+ years once opened as long as the lid is kept on between uses to prevent insects or rodents from getting in. That's plenty of time to work through a variety of different types of grain at your leisure. Removing the oxygen is just to kill any bugs that are in there. Once it's bug free, it's incredibly stable.
Many thanks, I've been looking for "best food for survival" for a while now, and I think this has helped. You ever tried - Proutklarton Surviving Technics Plan - (should be on google have a look ) ? Ive heard some super things about it and my mate got cool results with it.
Diana Smith Hill hh
@SpiritS: My flour stored for Y2K lasted more than 3 yrs & was still good. I bought them in large sacks/bags & mylar-bagged them with oxygen absorbers. Field mice got into some of my mylar bags, then the ants. Now I'm learning how to dehydrate fruits, veges & make beef jerkey. Dried foods bought at EmergencyEssentials last for more than 30 yrs they say. Home produced lasts only for 6-12 months. I ordered some dried meals from Emergency Essentials...they come in large cans...#10, I think.
Important! Please see UA-cam videos on "Seeds of Death" "BBC Documentary 2013 Genetically Modified Foods in America 2013" and "Top 10 GMO foods to avoid" before you start on long term food storage. You would want to store the right and healthy stuff.
Oxygen absorbers will last a long time if you cut just a small corner of your bag and then roll the air out and place that bag in a zip lock bag, I have some a year open that still seal mylar bags in bricks. Also: White Food grade buckets are sold at home depot also so are gamma seal lids. Myself I get the gamma seal lids at cheaper then dirt @ a better price.
One more thing; adding food grade diatomaceous earth on top of your mylar bags in the buckets will take care of critters.
I had a mylar bag fail in a Home Depot bucket sealed and the bucket sucked in looking like dents saving the food.
Not nearly as bad a mistake as a guy I saw on Doomsday Preppers tonight. He tried to test using a metal garbage can as Faraday cage to protect his electronics from an Electro-Magnetic Pulse. His test was to hook battery jumper cable to the outside of the can for several seconds and then to see if the devices inside still worked. I worked on Army missiles for several years, we had to test their readiness by creating a VERY large spark above the equipment. Keep it up, Dan...
If the lids are on tight, how would an animal get into it? Unless you are talking about a grizzly bear. I can barely get the lids off after they are on. They go on TIGHT.
If using mylar type bags you don't need food grade. Use food grade only if storing unlined food or storing water or liquids. I also store only quart size bags so I only open what I need to use!
We joined Restaraunt Depot, just get a business license and we buy BIG bags of grits, corn meal, semolina flour, and 2 cases of salt. I also get cheap meat there to Can.
Any business license will let u shop there. Of course, we have made 4 trips to the LDS Bishops cannery, and now have 300 lbs of wheat we grind. I made GREAT bread yesterday with the fresh wheat! Get your SKILLS to date, Hunt, fish, gardening, camping, Skills are # 1 !!!
@eyewarnedyou NO!! The difference in food grade and non-food grade is the chemical they spray on the mold to make the plastic not stick to it when they make the bucket. Food grade uses a non-toxic release agent.
If you buy used food buckets from a restaurant , you can be sure they are food grade.Make sure they had food in them and are not from cleaning supplies. Check out gamma-seal lids, too.. Makes life a little easier.
Most vacuum sealers will not work with mylar bags. They usually require special bags with channels in them for air flow. The only one I have seen that I know for sure will work is the VS 280.
Just got a case of oats from LDS catalog and they were quick oats - 30 year shelf life
Thanks for the info,I have about 500 lbs of beans and 300 lbs of rice 400 lbs of flour,and lots of other foods in self storage containers(soy sauce ext..) Looks like I have a job ahead of me storing. After listening to Alex Jones today I am afraid we are headed for the big implosion. Need to get ready for total chaos.I have been trying to get my family and friends on board but they wont listen.Their minds are on stupid drama and they cant see the signs of whats to come. What are the magic words?
you should seal all of them almost all the way leaving enough room to just drop the oxygen absorber into the bags and that way you can close just a small corner and not the entire thing.
Good Idea about the packing labels. didn't think about that. good video.
@cjaytch Yes you must use mylar even if you have lids that seal on the bucket. That bucket seal will keep out mice, roachs, etc........ The seal will not keep out those little bugs that you can barely see with the naked eye. Plus the bucket itself lets in light and light deteriotes the food. Mylar does not let in light or those little bugs and once the o2 absorbers get rid of the o2 any bugs allready present in the food when packed will die and not be able to re-produce with no air..
