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everyone this is Tony from her Homestead skills and it's another Monday morning and things
are changing rapidly it seems like it's never ending change and commotion and chaos and well
trying to get away from it for a little while I think today I'm going to um
package up all that flour I bought I did buy 44 pounds of flour so that was a fair chunk of flour
and but yes I do use it all um and I've started to open up the bags that I had previously packaged
up so it is time but when you think about it I use about seven cups of flour to make two loaves
of bread and I make them fairly consistently so no doubt I will go through that and when I make
pasta I use probably the same quantity if not more I haven't made pasta in a little while so
maybe it's time to do that as well but for the time being I'm taking a little bit of a break
from a lot of kitchen work you do get tired of it sometimes and uh I'm thinking that after I finish
packing up all this flour that I just might try to take a run to the thrift stores see if there's
anything interesting I have made a few passes and found nothing of any interest and yes we have
Tuesdays where you get a discount at VV but uh I think everyone knows that and so they all flood
there on Tuesdays and if you're not there by the time the door opens probably anything that's uh
of any value to anyone who's probably gone in the first half hour so mind you sorry that is
tomorrow that is not today so we'll see what happens uh but I've learned that Tuesdays as
well the uh the store probably puts out a lot of items that wouldn't typically sell otherwise
so who knows anyway not finding or either that or I'm just getting a whole lot more particular about
what I buy which also is not a bad thing okay so here I am back in the kitchen now
the vacuum sealing brown paper bagging all that flour and and uh putting it away
okay well I have two bags of five roses flour that are
um 22 pounds each and I have made up some labels so so is to differentiate them from the other ones
these are a state but they're five roses all-purpose flour packaged oh well I did say the
30th but today is not the 30th and labeled best before date which is just over a year from now
uh I may use it before then but I think when I package it it'll probably last twice that long
anyway so okay same process as before I just take my big scoop and I'm going to fill these bags and
actually I'm going to fill them more than I did with the cornmeal and they should fit quite nicely
I'm gonna try not to spill any of it
so I'm just going to continue along with this process until I've got
pretty much all of this packed up now you will find when you pack flour like this
as well as dry canning I know that people like to dry can their flour as well it does
pack apart when you bathroom seal it and it does become like a brick
yeah that's about how I want it and when you do that um
when you go to open it it will it is very hard but I have in the past I have um
dry cans in jars and I won't do that anymore it is very hard to remove the flower when it
is turned into a brick from a mason jar four hours with the flour in the bag you can just hit
the bag and it will break it apart somewhat and yes you do probably have to sift this
um I just use a bit of a strainer just you know you do have to sift it to take the lumps out of it
but that's okay too it's a whole lot easier to do that when you process it through a brown paper
bag and your vacuum seal so that's something that I've learned and I prefer this method rather than
um rather than oven canning animation drawer not only that this is easier to pack up
I can store it in oh anywhere whereas my jars are more useful for
other items I will leave I'll do this I prefer to use my brown paper bag method for flour
so just as I said we'll just continue along with it
until I have repackaged to another 44 pounds another two bags here
can I do it without that yes I can okay
might actually be easier without the funnel thank you
much quicker so it doesn't really take an awful lot of time or a lot of effort and you
package this away safely for long-term storage and somebody might ask well how long is long term well
the bag says even if you just leave it and it's an original bag it's good for more than
a year I think from now it's like 14 months so I would suggest that that concealing it taking
the air out of it it's probably good for another year but beyond that as well at the very least
and I'm going to cut this bag down so it's not so difficult to rethink it foreign
just about there
okay so far I have four bags
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yes I do go through a lot of vacuum seal bags and I do buy them on sale whenever I can
but I've got a good Supply on them right now so I'm not too worried about it okay
okay this one bag of 22 pounds as you can see it's 22 pounds
has netted me two four six brown paper bags which I am now going to label and vacuum Shield
so obviously the trick is to figure out how much to cut the first time
so seal that start with this one
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might not be could be a bit on the short side Okay so one two three gotta do four and a half
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that should not be a problem
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this one's too big it's a shame
it doesn't hurt if it's too big I just lose the bag if it's too short okay now I have my labels
that I'm going to put one in there
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there we have it now this small package could be placed anywhere compared to that big bag which
first of all I couldn't vacuum seal that large bag as it is I can't do one
bag of 22 pounds but this size I can put anywhere so I could find a spot to if I
have to put it under my bed it's all safe and secure and sealed and nice and tight
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like I've got a bucket here big gray bucket
but it doesn't need to be food grade because it isn't plastic already
at this point I will smash it in this bucket
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does crack down
now these are just cheap inexpensive ground paper lunch bags they're not even the best
for Quality I just bought them at the dollar store but they do the job okay
it protect the flowers from light and then it's just a matter of placing it in a cool place
and that was just me trying to square It Off
to
something like that they're so much easier to pack up
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foreign don't forget my label
okay I'm going to continue along till this is all done and then we'll get back to you
okay and there's one of my five gallon buckets full of flour uh packaged up in
small quantities so that when I want one package all I have to do is pull one out
get nicely in here the bag itself did not I could not close I could not put a lid on this
and just put the bag in so this actually works better for me all right so that's it for now
I will do this with the second package as well so there's 22 pounds of flour in this container
okay now that I've completed that job you know the question always is how much
prepping is enough how much how much food do you need to put away how much is enough
how much is not enough and I don't have an answer for that all I can do is um when I
find something on sale and I feel that uh it's in my best interest to pick up some more of it and
package it up and save it as best I can I will do so so
um I have no idea I know I will use it I try to buy things I will use and not things that I won't
or when do you say enough is enough and I really don't have the answer to that um I can honestly
say that when I'm out and about in the shops and I find something that I think is a good deal
that may not be in a month from now I will pick it up especially if it's something that I use a
lot of now if it's something I only use a small quantity of maybe I won't pick up so much of it
maybe I'll just have a little bit put aside but I will try to put aside anything that I think I can
use and even if it's two years from now that's fine as well I'll do what I can to stock up
this year more than most okay um this is Tony from her Homestead skills I now that I've
done that short I want to get out and about for a little while hopefully I'll find something at the
thrift shops and if not maybe better luck the next time all right hope to see you soon bye for now