Best storage containers for bulk dry goods?

[AnalyticalEngine]

I know this has come up before, but I'm having trouble finding an answer in one place. So my question is: for all of you who buy dry goods (rice etc) in bulk, how do you store them? I'm not a huge fan of leaving them in the bag because the lack of standard container size makes cooking harder. So I'd like to transfer these into better containers. However everything I'm finding is either too big or too small. So what do you all use? Specific brands and product recommendations are ideal.

[jacob]

Standard 5 gallon buckets + gamma seal lids (available at Home Depot et al) on the bottom shelf.
Rice, black beans, pinto beans, flour, ... go straight into the bucket w/o liner. Should be good for up to a year.
Smaller bags of more "exotic" legumes go into legacy Tupperware containers on the top shelf.



See viewtopic.php?p=135933#p135933 for details.

[tsch]

Buckets with gamma seal lids are good. For smaller quantities, you can leave things in the bags and store multiple bags in the same bucket.

If you are short on indoor storage space, as I am, you might be tempted to store the buckets outside (they are wonderfully rodent resistant)—however, I haven't found them to be waterproof. Possibly I didn't crank mine closed tight enough. And design is such that water collects in the top of the lid, which is less than optimal for unsheltered use as well. They'd probably be fine for outdoor use with a decent tarp over top.

[chenda]

Kilner jars are good although might be too small for your requirements.

[C40]

Personally I prefer using glass jars. There are sizes up to half gallon easily available (and maybe larger). They are glass rather than plastic (nothing to leech, hopefully).. you can see the contents.. they look cool... and they can be used for other purposes like cooking the contents. Definitely not the cheapest option.

In the refrigerator, I've used some glass containers where the lid is also glass and just sits on top. In the fridge there is basically no chance of them tipping over (and they are wide so don't anyway) and the lid is easier and faster to open than twisting a jar lid.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm going to write what I found out here for any future readers who want to know.

Home Depot does indeed have food safe 5 gallon buckets. They also have non food grade buckets so make sure to get the right ones. The food grade pails and gamma lids were located in the paint aisle.

In terms of finding bulk bags of staples, I can confirm Sprouts as a good source. Simply talk to the bulk manager and they can order you anything in the bulk section in a 25 or 50lbs bag plus give you 10% off.

Thanks again to everyone on the forum for helping me find these resources!

[Ego]

The price of stuff in the bulk food section has increased now that they are pre-bagging much of it. Interestingly the price of 50lb bags delivered to our home seems to have gone down for some of our common purchases. I found a 50lb bag of raw shelled non-organic sunflower seeds for $85 delivered. That's $1.70 per pound. Sprouts is hovering around $3 to $3.29/lb in their bulk bins. Same is true for our other staples of raw flax seeds and raw pumpkin seeds.

I think a few drop-shippers have figured out that they can buy the preferred customer accounts with the restaurant supply companies and then redirect shipments to their ebay/amazon buyers. For instance, this supplier has the same 50lb bag of sunflower seeds for $46.99 with free shipping for their plus members. ERE buyers club anyone?

So I've got a few 50lb bags in the batcave that need protection from bugs. Yesterday I bought two second-hand gamma seal large dog food containers for $5. They are great but I am having trouble getting the very strong smell of dog food out of them. I progressed from Dr. Bronners to bleach. No luck. Any ideas? Does anyone line their buckets with bags or something else?

[Alphaville]

dog food smell: rancid grease and protein mostly yeah?

i’d try alternate treatments of ammonia and orange oil.

[Ego]

Yeah, exactly. Bleck! I think we have some orange oil in the janitor's closet. I'll give that a try. Thanks!

[Alphaville]

dilute the orange and test that it doesn’t melt the plastic

[sky]

@jacob

Can you show some examples of the foods you cook using those staples? Or link to previous posts?

