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Doing some cleaning, moving around, reorganizing here lately at the homestead.
Some might ask "why wasn't this rotated sooner?" on some of these items.
Several reasons-
1. We store food for more than just the folks that live on the property. A lot of extended family and friends live close enough to be here in a few minutes. A couple more might have a little travel but will get here. We planned for all of them. SHTF wise, this is good logistically. However, this makes rotation tough- 4 people rotating quantities of food put up for over 12 people.
2. We grow and raise a lot of food. First couple of years "boots on the ground" here we used a fair amount of our dehydrated fruits and veggies. After a couple years we got a lot of the kinks worked out in the gardens and the fruit trees were producing more than we could possibly imagine. Like the "problem" above- SHTF wise, this is good logistically. However this further makes rotation of long term stores tough. Naturally you want to use your shorter term rotation stuff (meat in the freezer, glass jar canned fruits and veg) home grown stuff first because of the shorter life span. So while the "advantage" is that we produce a lot of our own food, the "disadvantage" is that it further makes our rotation of our long term stores tougher.
3. Things are in multiple locations. Again, good SHTF wise, harder sometimes to get to things, etc.
So I'll be posting more about some of the items as we rotate them.
First up is some dry dog food. We now have a dedicated kennel area so we are consolidating most of the dog food stores up near the kennel.
Last couple of rotations of barrels of dog food have shown that the top inch or so has a white layer. I'm guessing some of the fat in the kibble went rancid. The earlier stuff was Walmart brand "Ol Roy" and that might have had a lot to do with it.
The barrel we opened the other day was re-filled in 07. No special packaging, with the experiences we had had with the Ol Roy we assumed the fat/oil content made it worthless to pack for long term storage and had it part of our 5 year rotation stuff.
This barrel now in rotation is Purina Dog chow in the green bag. The lid was really tough to get off but the "white layer" at the top of the barrel was noticeably absent.
I have to assume since the Ol Roy was in storage a similar amount of time under the same conditions that it was the Ol Roy that caused the "white layer".
5 years on dry dog food without any special packaging in a high heat and high humidity environment. I see no reason to believe it would not have went 7 or more years.
Next item-
#10 cans Raisin Granola
Packed in 1999 from JRH Enterprises - yeah as you can imagine I have a lot of JRH cans in our storage :)
A case of six cans was sitting in a moist area for a little while. It appears to have fallen or been accidentally knocked off a shelf. These are the double enamaled #10 cans- gold colored on the inside and on the outside. In my experience double enamaled cans have ALWAYS held up better in high heat and high humidity/high moisture areas than the plain silver cans which are cheaper. I'm really surprised so many places even use the plain silver cans, but evidently they do.
We have since went through one #10 can of the Raisin Granola. Absolutely no deterioration of the product has been seen. The raisins are tough, but I remember them being tough when we first packed these also. They have held up well over 13 years though. Letting the granola sit in a bowl of cold milk for a while before eating does soften the raisins up also.
We'll have some "odd" stuff that we packed as test items also including stuff like whole marshmallows, etc. I'll report on that stuff also as it comes up.
Some might ask "why wasn't this rotated sooner?" on some of these items.
Several reasons-
1. We store food for more than just the folks that live on the property. A lot of extended family and friends live close enough to be here in a few minutes. A couple more might have a little travel but will get here. We planned for all of them. SHTF wise, this is good logistically. However, this makes rotation tough- 4 people rotating quantities of food put up for over 12 people.
2. We grow and raise a lot of food. First couple of years "boots on the ground" here we used a fair amount of our dehydrated fruits and veggies. After a couple years we got a lot of the kinks worked out in the gardens and the fruit trees were producing more than we could possibly imagine. Like the "problem" above- SHTF wise, this is good logistically. However this further makes rotation of long term stores tough. Naturally you want to use your shorter term rotation stuff (meat in the freezer, glass jar canned fruits and veg) home grown stuff first because of the shorter life span. So while the "advantage" is that we produce a lot of our own food, the "disadvantage" is that it further makes our rotation of our long term stores tougher.
3. Things are in multiple locations. Again, good SHTF wise, harder sometimes to get to things, etc.
So I'll be posting more about some of the items as we rotate them.
First up is some dry dog food. We now have a dedicated kennel area so we are consolidating most of the dog food stores up near the kennel.
Last couple of rotations of barrels of dog food have shown that the top inch or so has a white layer. I'm guessing some of the fat in the kibble went rancid. The earlier stuff was Walmart brand "Ol Roy" and that might have had a lot to do with it.
The barrel we opened the other day was re-filled in 07. No special packaging, with the experiences we had had with the Ol Roy we assumed the fat/oil content made it worthless to pack for long term storage and had it part of our 5 year rotation stuff.
This barrel now in rotation is Purina Dog chow in the green bag. The lid was really tough to get off but the "white layer" at the top of the barrel was noticeably absent.
I have to assume since the Ol Roy was in storage a similar amount of time under the same conditions that it was the Ol Roy that caused the "white layer".
5 years on dry dog food without any special packaging in a high heat and high humidity environment. I see no reason to believe it would not have went 7 or more years.
Next item-
#10 cans Raisin Granola
Packed in 1999 from JRH Enterprises - yeah as you can imagine I have a lot of JRH cans in our storage :)
A case of six cans was sitting in a moist area for a little while. It appears to have fallen or been accidentally knocked off a shelf. These are the double enamaled #10 cans- gold colored on the inside and on the outside. In my experience double enamaled cans have ALWAYS held up better in high heat and high humidity/high moisture areas than the plain silver cans which are cheaper. I'm really surprised so many places even use the plain silver cans, but evidently they do.
We have since went through one #10 can of the Raisin Granola. Absolutely no deterioration of the product has been seen. The raisins are tough, but I remember them being tough when we first packed these also. They have held up well over 13 years though. Letting the granola sit in a bowl of cold milk for a while before eating does soften the raisins up also.
We'll have some "odd" stuff that we packed as test items also including stuff like whole marshmallows, etc. I'll report on that stuff also as it comes up.
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