Food Storage

[Grunter]

Apologies if not on right thread but eh its food related.
Where do you all store your food?
The few bits and bats that I have got are already taking up a fair bit of room in the house. From what I understand though it should be kept at room temperature if poss for max life. If stocked outside in garage where it will experience vastly different temperatures year round, will it keep or will it spoil alot faster?Any advice welcome otherwise child no1's bedroom will be the food store and she will be outside in a tent

[the-gnole]

We use the spare room, it is kept cool and dark, as it is on the North side of the house, with three outside walls and no heating.

Apart from that we haven't anywhere special.

A way to keep it at a more stable temperature is to put it into disused upright or chest freezers.

[Grunter]

Excuse my spelling in title-fingerslip!
Unfortunately don't have a spare room, but an old large chest freeezer would store a few tins and keep them cool all year round.Thank you gnole

[preppingsu]

We Are fortunate to have a small room (currently used as study and dump the crap in here room) which I have been clearing. I use shelves that OH built which are similar to some from ikea. I use lidded storage boxes for flour. However, as my stocks grow I am sure that I will need OH to built some more. I would like him to build a rolling can storage. Like this..

http://www.shelfreliance.com/food-rotation-systems

If I remember rightly some members have converted an old wardrobe by adding shelves to become their food storage.

There are other threads that have discussed storage, I'll see if I can find the links.

[Rosesandtea]

We keep our food mostly in the attached but un-insulated garage. It's been fine, even wheat stored in a definitely non-airtight toy box for a few years. The only thing we have had problems with has been rodent damage.

There are all sorts of clever places to put food, though. Under the kitchen cabinets, with magnets to hold on the kickboards, behind the sofa in a fake but nice looking console thing, etc.

[cpslashm]

Under the kitchen cabinets, with magnets to hold on the kickboards

Just thought of this one myself, but did a search on the forums. Our bottom boards are clipped onto the adjustable legs and there is a small gap between the top and the cupboard base to hook it open with something. Should be able to put 25-30 tins under a 500-600mm unit, perhaps on trays to slide in and out, especially in the corners. That's a lot of tins/plastic tubs in a kitchen and the weight is not a problem.

[cpslashm]

OH not interested in prepping but has a pathological need to fill any space.

So the revealed space under the kitchen cupboards is now being filled with tins in shallow cardboard boxes.

[FEISTY]

I've just been reading up on storing rice in preparation for the long-awaited arrival (today, I hope) of my buckets. I had planned to fill the first one with brown rice (by preference, long grain), but I'm now seeing that it's not advised, because it'll go rancid after 6 months, whether or not I use (expensive) Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers or not. I don't usually buy white rice, so the question is: do I buy a shed load of white rice purely for prepping purposes and write it off as an "emergency only" option? It seems, properly packaged, it will last for up to 30 years. I definitely wouldn't have to worry about rotating it , but I sure would miss my brown rice, even if I had a six month supply post SHTF. Just worked out that a 6-month supply for us would be circa 50kg, but I would then just freeze for a few days and then store in boxes with desiccants in my kitchen - no need for Mylar bags. It seems to me that the storage of grains and pasta is much more complicated than storing cans . I am determined to avoid waste and vermin. What dried food and how are other people on this site storing "in real life"? Anyone else attempting to store brown rice?

[jansman]

We use white rice-long grain and Basmati. *I* do not do the mylar bit, my choice. What I do do, is store the product in it's original packaging, and then drop it into sealed( tight fitting lids) buckets. Store in the cool and dark. The brick floor of a converted out building.
Further to your question Feisty, we do the same with pasta, cannellini/ red beans, lentils and oats. A rotation date is written on the lids with a marker pen. We eat what we store. Tonight we had pasta with chorizo, tinned tomatoes, onions, peppers from a jar and a cup of cannellini beans. Salad from the tunnel, bang on!
Just re-read your post. I personally would not worry about vermin. The shop boughtproduct in it's original packing, straight into containers should be fine. I have never had anyproblems in ten plus years of doing this. But go with what you are comfy with.

P.S. other dried foods we store. Peas(I grow these), cous cous( verylow energy cooking), noodles (the proper chinese ones), and dry potato- fantastic stuff.