I use a 32oz mason jar to secure unused oxygen absorbers. You know they are still good when within 3-5mins you hear the ping of the lid.
Ive worked in "food grade facilities". Because certain residual chemicals can seep thru plastic bags and into prcious food supplies. Food grade buckets along with plastic baggies further your chances of long term fod storage.
This might sound stupid..sorry ahead of time lol... but wouldn't it be better to put a little of each of the items that you have in 10 buckets..into 1 bucket 10 times so when you open a bucket you have a variety of foods to eat without having to open all the buckets to get stuff out?
Very good point
Wow, first I'm learning about these mylar bags!! Neat, going to have to find them and some 5gallon buckets up here in Canada
You don't need to use food grade buckets if you are storing the food in mylar bags. You only need food grade buckets if you are storing the food loose in the bucket.
excellent concise easy to follow video, thank you very much
thanks for this.. pretty sure food grade buckets are not necessary when the food is going in a mylar bag first which is then placed into the bucket
thumbs up great job ty
All you have to do is reseal the o2 absorbers to keep them good. Just use a hair straightener.
funny how the companies selling the absorbers don't tell you to quickly use them or they will go bad, learned the hard way :(
Why not mix and match each bucket with several small bags of food? That way you could keep up a good rotation. Also if you need to evacuate quick you will have a balance in every bucket. That is my plan when I go to do mine.
That doesn't sound stupid at all. You have a solid point.
There is a method of using dry ice to force air out of the buckets. Lots of ways on the web demonstrating how to do it.
If you store grains like oats or wheat. make sure you know how and have means to process them!
Buckets from Home Depot are NOT food grade. It states it in their description. If your food is in a food grade Mylar bag, why does the outer pail need to be food grade?
You may get used food grade buckets from restaurants. If you are a regular customer,that may help. Wash them out well and clean with a bleach solution to get rid of residual smells.
We have 38 buckets of people food and 4 of dog food! And shorter term is 3 closets, as our daily grocery store! And 1 yr of meat I pressure canned. We had really bad luck , with FRESH o2 absornbers, brand new, we now only use the vacuum to remove the o2.
To seal with the iron and metal level is best with 2 people! I pull the vacum tube out and spouse seals Immediately!! With o2 absorbers,? placed them in a mason jar and removed the air with my Food Saver device, STILL they did not work!
Non-food grade buckets emit chemicals when they get heated even slightly. If you accidently get a tear in the bag that can leach into the food. The whole point of a bucket is extra protection in case the bag gets damaged. You diminish that by using something that will turn the food harmful.
o think the oxigen absorber will take the oxygen to form some sort of solid compound so the internal air will have a real small quantity of oxygen in it... i suppose
Really great video!! I'm starting my long term food storage & this is extremely helpful.Thx
Silicon absorbs oxygen as it dries. so if you gamma seal or just put wet silicon caulk in a bag it will dry pack as it absorbs. otherwise dried grains do not need hermetically sealed containers. the Viet Cong had mass grains in open air Vats as long as Ambient Humidity is 20% or less cured grains last up to 10 years in open air. sealing is not essential just climate control
I use a vacum seal rather than messing with those oxygen absorbers. I vacum seal everything. Cost is a bit more but is easier. and more reliable.
very good video I seal both ends first on all then drop the absorber in the center and go back & quckly seal the center it works for me ..it seems quicker thats all. God Bless Mercedes in Las Vegas Nevada
The Food Saver with the Port, is th eone you should buy, then, go get the jar attachmenta, wide and regular, to seal all your Mason jars, we have 20 lbs of hershey cocoa sealed in 6 jars, and soup mixes and bread mixes and parm cheese and coffee, LOTS of bas of coffee, and 8 LARGE vacum sealed coffees.. We use the Pressure canner weekly to store beef stew and meat and chili I make from scratch. GUNS, AMMO, good 2 go!
Once you open a pack of 02 abs you can store any unused 02 abs in any air tight container.
Mason jars, peanut butter jars and so on.
I use GAMA LIDS on all of my 5gal buckets, their great.
Air is only 16% oxygen. How does putting an oxygen absorber remove all the air from a bag?
