Posted: 3/18/2008 10:07:52 AM EDT
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I'm getting ready to store a few pounds of salt and I seem to recall someone saying that you should not use O2 absorbers when you do. Is that correct? I tried a search and couldn't find anything, thanks for any replies. Tom |
Keep it dry and free from contamination, and salt will store more or less forever. It's about the most worry-free thing in the world that you can possibly store. |
According to Alton Brown just last night on Good Eats, rice doesn't absorb moisture. It just breaks up any clumps of salt when you shake the container. He recommended unpopped popcorn kernals to do the same thing as they would have less tendency to clog the holes in the shaker. |
I frippin die laughing (and crying) when I see salt, packaged in the store, with an expiration date!  Let me get this straight.. they go down to the salt flats, and dig up salt which has sat there for 10-20 THOUSAND YEARS, or mine it from a hole in the ground where it has been for MILLIONS OF YEARS. They process it minimally, e.g. to remove any non-salt from the crap they just dug up, and then it gets mixed with some iodine and packed up, and put in a box, and GIVEN A 1 YEAR EXPIRATION DATE.  Then suzy homemaker decides her salt has "gone bad" because it is "past date", and out it goes.. [/rant] Shane333 has the answer covered.. 
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An expiration date on salt is a little rediculous but expiration dates are applied by manufacturers more to establish the date on which the product was made, more for recall purposes (not that salt should need a recall). Food companies don't really want to indicate the date a product was made on but it will establish a "use by" date which corresponds to the "secret' shelf life of a product that only the company knows! Some of our frozen foods have a year and some have 9 months but we determine the date a product was made on by knowing the shelf life and counting backward from the USE BY date. Also, establishing a use by date makes people think something has lost it's quality and they will throw it out and buy some more – good for sales. |