How to preserve after opening Mylar bag?

[Deputy Dawg]

We are relatively new to "prepping". My wife asked the question yesterday, on how to reseal after opening, let's say a 5 gallon bucket of wheat, grain, or ??
We have preserved everything in Mylar bags, in either 5, or 3.5 gallon buckets. Since there are just the two of us, we will use a small quantity at one time. Question is; how to reseal what is left in the bucket?

 

[lwheelr]

Two options:

1. Get Oxy-Packs and drop one in. That will keep it for another 3-5 years without any significant degradation.
2. If it is going to be less than a year or two between openings, don't bother for most things. Most stable stored items will keep just fine while you use off them, just close the bucket lid tightly, and keep in a cool area.

Best to NOT open them on very humid days.

Ok, a few other things....

The more processed it is, the shorter the time that it will keep after opening. Even so, you have 3-6 months even on the most unstable items (mixes are the worst, pasta is a close second).

The more refined a product, the lower the storage time, in general. So flour keeps for a shorter time than cracked wheat, which keeps for a shorter time than whole wheat, etc.

MOST whole grains, beans, and seeds will keep for upward of 3 years even after the bucket is opened, as long as they are kept dry, and stored cool. Heck, we've stored ours outside in the sun on the back porch in Wyoming summers and still had them be good when opened back up (it was the only place we COULD store them at the time, we were doing some extensive repairs inside).

Some guidelines for shelf-life after opening, while being used from, if the bucket stays mostly closed, and the contents stay dry and relatively cool (not subjected to temps over 80 very much):

Mixes - 3-6 months
Flour - 5-8 months - gets bitter when it goes off (does NOT include fresh milled whole wheat flour, it has a shelf life of 2 weeks at room temp, 1 month refriged, or 3 months frozen).
Pasta - 5-8 months - gets bitter when it goes off
Dried Fruits and Veggies - 1-2 years
Brown Rice - 1-2 years
Whole beans - 2-3 years, very often more if stored well - tend to go hard, not cook well if overaged (cooking in baking soda can soften them, but can also destroy some nutrients)
Whole grains - 5 years and up

Basically, as long as it looks right, smells right, tastes right, cooks right, etc, it should be fine. You may have some degradation of nutritional quality with some items over time (dried fruits and veggies especially, less so with whole foods), but it is generally minimal as long as it appears good.

For most whole grains and beans, purchasing them in mylar bags in addition to nitro-packing does not increase shelf-life by any appreciable amount - we always knew we'd use them up within 10 years, so it was not worth paying the extra. Very often, we just buy bulk bags and throw them in buckets ourselves, no oxy-packs or anything. Whole foods keep very well that way.

I've been working with this stuff since before I married (almost 30 years ago), and we sold bulk food storage supplies for many years as well, so I do speak from a basis of some expertise, not just guessing here.

 

[TanksHill]

I have most everything I store in the Mylar bags. I have to admit I have never sealed any of them.

Most things I use on a semi regular basis. I just press all the air out. Fold nicely and put my Gamma Seal lid back on.

Good info LW.

g

 

[k0xxx]

Just drop in a fresh O2 absorber, press as much air out as possible, then use a hot iron (no steam) to re-seal the bag. We have bags that we have opened and re-sealed several times. Just seal close to the open end of the bag so that their is room to seal again.

 

[lwheelr]

If you are using a Gamma Seal lid, and screwing it down even lightly, you're good. As long as the bucket is closed (hammered down if it is a regular lid), you're doing exactly what you should be doing. Protecting it from air is important, but we have found that insects are really the biggest threat - generally that is the most important reason to make sure a lid is on tight.

Many long years ago, when the kids were small, we bought a bunch of 1 gallon containers, and we'd open the buckets, fill the smaller containers, and use off those.

Then we started baking bread more, and using more dried veggies for meal staples, and those containers just weren't even worth filling anymore - I mean, what is the point when you use half of the container each time you cook? About this time, we were also making the ENTIRE biscuit mix recipe (8 cups of flour) and baking it up at ONE TIME, just to feed the family and have a little leftover. We had seven hungry kids, four of whom were teens, and at least one of whom had friends over at least twice a week through mealtimes.

There was really no point using a smaller container with the wheat either, since we'd mill about a gallon of wheat at one time, and were having to do that almost daily. We'd go through about 75 to 100 lbs of wheat a month.

So the wheat bucket became a permanent resident of the kitchen corner, and the lid was not ever even hammered down. We just pressed it down enough so that bugs could not crawl under it. The bucket only lasted about two weeks anyway!

We're back to somewhere in between now, but we also use WAY fewer types of bucket stored items. Mostly it is wheat, oat groats, rice, alfalfa sprouts, and very few beans.

The worst thing about it when we were using a lot of stuff from buckets was the space required. We had a large room in the back of the house, and about a quarter of that was filled with buckets. The bottom of our pantry was full of buckets we were using from, and we had the wheat in the corner of the kitchen. They just don't make houses that handle that kind of living for a big family!

 

[lwheelr]

Funny KO - you posted just as I was.

If you drop an oxy-pack in and re-seal, you have "doomsday storage" again. It will basically have the original storage life continued (or much more, since most stated storage lifespans are greatly understated).

Even if you don't, it will store for extended periods.