I have had a good stockpile of food in the past but it usually goes unused and eventually gets thrown out after about 10 years. My wife doesn't like my cooking so she cooks evening meals most of the time: meat, potato, vegetables. I am lazy and to avoid complaints, I just let her cook. I do make my own breakfast and lunch, so I store muesli, nuts, dried fruit and coconut flakes. I need to start making burritos in bulk again and fill the freezer.

I like the half gallon glass canning jars with a plastic lid for muesli and beans, and quart size canning jars for smaller amounts of dry goods. Ideally one package of product would fill one jar, but it rarely seems to work that way, so having a few smaller jars for overflow is good.

[slsdly]

I'll second glass jars, I have many dozens of wide mouth canning jars. As C40 says, cost wise this isn't the best idea -- it costs 3.5x to indulge over the equivalent plastic food grade buckets. It is also slightly more tedious to fill them, and more dishes to wash. But they are pretty versatile since the unit size is smaller -- no need to worry about the bucket being slightly too small, just take another empty off the shelf. As such, I'll use them to store leftovers. Replacement lids and rings are relatively cheap to buy. Option to use them for home canning if you are into that sort of thing (I do some, but not in the large jars). They store just as well in my kitchen cupboards as the pantry. And I'm not worried about the material degrading and leeching into my food.

At the end of the day, if it costs me 50 CAD to buy 6 food grade buckets, and 175 CAD for the equivalent amount of jars, I'm not that worried. Even with broken or given away jars, it might cost me an extra few hundred over the next 40-50 years...

You can definitely get them cheaper, but I insist on the wide mouth jars. Just being able to get my hand in there for cleaning is the best .

[jacob]

@sky - Here's an old list with pictures of the recipes I posted on the blog: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4495 And here are the recipes: https://wiki.earlyretirementextreme.com ... E_Cookbook

However, they are not representative of what we currently eat although they would work fine for/from a staple system. I don't have pics of the current stuff but dinner is mostly

• Tomato sauce with black beans, onions, zucchini, and olives + pasta (homemade) or rice.
• Stir fry with rice, some type of bean, onions, a couple of vegetables
• "Lentil soup" in the classical ERE sense (add some root vegetables and it improves a lot)
• Slowcooker chilis (beans, tomatoes (can or fresh), onion, ....)
• Pizza (all homemade, flour) typically with garden vegetables as the base and some peperoni for taste.
• Tortillas (homemade, flour) with beans, rice, garden vegetables

Last two tend to be a weekend thing and DW makes those. I make the other four "types" on weekdays.

Vegetables are typically not stored. They either come from the garden or they're bought and used. I'm not very good at making frozen vegetables work.

(There's very little overlap with a "meat and potato plus vegetables on the side" diet. I grew up on that and don't miss it one bit. However, that should be simple to implement with a freezer and a sack of potatoes.)

I find https://www.supercook.com tremendously helpful. I usually go for simple recipes with few (<6) ingredients that ideally only involve one pot and where the leftovers either improve with time (chili) or work in other types of meals (e.g. the bean sauces..) So go to supercook and input flour, rice, black beans, chick peas, pinto beans, onions, and canned tomato and see what suggestions begin to appear.

[Ego]

This morning I went to our favorite grocery store and found that the rolled oats were on special at 2 lbs/ $1. The cheapest I've seen recently is $.69 per pound. We are nearing the bottom of our third 50 lb bag since returning six months ago (I can't believe how much oatmeal we eat!) so I bought two bags for $25 each and paid with the fifty-dollar-bill.

Today I picked up a 50lb bag of rolled oats and a 50lb bag or flax seeds. They were both $1.19 per pound. Prices are increasing.

[davtheram12]

Today I picked up a 50lb bag of rolled oats and a 50lb bag or flax seeds. They were both $1.19 per pound. Prices are increasing.

I've noticed the same since I primarily do most of the grocery shopping. A lot of the staple dried goods and meats have gone up ~25%-50%. It's a little worrisome but I figure since I'm now home more often my DW and I can save money by not eating out as often. It's not like we were doing it very often but anything helps right now.