It's an extra back-up in case of emergency. The bags could get pierced or chewed by animals. Also buckets are easier to store and arrange and I think it adds another layer of freshness. Just my imput. I'm not a prepper but I do use alot of those pails around the place. I got a TON of them from our local high school home ec department for free.
Why do I watch so many prepping videos. I'm only 13 :P
whats wrong with just storing beans and rice in buckets in the factory sealed thick plastic the beans come in?
How did your potato flakes with butter work out?
Very nice video. I created my own video and followed your suggestion of waiting until I had everything onhand before preparing buckets. Thanks
The Orange buckets from Home-depot are said not to be food grade.
a virgin prepper. why mylar instead of leaving in original plastic bags. ie beans rice etc
I have the same Q
+Phil Ray Because you can vacuum seal mylar bags for long term
This is fantastic, but I was wondering if we could pack food with the original wrapping but using a typical foodsaver vaccum sealer machine instead of the milar bags and then storing it on buckets?!?!
Need this info during pandemic of 2020. Once you need to use your surplus, do you keep resealing the mylar bag and you have to put a new oxygen pack in there too? I'm brand new to all this. Never thought once thought about the grocery stores being out of food and supply chains collapsing. I'm starting now. It's just me and my little home but the uncertainty of it makes me want to have some things on hand.
We haven't had to open them yet, but I think that if we do, we would maybe take out half and reseal the rest. Probably repack the half we use in cans or Mason jars.
You can store oxygen absorbers in mason jars. Works great for me and my prepping circle. Hope this helps.
After you seal your bags, just gently stuff the remainder of the bag into the bucket and put the lid on huh?
Now when you want to cook and use just two or three cups, what do you do?
What happens when you open the MYlar bag? Do you keep resealing the mylar every time you use some out of the bag?
No on cau eat five pounds of any of it at one time.
Thank-you for the video. I don't know if anyone mentioned this but, why don't you seal it at the end so you can have enough room to reseal if need to after you open it?
@donnyab critters can chew through mylar bags. heck, they can even chew through my plastic garbage pails so even the bucket is iffy, but at least it helps. it should be okay as long as squirrels or bigger critters don't get to it.
Reseal the oxygen absorbers with your food sealing machine. They keep fine. You can also buy a small hand held chip bag sealer on amazon or eBay, for pretty cheap. Make sure the used frosting buckets are totally descended using white vinegar and water.
Also a ladies straight flat iron for hair works well too, for an inexpensive sealer if you don't have an iron. Can be bought cheap at thrift stores.
I would think with everything sealed up good and absorbors, that any type of bucket would be good for storage or am i wrong here ??
i was told that to kill bugs in rice , beans , wheat you put in freezer for 4 or 5 days . i have done this , but woundering how long do you let them warm up before you put bags in the containers . my rice has been out for two days and are still sweating
i know you don't want mosture . got any iteas?
thanks
Also, if you're concerned about the seal you could run the iron across the top of the bags for a double seal.
you can re seal those oxygen absorbers with an iron on th plastic real quick....I have same question, why food grade? Why not just new buckets?
@Survive2Day Best. Comeback. Ever.
Where do you purchase the obsorbers? I could use up 10 at a time but 100 in an order seems wasteful. If not all of them are used, could the remainder be vacuum sealed for later?
Ok but, how do you know if the bucket is a food grade, does it have a symbol on it or what? What makes it so different as well.
What difference does it make if they are food grade or not if you are using mylar bags and pre sealed food items?
I have the same used frosting buckets from my work. Are the lids that come with them ok to use for food storage? or should I get the ones that you said come from home depot?
Quick question...if you are using mylar bags to hold the food contents...do you REALLY need food grade buckets? I just want to make sure because I don't want to spend the money on food grade buckets if it really isn't necessary with mylar bags inside.
I just bought 6 - 2# bags of brown rice.
Why can't I just keep them in the bags and put the bags in the tall Pub Mix
plastic containers from Costco? Good thing I bought plently because Costco
now cut the container in half.
Why doesn't Flour keep as is? Can it be stored for at least 2 yrs?
how can i be sure that the buckets from my home depot are food grade?
Are you sure the Home Depot buckets are food grade? I didn't think those orange ones were.
if you have Mylar you shouldn't need to worry about food grade buckets. should be food grade only if you don't use mylar.
This info is awesome..... Thank you for sharing with us. most of us don't really know what to do properly in this area but all is understood now.....thank you my friend.