I am new to canning and food storage and I seek advice from experienced dry pack canning moms.
I will be able to borrow and use dry pack canning equipment at my home this weekend, and wonder what else I can put in a #10 can besides flour, sugar, wheat, rice and dried beans.
Can I do couscous? Quinoa? Other grains or legumes? Is it OK to dry pack can mixes such as Bisquick or muffin mixes, or do those have too much moisture? What about non-traditional pastas, such as whole wheat and high protein pastas? Am I better off keeping those in their original boxes and rotating through them quickly? What have you done and loved or regretted? Thanks for your advice!
I have dry pack canned oatmeal, which is in great shape after 9 years. Also pastas, couscous and quinoa. Whole wheat should can well. Haven't tried miffin mixes and Bisquick because of the oil in them.
The LDS church is a great resource on this subject. They have a cannery on Chambers close to I-70. You can go to the website provident living.org for more information. On the left sidebar click on Family Home Storage, then on the right sidebar click on Home Storage Center Order Form. Download this form for more ideas on what to store. It also gives the shelf life for many items. Some of the things it suggests to store are: wheat, white rice, corn, pinto beans, dried apple slices, macaroni, rolled oats, potato flakes, powdered milk. Hope this helps.
pretty much any grain, I am sure. I would be surprised if Bisquick has too much moisture, mostly oil, but I am no expert. Hopefully you get some responses, but if not, try it out - those flour bugs and other critters can get into your food supply rather quickly, and this is a good way to prevent them.
I have done a lot of dry pack canning.
You can do any reasonable thing with a low moisture content. Any dry grain product, such as couscous, amaranth, spelt, quinoar, etc. will do well. I have canned pastas and mixes, but I make my own mixes from dehydrated foods rather than purchasing commercial mixes. There is a cookbook out which has recipes for such mixes. You can avoid some of these moisture and rancidity problems by using dehydrated shortening, margarine, butter, and eggs in these mixes. You can contact me for the name of this cookbook.
I have canned lentils, barley, oatmeal, gluten flour, and brown rice, among other things. My friend has also canned brown rice and has found that it is still good much past the normal expiration date for brown rice (2 years rather than the normal 6 months). I have also canned some of my home dehydrated fruits and vegetables. Just be sure your moisture content is really low, you include an oxygen absorber, and you store the cans at room temperature or below. Recent studies have found that dry pack canned foods will store much longer than previously expected if those conditions are met. I can send you that info, too, if you are interested.
And, if you think it is a challenge to keep your hungry little men fed, just add ten years. Then the fun really begins!
One of my favorite food storage resources are the extension offices from various universities. The extension offices are branches of the agricultural departments of the university and deal a lot with food storage, use, and safety. Most of them have very useful websites. The University of Utah has a great web site with tons of useful information about food storage. Just google "university of utah extension office" and it should bring you to their web site.
I use my flour and wheat out of my food storage the most, but I also have a lot of oats. Oats are so versital that it is great to always have some on hand without paying the grocery store prices. I also have friends that put their food part of their 72 hour kits in #10 cans. You can put a lot of stuff in cans, but stuff with high oil content will go bad soon. Good Luck!!
cold cereal works good
i have also canned lots of items for which I am grateful. It sure is nice to pull something off the shelf at home than to run to the store. I have used # 10 cans to put up lots of things. Most of the foods have already been mentioned. There are also 3 other ways I can think of to store things. You can use the silver bags(mylar) and borrow a sealer to close them up. Home canning is another way to do it. There is a lot of fruit available at fruit stands and farmers markets during the spring and summer. I spend a lot of my summer canning. I also have a dehydrator that I use to dry some of my fruits. When a fruit is in season you can get a lot of it cheaply. Good luck in your adventure.
At the LDS dry pack cannery they can pastas like macaroni and spaghetti. So any pasta similar to those are probably fine. I think I've heard that pancake mixes need to be rotated because of mold but I'm not positive on that.
Good Luck
