6 Easy Steps To Long Term Dry Goods Storage

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Preserve Dried Goods and Store for Up to 20 Years!

A couple of months ago I was reading one of my favorite magazines, Countryside, and came across an awesome article about oven canning. I had personally never heard of it before, but was intrigued. So I followed the directions step by step and am now addicted (just one of my natural addictions) to preserving dried goods. Even though store bought dried goods will last for a couple of years, chances are within a certain length of time weavels and other bugs will get into them and they will begin to taste stale. Oven canning these goodies will preserve them for long periods of time, which is awesome for the emergency prepper, like myself.
Here is a rundown for the process of oven canning.
What you need:
Dried goods (rice, pasta, cereal, dried fruit, dried vegetables, dried herbs, etc)
Canning jars of any shape or size
Canning lids to fit the canning jars
Cookie sheet
Paper towel
Water

Step 1: Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Step 2: Place cookie sheet into preheating oven.

Step 3: Fill jars with dried goods, leaving the lids off

Step 4: Place jars on cookie sheet in the oven for 1 hour.

Step 5: Remove carefully from oven. Take a damp paper towel and wipe the mouth of the jar with it. Place lid firmly on the jar.

Step 6: Listen for popping to indicate that the jar has sealed. As in regular canning, not all jars will seal. If the jar does not seal it could be an indication of a bad lid or a bad jar or just plain dumb luck. You can try it again for that jar or be satisfied in knowing that at least your dried goods are kept safe from bugs.

Top Tip: Another little nifty trick for those that do not want to preserve their dried goods for long periods of time, but would like to keep the little critters out is to put bay leaves in their jars and bags of dried goods.

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6 thoughts on “6 Easy Steps To Long Term Dry Goods Storage”

  3. @julia:I wouldn’t recommend it my aunt and uncle who can things fairly often tell me if doesn’t seal properly don’t use it,it’ll either ruin the food,not properly preserve it or leave bacteria or something else in there you don’t want

  5. I have a question…
    I caned pasta but it got moisture in it. Can I recan it??
    I was thinking about putting the pasta in the oven to dry it then recanning it..

  6. Thanks for this! Will start doing this. Beats leaving the pasta in the box and hoping for the best! And the #10 cans of pasta & grain are so expensive. Love your blog…just discovered it from pinterest, and I’m hooked.

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