[Caoimhin]

My Mom and all our Indiana country folks have always stored 5 gal buckets of flour, beans, corn meal and sugar. They have always put bay leaves in the buckets to keep it fresh and bug free. Dose anyone else do this? I also use Iodophore to clean containers before storing water and add a drop per gallon to the water. My beer making friends advised me to do this. Has anyone tried this? Is it safe to use. Thanks, I'm always running ideas through my head and with this forum I can ask others.

[fireguy]

I've seen some youtube stuff that compared pails with bay leaves and pails without. After I don't remember how many years there wasn't any difference.
The thought 20 years ago was that bay leaves would deter insects, I still don't know it there is any truth in it.
I freeze my stuff before I pail it. Mylar bags and O2 absorbers.

[Davo45]

Originally Posted by fireguy

I've seen some youtube stuff that compared pails with bay leaves and pails without. After I don't remember how many years there wasn't any difference.
The thought 20 years ago was that bay leaves would deter insects, I still don't know it there is any truth in it.
I freeze my stuff before I pail it. Mylar bags and O2 absorbers.

That's what I do too fireguy.

For water storage, I buy Culligan water from Walmart in 3-5 gallon jugs.
We have a whole house water purification system that we use for daily consumption and short term storage, i.e. camping/hunting trips, etc.