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Questions tagged [food-preservation]

Questions about LONG-TERM food storage such as canning, pickling, freezing, and drying.

This tag is meant as a catch-all term for all long-term food storage questions. Specific topics might include preparing fruit preserves, pickles, dried meat products (sausages or jerky, for example), freezing, and vacuum sealing.

If applicable, please also include tags indicating the type of food and the type of preservation, such as or .

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Do you have to refrigerate Pickles?

So last weekend the wife and I got a huge jar of pickles at Costco. The thing is bigger than a gallon of milk (the wife really loves her pickles). There really isn't any room for it in the fridge, but no where on the jar does it say 'refrigerate…
boxed-dinners
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Preserving culinary oils

I've been making a chili oil and green onion oil for my friends for months with a lot of interest in buying. I want to start selling it at farmers markets & stores but want to ensure it is properly preserved. Can anyone advise on how to do so? How…
Stephen Woodall
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Can I preserve fresh potato gnocchi by drying it?

I have a lot of potatoes to use, and I am making a large batch of Gnocchi. I plan to freeze much of it, but I was wondering if it's also possible to dry the fresh Gnocchi and store in a sealed container at room temperature (as is done with other…
kevins
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Do tinned foods go off (stale)?

This morning I found a tin of baked beans with a best before date of August 2014. A colleague of mine told me that it's perfectly safe to eat, and that tinned foods never go off. Can this be true? Do tinned foods last forever?
David Kirkland
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Are there things you cannot freeze?

There are a lot of edible things that come to mind when I think about what can be frozen. But when I think about things you better not put in the freezer, I honestly have no idea. So, what food and/or drinks come out of the freezer unusable? (I…
Mien
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For Pressure Canning, can I use any other jar than Ball’s Mason Jar?

So Ball’s Mason Jar is not as common in my country but I want to try my hand at pressure canning sambal (chili, garlic, fermented shrimp paste, no vinegar). Is there any alternative to Ball’s Mason Jar that is gold standard for pressure canning?
Pandastew
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Can I separate garlic into cloves for storage?

I bought jar for garlic but it can store only two bulbs with most place being wasted. Can I separate bulb into cloves and store them? Or will it significantly shorten the lifespan of garlic? EDIT To clarify - this is jar made out of ceramic with…
Maciej Piechotka
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Is there any significant flavour difference between dehydrated and sun-dried tomatoes?

I have a large batch of tomatoes which I want to preserve. I am confused between sundrying them and dehydrating them. Essentially they are the same processes but is there any significant flavour difference between dehydrated and sun-dried tomatoes?
Sim101011
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Why does processed meat contain preservatives, while canned fish needs not?

I've read that canned salmon typically does not contain any preservatives. On the other hand processed meat (such as ham) contains them. Why are preservatives needed in some cases but not others?
user18825
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How do I work out the use-by dates for my own cooking?

If I sort my fridge by 'eat by' date, what is the best way of dealing with food's I've cooked, or partially cooked, myself? In my fridge there are such delights as: thrawed from frozen strawberries for the baby Seiten loaf, made in the last…
Joe
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Why is my blueberry jam grainy?

I recently made and canned blueberry jam for the first time, using this recipe and canning instructions. I filled all my jars & canned them, but there was a little jam left in the pot. It was a bit grainy, but I thought it was just from being the…
JustRightMenus
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Why prevent apples from turning brown?

It's somewhat well-known that applying an acidic solution to sliced apples prevents them from turning brown as quickly. I believe that the primary motivation to prevent the "browning" is aesthetic: slightly brown apples don't appear as appetizing…
Ezra
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How many times can you reuse bones to make broth?

I recently cooked a chicken and made chicken broth from the bones. I also kept a few pieces of meat to add to the broth to give it more flavor. I know you can freeze the broth and use it for later but specifically how many times can I reuse the…
aug
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Can the bacon in homemade "Bacon Salt" be made shelf stable?

After success making several fancy salts including Sriracha, smoked, and green chili I've decided to try to move in to stranger and tastier territories. As such I want to make a bacon salt. The commercial products don't use real bacon (or at least…
rheone
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How long does it take botulism spores to germinate in the fridge?

Based on this question, I started wondering how long I could keep an anerobic food in the fridge before I have to worry about botulism colonization. 1 day? 3 days? 2 months? Clearly it's not a short period of time (hours) or we'd all be dying of…
FuzzyChef
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