Hello all,
I am in the middle of putting up 100lbs of rice in 3 - 5 gallon buckets.  There was a guide somewhere on the web that told me that each 5 gallon bucket would hold about 33lbs of rice, or basically that it would take 3 buckets to store 100lbs or rice.  But how what about spaghetti noodles or elbow macaroni pasta?  Does anyone know how many pounds of spaghetti or elbow mac pasta will fit into a 5 gallon bucket?  I think Walmart (perhaps not the best place to buy from...) sells spaghetti and other dry pasta in 1, 3, and 5 lbs packages.  I know that it wouldn't be that hard to just estimate it and go from there, but does anyone have a good starting amount I should go with to fill a standard 5 gallon bucket w/ mylar?

Thanks

I get about 21 pounds of mac noodles and 30 of spaghetti noodles.

Highly suggest hitting sam's and BJ's for barilla for pasta. They regularly have options at a dollar a pound still. The house brand of elbows at Sam's is pretty good too. I use that a lot. They recently changed the formula, cooking time changed among other stuff, but still pretty good. I don't store in buckets or mylar, but I've kept a few months worth of pasta and sauce ingredients as a rotating stock for a while now. It's actually a pretty good way to monitor price changes, since I buy the exact same products and always shop around. Just in the past few years the price has gone up 50%.

I've heard that ramen noodles aren't so good for long term storage because of fat content. Is this a problem with other noodles?

I went a different route with regards to pasta in that I used smaller mylar bags to seal up pasta by the pound (actually 13.25 ozs). It's only my wife and I and we might only have pasta once a week so it didn't make much sense to seal up a lot of pasta in a 5 gallon bucket. I found a good deal on rectangular storage containers with lids and keep the mylar-encased pasta, rice and quick-rolled oats in those.

I use 5 gallon buckets for the flours and sugar.

Another thing to consider is throwing in salt, pepper or some other spices which you may want to use with the pasta.

I packed about 25lbs per bucket IIRC.  It has been a while.  I didn't bother with Macaroni for two reasons.  First, spaghetti is more space efficient and you can get more into the bucket.  Second, macaroni traps alot of air and with air comes oxygen.  I would think it would require more O2 absorbers and if you didn't get the ratio right it might not keep as long.

I keep pasta in whatever...much of it in free plastic pepper jars or just in boxes on the shelf.

It's pretty damn durable for long term storage as long as it doesn't get damp. I can certainly understand wanting to have a nice, even looking stash of goods, but I'd save the buckets and not worry about it going bad much.



Some things to consider for long term storage of pasta is cooking time.

The faster you can cook it means less energy wasted.





San Giorgio makes a new "3 minute" ziti; I bought some to try out; it goes on sale here for $1 box quite often.

Pastina cooks really quick

Angel Hair pasta cooks fast as hell too.





That being said I've started stocking my favorite brand of pasta through a friend who runs a restaurant. I can buy it in (4) 5lb bags or a 20lb case of boxes, but I actually prefer the boxes.

I just stack the boxes on the shelves...they are GTG for years
Speed

Go to your local doughnut shop and ask if you can have/buy their icing and jelly buckets when they're finished with them.  They're 3.5 gallons, and PERFECT for storing spaghetti noodles in (provided you don't mind taking the initial time to "stack" the noodles accordingly).  The 5 gallon buckets are too  big for spaghetti.  

There is enough room in the 3.5 gallon buckets to use the mylar method with your spaghetti noodles, as well.  At one meal a week, you can get almost a year's worth of spaghetti in a single bucket.

Most ramen noodles sold in the U.S. are fried in fat - and the fat eventually becomes rancid.

Most pasta isn't fried, so rancidity isn't a problem.

I vacuum pack my pasta with a foodsaver in smaller portions of 3 16 oz. bags per pack, them I store them in a 5 gallon bucket with Gamma Seal. When I am ready to use/rotate some pasta to the pantry, I can just take 1 package of 3 bags and use them as needed. Storing the pasta this way makes it so I don't have to expose the entire 25 lbs of pasta to air and repackage when I only need 3 lbs.
When I store rice, I store 4 mylar bags, filled with rice of course, along with oxygen absorbers and put them in a 5 gallon bucket. Again, when I want 1 bag of rice I don't expose the other 3 to air or have to repackage. The 1 bag that gets opened gets put in a tupperwear container in the pantry and used as needed.
I don't like to use the huge mylar bags where 1 bag fills the entire 5 gallon bucket, it is just too much food to access and use all at once IMO.

This is the route I plan to take/am taking with most of my 'bulk' preps. As said, it minimizes the amount of rice,pasta, etc exposed to the air at one time.

a bunch of buckets of durum wheat berries - a country living grain mill or some other quality mill - a hand crank pasta making machine and you are set for at a minimum of 30 years of making quick cooking fresh pasta.  canned or dried tomatoes and some spices and you can make spaghetti sauce for the next 30 years. - j
don't forget the freeze dried heese for mac and cheese and thats my 2 cents