Spices

Wifezilla

Low-Carb Queen - RIP: 1963-2021
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Frontier, Mountain Rose, Sam's or even the Vitamin Cottage bulk section work for me. The LAST place I look for spices are in tje Spice Island or McCormic Bottles. YIKES!!!
 

FarmerChick

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:gig

yup, McCormick is what I priced today. almost keeled over at costs. no way
 

Britesea

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those are only if I'm out and it's an emergency. I've usually been disappointed when I do it too--- when you open a brand new jar and it smells like straw you know you are in trouble, lol. Good herbs'll knock you cross-eyed!
 

k0xxx

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We buy in bulk also. We have just this year started growing some of our spices, but it's not enough for the whole year. We dried and ground our own garlic for the first time, this year. We buy granulated garlic usually from Sam's, and it's been running a little over $17 for 7 pounds. We buy granulated onion, cinnamon, and a few other spices from Midwestern Research (sounds ominous, but it's actually a sausage and meat processing supply store). The onion is up to $19.95 for 5 pounds, and the cinnamon is $12.45 for 5 pounds.

We store spices in 1 pound vacuum packed mylar bags that have ziplock type seals for use after you break the heat seal.
 

Windyhillfarms

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I have started pricing spices, sugar, flour, etc believing that I need to start stocking up on this stuff as the prices are going through the roof. My problem is storage. I have to buy something to store all of this stuff in to keep it fresh, but what do you store it in? Well, I should reword that, what can you buy to store things in bulk that I'm sure need to be kept dry, etc., that would easily store in an orderly fashion and just as importantly, where can you purchase these storage devices? I see words like mylar and some kind of packets for keeping out moisture, but being a novice, don't know what they are or how to get them ...
 

freemotion

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Windyhillfarms said:
I have started pricing spices, sugar, flour, etc believing that I need to start stocking up on this stuff as the prices are going through the roof. My problem is storage. I have to buy something to store all of this stuff in to keep it fresh, but what do you store it in? Well, I should reword that, what can you buy to store things in bulk that I'm sure need to be kept dry, etc., that would easily store in an orderly fashion and just as importantly, where can you purchase these storage devices? I see words like mylar and some kind of packets for keeping out moisture, but being a novice, don't know what they are or how to get them ...
For spices, herbs, smaller items: I put the word out and got a bunch of free canning jars. I love the old-fashioned ones with the glass lids. You can get the rubber rings new if you look around....Ace hardware will order them for you if they don't carry them near you. These jars, with good rings, are very air tight. You can store them in a cupboard or on a shelf for display as long as there is not a lot of light. My kitchen gets no direct sunlight and I have a bookcase that I painted to match my decor and it is loaded with all kinds of jars, big and small, with foods in them. It actually looks great, and I saw something similar on the cover of Martha Stewart Living magazine a couple of years ago.

Or you can use regular canning jars with the lids that come with them....pretty air tight. They can be stored in the original boxes under the bed (pint size only unless you have a much higher bed than I do.)

You can buy the bigger items already packed into buckets, sealed with mylar bags and oxygen absorbers, but they can be pricey.

Rotate your stock.

Sugar will harden, even properly packed. I have some #10 cans that were factory packed with oxygen absorbers and I have to chip the sugar out and it gets messy. But it was free so I'm not complaining! (Turning it into wine this fall/winter....almost free wine!)
 

k0xxx

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Windyhillfarms said:
I have started pricing spices, sugar, flour, etc believing that I need to start stocking up on this stuff as the prices are going through the roof. My problem is storage. I have to buy something to store all of this stuff in to keep it fresh, but what do you store it in? Well, I should reword that, what can you buy to store things in bulk that I'm sure need to be kept dry, etc., that would easily store in an orderly fashion and just as importantly, where can you purchase these storage devices? I see words like mylar and some kind of packets for keeping out moisture, but being a novice, don't know what they are or how to get them ...
I usually buy our mylar storage bags through USA Emergency Supply as they normally have the best prices that I have found. They also sell the Oxygen Absorber packs that you add to the bags. I would recommend looking at some of the YouTube videos on long term food storage to get an idea of how the process works. It's one thing for someone to try to explain the process (it's actually quite simple and easy), but it's great to actually see someone do it as it is explained.

For bulk items like grains, salt, sugar, etc., we use large mylar bags placed into 5 and 6 gallon buckets. For spices like garlic, peppers, granulated onoin, cinnamon, etc., we generally use smaller (8"x12") mylar bags that have a "pleated" end, and a ziplock type end. On to the page with all of the bags that USA Emergency Supply sells, the "pleated end" bags that we use are at the very bottom of the page.

The buckets can be any clean food grade type buckets with a lid that will seal. You can often buy these used from bakeries and delis for just a dollar or two, and some will even give them away. For our food storage we only buy new food grade buckets, but others say that used buckets are just fine. We get our new buckets from the same company that we order our bulk grains from, Country Life Natural Food.
 

Emerald

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Another thing that I always wanted and the price of at the store was vanilla beans... those little jars with the two beans are now close to $10! :th
So last November I had a payoneer card that I had to get that last $15 off of or they would just "fee" me till it was gone... so I was wandering the internet and just by chance decided to look up vanilla... At Vanilla products USA they had a "30 Vanilla Bean Assortment Tahitian Bourbon Gourmet" for only $12.47 plus shipping(for me it was less than $2) so for just under my $15 I ended up with not just 30 but 40 vanilla beans as they have this bonus.. anything over $10 spent you get 10 extract grade beans for free..(the free amount goes up as you order goes up). I have a liter bottle with 10 beans(5 of each type) filled with vodka and it is sooooo nice.
Plus I still have quite a few of the beans as I usually only use them for special occasions. and once I use the seeds out of the pod I have the used pods in big jars of sugar so that I now have vanilla sugar!
So the morel of the story is--Buy in bulk... I'm tempted to buy another batch just for more extract for gifts next year. It does seem to take a good few months to get that extract up to snuff.. and from another member (either here or another forum) I was told to just keep "topping" it off until the beans finally give up the ghost.
 
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