Author Topic: Storing Grits for long term  (Read 6815 times)

Willie51

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Storing Grits for long term
« on: July 14, 2011, 07:57:27 PM »
Question:  Since I'm a good ole southern boy and I love grits, the wife and I were wondering if anyone knows how to properly store them for long term food reserve?  We have keep them in our cabinets for a year, but after that, they tend to get rancid.

Thanks.  :-\
« Last Edit: July 14, 2011, 08:16:20 PM by Willie51 »

Offline Night Jackal

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2011, 09:25:05 PM »
Store it the same as you woould flour or rice. Ours have been vaccum packed and sealed with O2 absorbers added.

Offline Chief

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2011, 02:49:30 PM »
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Store it the same as you woould flour or rice. Ours have been vaccum packed and sealed with O2 absorbers added.

Hey Night you feed some to that tall skinny white boy that comes and hangs out with you...   ^-^

Offline Daywalker

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2011, 07:30:31 PM »
Man, I love me some Grit's. Stored air tight they should last for years.

Offline JustAPrepper

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2011, 07:46:33 PM »
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Store it the same as you woould flour or rice. Ours have been vaccum packed and sealed with O2 absorbers added.

Ditto. :D

Willie51

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2011, 08:35:06 PM »
Thanks everyone.  We don't have a vacuum sealer yet, but may go ahead and get one this weekend.  Any recommendations as far as which unit to purchase?  Mrs. Willie has a discount coupon for Kohls and they have the FoodSaver V3840 on sale for $179.99 (reg. $199.99) and she will get another 30% off.

Offline ehicks727

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2011, 08:46:21 PM »
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Thanks everyone.  We don't have a vacuum sealer yet, but may go ahead and get one this weekend.  Any recommendations as far as which unit to purchase?  Mrs. Willie has a discount coupon for Kohls and they have the FoodSaver V3840 on sale for $179.99 (reg. $199.99) and she will get another 30% off.

I'm not sure if they were referring to the same "vaccum pack" that you are.  Normally, if you're talking long-term storage (like more than 10 years), you're talking gas-impermeable Mylar bags sealed off with Oxygen absorbers inside to remove all the O2 and displace with nitrogen.

Your typical vaccum packer that you'd buy in a store is not good for long-term storage unless you can keep it frozen, which is kind of irrelevant if you're talking SHTF conditions.

Here's a site that sells Mylar bags and O2 absorbers, and they just happen to have the best tutorial for long-term food storage that I've seen online.

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Offline JustAPrepper

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #7 on: July 15, 2011, 08:48:47 PM »
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Store it the same as you woould flour or rice. Ours have been vaccum packed and sealed with O2 absorbers added.

Ditto. :D

My Bad...I misread...ours are not Vac Packed...they are sealed in Mylar with 02 Absorbers.

As for the FoodSaver, I have the V3440 from a couple years ago.  It works great but the heating/sealing bar needs time to cool down if I do more than 10 or so bags at a time.  It's not a problem, just something I have to take in to consideration and plan accordingly for when I'm working on multiple bags.  I've also tried many of the other functions (wet seal, dry seal, marinate) and they seem to work fine.  I'm happy with it and paid about the same price as she's looking at if I remember correctly.

Willie51

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2011, 09:00:41 PM »
ehicks, Okay....that makes more sense.  Actually that's what I was originally planning on doing, so I'm glad you cleared that up for me.  :)   We have buckets, mylar bags, and oxygen absorbers on hand from for rice, legumes, etc.  I was going to freeze them for 3 days first (to get rid of little critters like we do our rice) and then let thaw out well to make sure grits are dry.  Then pack them in mylar bags with 2 Oxygen absorbers and then in the buckets with gamma lids.  I just wanted to make sure we were on the right track for the grits and long term storage.

justaprepper, thanks for that info.....I showed to wife.  She wanted one anyway for regular use to seperate foods/meats after we go to Sams to buy bulk.

 ::fg

Offline Evolver

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #9 on: July 15, 2011, 09:53:31 PM »
Don't worry about freezing first, when you pack with O2s it takes out all the oxygen and any bugs/eggs will die. ;D
You need at least 1500cc of O2s for a iron sealed bagged 5 gal bucket.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2011, 09:58:32 PM by Evolver »

Willie51

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #10 on: July 15, 2011, 11:08:17 PM »
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Don't worry about freezing first, when you pack with O2s it takes out all the oxygen and any bugs/eggs will die. ;D
You need at least 1500cc of O2s for a iron sealed bagged 5 gal bucket.

Gotcha.  My O2 absorbers are 500cc each and I have plenty....rather be safe than sorry.  Thanks for all the help on this.

Offline Night Jackal

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #11 on: July 16, 2011, 08:15:06 PM »
A word to the wise, use the vaccum bags that come with the vaccum sealer. Make like 2lb. bags, and then put them all in the 5 gallon bucket with the mylar bag. This way you do not have a 5 gallon bucket of grits sitting open at one time, you only open one 2lb. bag as you need it.  :D(Freshness) :D Plus if you need to get on foot you are not trying to figure out how to travel with a bunch of 5 gallon buckets. You can grab a bunch of 2lb. bags of assorted food stock. As for the vaccum bags them selfs, you can use mason jars instead for long term storage. Just keep them coverd in the dark. The bonus to mason jars is that a rodent can not chew through the glass. ;)

PS- if you make the 2lb. bags, you do need to still add O2 absorbers to each bag. 200cc is plenty of overkill if vaccum packed. You can probably use less cc's, but I over do everything. I don't want to find out years down the road that the reccomended cc amount just wasn't enough when the time came and my stuff is no good.

Willie51

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Re: Storing Grits for long term
« Reply #12 on: July 17, 2011, 12:24:20 AM »
NIGHT,
Thanks, that makes perfect sense.....I like the idea of smaller bags to open as we need them.  We use that same concept when purchasing pre-packaged food reserves too.  We buy about 60% of our stuff in factory prepackaged 2 to 4 serving mylar bags (dehydrated & freeze dry), 25% in #10 cans (dehy & FD), and the other 15% from Sams.  This covers our short term, medium term, and long term food plan.  The FoodSaver V3840 we're looking at will vacumm the jars if we go that route...still trying to decide if we should buy the FoodSaver for about $150 with discounts or go for a really great one that Cabelas has for $450.  It's their own version model # CG15.  

::fg
« Last Edit: July 17, 2011, 12:26:04 AM by Willie51 »

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