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Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Air-tight buckets for food storage These large white buckets are great for food storage! I've never had a "real" pantry with shelves and all that, but these buckets can be filled and stacked, keeping light, moisture, and rodents away. :)  Where to buy You can buy these buckets new for about $5 each, but it's more economical to get them from a local deli or bakery. Some places might give them to you for free, but I paid $1 each for these. Just ask if they have any large white icing buckets with lids! :) Lids with an o-ring in the rim seal the tightest. You'll have to wash them if you get used ones, and be sure to let them air dry for a few days before filling! :) What to put in them I store things like spices (bought in bulk), dehydrated foods (bananas, bell peppers), rolled and quick oats (bought in 50-lb bags and put into buckets for fresh-keeping), wheat (again, bought in bulk), bags of chocolate chips (on sale), coconut (bulk, again), pasta, etc. To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Thanks for participating! :) Kitchen Tip Tuesdays Participants
 I store the buckets on our enclosed porch, or stacked in the kitchen. They can be stored anywhere where it doesn't get too hot (unless you have a bucket of honey -- then you'd want to store it where it wouldn't get too cold!). :) And also, 5 gallon buckets of grain are very heavy, so they shouldn't be stacked more than 3 high. :)
My wife is starting a Cookie Business :Healthy Indulgence" all natural cookies with Fiber, Antioxidents and Omega 3's I love the new blog Tammy! And I'm going to be passing on your info on the buckets; my hubby and I looked long and hard for appropriate storage when we started buying food in bulk. It was hard to find what we needed then. Have a great week! I love the big buckets. I need to get some more though, since I want to start purchasing more food in bulk.  Tammy, My mom always did that, too! She found it was easier to keep her flour, sugar, brown sugar, oats, etc. that way than to have those little canisters on the kitchen counter and have to keep refilling them. ;) Especially when cooking for 11! She would pay a small price for them, but she really enjoyed it when I worked in the deli & bakery at the local grocery store and could bring them home for free. :) She used to tape a bay leaf onto the underside of the lid of the flour container to keep bugs at "bay". ;) I use old yogurt containers for things I want easy access to but don't want to store in a large bucket like that. When I tried using icing buckets, they still smelled like icing even after washing thoroughly with detergent and bleach and drying well. Any tips? Sprinkle baking soda in the bucket, put the lid on, and leave it for a day or two. Then wash the soda out, of course. ;) I've also heard (but never tried) that crumpled newspaper can get rid of smells, too. The baking soda should work. I recently got something plastic at a garage sale and later realised that it smelled VERY strongly of moth balls. Sprinkling with soda and leaving for 24 hours almost completely got rid of the smell, and a second application of baking soda did the final magic! :) I use 5 qt. icecream pails for my bulk items. We love icecream so I just buy the 5qt pails...we eat the icecream...I wash and reuse the pails for my flour, sugar, oats, bags of choc. chips, dry milk, noodles, etc. I find the 5qt pails easier to carry than the 5# pails. Thanks for the tip! :) Sonshine  Although I have a pantry, I also use big buckets to store my bulk ingredients. It's great, except for one thing. My rice went bad in it (after quite a while of being in it), and now my brown flour has developed a smell as well. How do you avoid that problem? Do you leave your ingredients in their bag and just place it inside the bucket, or do you pour the ingredient into the bucket? Brown rice won't keep as long as white rice, since it has more oils... whole wheat flour is supposed to be refrigerated or frozen after grinding, or at the very least, stored in a cool place... so is could be age + temperature + moisture + oxygen, etc... :) Whether I put the food directly in the bucket, or leave it in bags in the bucket, depends on what I'm storing. I leave sugar in the bags in the bucket. Whole grains go directly in the bucket. Very long-term storage (1-10 years, for me) requires extra care to be sure the food stays fresh. Here is some great info about food storage. There is a whole lot more out there (via Google) about long-term food storage, and I plan to blog about the topic with pictures and links, soon. :)  I also use buckets. I actually need to get some more, maybe when I'm out today, I'll be able to get some. They are so handy! I don't have a big pantry here either, so the buckets are great. I have them sitting in a corner in our family room lol :)~Tanya - mama to 5 :) Oh, I love this---I am going to have to play next week:) Julieann Hey Tammy, Thanks for everything How can I purchase these ----does anyone have a deal on where to find these>??? Gamma Bucket Lids seem to be the premier air tight lid. You can Google "Gamma Bucket Lids" & find dozens of sources. 2 popular sources: Pleasant Hill Grain or beprepared.com Again, you can get free or low cost buckets from most bakeries or even ice cream shops. I had a quesion about space bags. I wondered about buying in bulk bags and then putting them in a space bag with an ox. absorber. And maybe putting them under beds flat. What do you think? lisacushing@hotmail.com I don't recommend space bags for food storage. Despite the claim they are air tight, they DO LEAK AIR. Try to get the buckets for free or on the cheap from bakeries. Try Sams Club if your a member. Do not use pickle buckets, you can't get the smell out & only use Food Grade buckets used only for food storage if using used buckets. About the space bags -- I have some that I bought for storing bedding. In my opinion they are very cheaply made and wouldn't be sufficient for long-term food storage at all. A Food Saver bag (or another thick vacuum-sealed food bag) would be much better than a Space Bag. The problem with just using a clear bag, though, is the light that gets in, which breaks down the food inside. Buckets keep out some of the light -- and Mylar bags would keep out all of the light and air -- even better! :) Post new comment |
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That is a fantastic tip. Where do you store all of the buckets?
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