sugar?

[rockriver]

i'm getting all proud of the wife's canning...
sweet pickles from cucumbers
blueberry jam

thinking that with just a boiling pot of stuff we'll have both forever, as long as we can boil water.

watching the pickle process.. she says... that pan has 5# of sugar in it!!!
and then points to another large pan full of cut up cucumbers, "and that pan has 5# of sugar in it!!!

we need more sugar!

so what are you folks doing?
have you stored barrels of sugar?
do you have a replacement that works?
are you making your own?

we need to "grow our own"
or get barrelS with a big S of sugar.

[motesjm]

I keep about a hundred pounds in the pantry. Should probably have more. It's cheap and stores near forever making it a perfect candidate for stacking deep.

As far as a replacement, I'd say honey is the obvious choice. It's better for you, not incredibly difficult to produce and increases your garden and orchard production to boot. We still use a good bit of white sugar, but I'm always looking for ways to sub in our honey.

[Freebirde]

We may be a little far south to grow sugar beets and I know it takes some proccessing. We can grow sorgum, while I like the taste, I don't know how the flavor would change sweet pickles. I agree honey would be best local sweetner.

Sometime I wished I had a freezer just for sugar, flour, meal, rice, pasta, and other grain product. I know all are shelf stable, but all are freezer stabler.

[610Alpha]

http://stephaniedayle1.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-make-your-own-sugar.html?utm_source=+APN+Newsletter+Vol.2+No.27++%2F+June+30th.%2C+2013&utm_campaign=Constant+Contact+11-3-2012&utm_medium=email

I tried copying and pasting the words from the article but the paste function would take me out of the reply screen...not sure what that is about. Which is why I am posting the link to the blog.

[DIM TIM]

100 lbs. WOW!!! Guess I'm falling short with my 20 lbs. LOL

Yeah, I was looking at sugar, salt, spices, etc,. Need to squirrel away a lot more just in case, and coffee and tea also came to mind while I was thinking about it.

[motesjm]

Sounds like a lot, but we make our own wine, preserves, jellies and syrups so it doesn't take long to put a good sized dent in the stash. This year we are going to try mead, a honey based wine. Crossing my fingers that this will work out well and cut down on our white sugar use substantially.

[Chatelaine]

Good for your wife that she realizes the importance of doing her own food preservation. I admit to being an ardent fan of canning, dehydrating, and fermenting. It's an addiction I tell you ;)

As far as sugar is concerned, there are "several" 55-gal barrels in the storehouse. My canning kitchen sugar canisters are 30-gal barrels. House kitchen canisters are 5-gal buckets for baking and sugar bowls. Total is over a thousand pounds +- . Some folks have even more, and I'm trying to keep up. Sugar is like water and salt, you can never have too much.

Honey is a good substitute for sugar. It is also possible to make jam without sugar using the old-fashioned " cook down" method. The latest Ball Blue Book may or may not mention this method; however, Google and YouTube are your friends :D

Sorghum, as you are in Dixie, is an excellent sweetener for pies, tarts, and mama's biscuits :cartwheels: I personally in all my years of preserving have never used sorghum in jam/jelly making.

Since I mentioned it how are you fixed for salt?

I hope I've been helpful. Good luck to you :)

Chatelaine

[1Admin]

People gave me crap for years when I stated 100 lbs. salt and 100 lbs. sugar as the mins in that basic year supply.

I got responses like "I only have to re-fill our salt shakers about once a year" and related drivil. No one was thinking food preservation.

[Benn Gleck]

I just recently bought 50 lbs of sugar at Restaurant Depot because it was a good deal. I'm not certain how much we have right now because the wife and daughter have been making jam from all the berries they've been picking.

My better half picked almost 4 lbs of black raspberries yesterday alone. I've also been having fresh blueberries on my oatmeal for a few weeks now.

We've been having a LOT of rain and apparently that is good for berries.

[kappydell]

You can not go wrong with lots of sugar & canning/pickling salt. You can use for trade goods if you do not can...or maybe someone will let you team up with them for canning (if you want to learn or do not have a canner) if you have sugar/salt to share along with produce. A canning-bee was common to my grandmothers day; everybody brought sugar, salt, produce, canning jars, etc as they had them and the finished products were divided up after a day of canning & socializing.

If you can find the old bags of Morton's tender-quick for curing meats it might be nice to have on hand...it has all but disappeared from the stores in my area, supplanted by sea salt.

[rockriver]

shock.
i accepted the 100 pound challenge and went to a couple of stores before stopping at sams.
our target price for sugar had been .50/#
sams had a 10# bag for 4.89 (their 25# bag and 5# bag were .54/# !!)
i started putting them in the buggy...
here's where the shock came in

100# of sugar is a small stack. very small pile.
nothing like a 100# of chicken feed, or cow feed.
folks, this is NOT a lot of sugar.
we've got to figure out how to "put it away"
looking for mylar bags, but considering just using a 5 gallon bucket without the bag?

back to the cost.. this sugar will cost us about $52.00 including tax... for 100#
not a very big pile of sugar and not a very big expense.
get ya some!

[MustangGal]

I put my sugar in small mylar bags. My thinking is a five pound "brick" of sugar will be a lot easier to break up than a five gallon bucket size "brick."

[DIM TIM]

I put my sugar in small mylar bags. My thinking is a five pound "brick" of sugar will be a lot easier to break up than a five gallon bucket size "brick."

Girl ! I like how you think on this one. I figured that as well, and if I was going to give a bit out for charity or barter, this would make it easier to divide and pass out.

[slightly paranoid]

O2 absorbers for sugar in mylar?

I put my sugar in small mylar bags. My thinking is a five pound "brick" of sugar will be a lot easier to break up than a five gallon bucket size "brick."

I am new to bulk storage. I read the entire post about storing in buckets with mylar and o2 absorbers. I thought I read on one of the pages NOT to use o2 absorbers with salt and sugar. Is that correct? I want to start my LTS and don't want to ruin it all. So my question is O2 or not?

Thanks

[tech]

If you can find the old bags of Morton's tender-quick for curing meats it might be nice to have on hand...it has all but disappeared from the stores in my area, supplanted by sea salt.

You can get Tender-quick (and other related products) direct from Morton: http://www.mortonsalt.com/

Cheaper than Amazon a lot of the time, too.