PETE Rice Storage

I bought a big 10kg bag of Calrose Rice cheaply, and thought I would break it down into a more usable storage size. I have decantered some into jars to keep in my pantry for shorter term storage, but for longer term (up to 5 years), I wanted to store some in PETE bottles.

I chose some former 2 litre juice bottles, bleach rinsed them, dried them and they were ready to fill.

I use a funnel to tip the rice into the PETE bottles. It means fewer grains of rice on the benchtop.

I put in two oxygen absorbers in the bottom of the bottle, as I'm not sure how old my oxygen absorbers actually are.

Fill all the way up to the top of the bottle.

I added a third oxygen absorber at the top. Put the lid on and seal it with some flexible duct tape. This will avoid the bottle being accidentally opened, or any unwanted oxygen seeping in.

Don't forget to label your bottle.

Oxygen absorbers supposedly have a shelf life of 1 year. Of course, once they have done their job there is no need to open your containers and add more. However, if you do need to re-seal your food for any reason, you will need to use new oxygen absorbers. Throw out the used ones.

You can tell the oxygen absorbers work if you are using e.g. 1.25 litre lemonade PETE bottles as the side pulls in. It won't pull in as much with the thicker plastic used for juice bottles.