[permaculture] The Permaculture saying, "Prepare for Disaster" and the mo...
S P SHERMAN
spsherm at msn.com
Mon Oct 31 16:45:43 EDT 2011
This will work but I think there are better ways these days...
The dry ice is just solid CO2. So what it is doing is replacing the air (N2 and O2) in the bucket with CO2. Since CO2 is heavier than air it will tend to force the air out the top as it vaporizes. Thing that always bothered me about this, is you aren't "seeing" the CO2 come out the top (since CO2 is colorless) you are seeing condensed water vapor from the cold. Using any very cold source of replacement gas will tend to cause the water vapor in the air to condense and stay in the bucket. (I am assuming that there is that cloud of condensed moisture inside the bucket too) Probably not ideal for long term storage.
I think one could do better with a tank of N2. Just put the hose from the regulator in the bottom of the bucket, fill, put lid on loosely, open the tank for a bit, pull out hose and seal. Should accomplish the same thing at a much lower cost (at least for many buckets, probably not for just a few), and with less trapped moisture. Might do as well with O2 absorbers too. Of course sealing things up on a nice dry day, with grain that has dried well, as opposed to a humid day and moist grain would probably help too.
I should caveat all this with the fact that I live in very dry Colorado, where wheat stored in paper bags remains viable for decades, with no fancy precautions.
> From: bwaldrop at cox.net
> To: permaculture at lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:34:33 -0500
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] The Permaculture saying, "Prepare for Disaster" and the mo...
>
> The Latterday Saints say put the dry ice in the bottom of the pail, a chunk
> about the size of your fist. Pour the grain or beans in, cover loosely until
> you see the dry ice vapor starting to seep out around the edge, then seal
> tightly. What you are trying to do is replace the oxygen in the bucket with
> carbon dioxide. Another strategy is to freeze the grain for a week, if your
> freezer is big enough to accommodate a 5 gal bucket.
>
> Bob Waldrop, OKC (I lived in Utah for 16 years, so ran into a lot of info
> there from the LDS about food storage, since that is one of their faith
> practices)
> www.barkingfrogspermaculture.org
>
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