I operate a kitchen for a Ruritan Club. We have stored large quantities of sugar, both brown and white in large containers. I buy in bulk to help save costs. Is there an easy way to prevent the sugar from hardening in the containers? Something that could go in the same container, but not contaminate the actual product?
Thanks.
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Considering you are buying sugar in bulk and storing it, each time you open the container to use the sugar it allows air inside. The moisture of the air will cause your sugar to harden over time. Here are a few ways that you can store your sugar to keep it fresh and not hard.
First off if you store small quantities of sugar in smaller airtight containers it will keep the sugar from hardening. In your case, it would not be practical to buy a lot of smaller containers to store your sugar so this one would not work for you.
Bread is excellent for absorbing moisture. For smaller sugar containers you would add 1 slice of bread to the top of the sugar that is stored in the container to absorb the moisture. In your case, you may need to add several slices of bread to your container to keep the moisture out of your sugar.
Use a mesh cloth to add rice to the cloth. In your case, if the container is very large it will take a good size cloth to do this. Add a few teaspoons of rice, I would add a tablespoon in your case, to the cloth and tie this up. Throw it in the bottom of your container to absorb the moisture. You'll need to change this out every few months.
For brown sugar place a whole lemon, line, or even orange in the bottom of the container to absorb the moisture. You may need 2 or 3 depending on how large your container is.
Also for brown sugar, you can add a few apple slices with the skin still on them to the sugar container. The apple slices will keep the sugar moist and stop it from clumping up.
When I had 50 pounds of sugar stored for a upcoming project, I found a air tight plastic tub and lid . Because I was going to leave the sugar in the bag that it came (double installation) a large garbage bag was placed in first (darker color Bags) lining the plastic tub. Sugar than was placed inside bag. Squeeze all air out and tie ends.
Brown sugar should not be stored in the same manner as white sugar; brown sugar needs moisture while white sugar does not.
Our church does a lot of baking so of course, baking usually requires white sugar and is generally bought in 25 pound bags as larger bags were too awkward to handle. The church purchased several of the white 5 gallon containers from Walmart and these were lined with sturdy garbage bags before pouring sugar into containers. Nothing else was added and once lids were secured, the sugar seems to be 'fresh' all the time.
Brown sugar is not needed as often so we do not buy this in such large quantities and store good amounts in large quart & gallon size freezer baggies. These are stored in out pantry and seem to hold up well. You can add a fresh slice of bread to the baggie if the brown sugar seems to be getting 'hard'.
There is a lot of information about how to store both white and brown sugar online but not everybody provides the same instructions.
www.deseret.com/
preparednessmama.com/
Do you have room to store it in the freezer? I found my sugar and flour both keep best when stored in the freezer. I open and use what I need, then refreeze. No need to defrost.
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