"Store in a cool, dry place" in a small apartment

Calica

Lots of delicious, healthy foods say this on the label. I've noticed that a lot of the things I like to eat just don't keep for crap in my apartment because I have no place to keep them. Oil gets musty, chocolate gets weird, bread goes either stale or moldy, etc. Refrigerators are great for keeping things cool and moist, so that's not a great solution for a lot of things.

The front half of my place gets very warm in the mornings from solar gain (which also raises average indoor temperature). The back half is mostly kitchen, and is warmed by waste heat from the fridge; never mind when I'm actually cooking. I have an in-wall air conditioning/heating unit on the same wall as the window, so the temp fluctuates wildly there. I have no good way to circulate air: there's a ceiling fan, but it doesn't really mitigate the temperature zones much, and I wouldn't want to leave it running all day when I'm not home.

I have a storage unit in the basement, but it tends to be damp. My living space is also pretty humid in general.

Apartment dwellers, where is your cool, dry place?

kime

I would have thought kitchen cabinets would be the go-to for that. Do the inside of your cabinets get noticeably warmer from the fridge or whatnot?

Edit: I'm not skilled at anything food-related though, so maybe that's a naive suggestion

bowen

Pantry is my cool dry place.

They don't mean dry as in a literal desert, just like, not in your bathroom or fridge.

E: bread gets moldy after a few days, oil and chocolate goes bad if exposed to sunlight over a long period of time, gotta keep them out of direct sunlight or in contact with direct heat and moisture.

Calica

The problem is that my pantry is between the fridge and the stove in a tiny kitchen, and is not "cool" as such.

Like, chocolate stored in the pantry gets soft when I'm using the stove or oven.

All cupboards are either next to the stove or above the stove or refrigerator.

bowen

Tiny kitchen it sounds like?

You might need a portable pantry of some sort. But, by the sounds of it, that might not be feasible for your apartment's layout.

You can, theoretically, use tupperware as your "dry" inside a fridge to fix this. Just make sure to bring stuff to room temperature as required.

VishNub

Fridges actually dry things out quite well -- try leaving a piece of meat uncovered overnight. It's just the magic drawers that keep things moist.

If you're having problems with tiny kitchen overheating, I have a set of shelves out in the main living room part of the house thats used for extra food storage like grains and such.

dispatch.o

Calica wrote: »

Lots of delicious, healthy foods say this on the label. I've noticed that a lot of the things I like to eat just don't keep for crap in my apartment because I have no place to keep them. Oil gets musty, chocolate gets weird, bread goes either stale or moldy, etc. Refrigerators are great for keeping things cool and moist, so that's not a great solution for a lot of things.

The front half of my place gets very warm in the mornings from solar gain (which also raises average indoor temperature). The back half is mostly kitchen, and is warmed by waste heat from the fridge; never mind when I'm actually cooking. I have an in-wall air conditioning/heating unit on the same wall as the window, so the temp fluctuates wildly there. I have no good way to circulate air: there's a ceiling fan, but it doesn't really mitigate the temperature zones much, and I wouldn't want to leave it running all day when I'm not home.

I have a storage unit in the basement, but it tends to be damp. My living space is also pretty humid in general.

Apartment dwellers, where is your cool, dry place?

If it's a sealed thing, cabinet is all I've got. Lots of things go bad quickly at room temperature. I put my bread in the freezer. It only takes about​ three minutes under the broiler to turn two pieces of frozen bread or a burger bun into perfectly toasted.

Oil I just don't buy anything that will sour. Olive oil and peanut oil are pretty durable. Some of the seed oils can sour after a month or two so I buy smaller bottles.

I only really keep dry goods in the cabinet surrounding my oven though. Pots and pans on the left, pasta and canned stuff on the right. Most of the stuff I leave out is factory sealed or super durable. I probably refrigerate stuff I don't need to.

amateurhour

You can also look into food storage containers. Like the kind you can do an air tight seal on.

deestar

Stick things like flour and chocolate in the freezer -- same with other dried goods like cornmeal, nuts etc. If you can't put it in the freezer stick it in a ziploc bag and make sure as much air is out of it as possible and seal the bag tightly

MichaelLC

Do you have a coat closet? Might be better in there.

Otherwise yeah, the fridge or freezer is the way to go. As mentioned, the fridge will actually dry stuff out.

Inquisitor77

Not really answering your question, but with regards to temperature regulation, if you have a window on one end of your apartment and a window on the other, and a relatively clear path between the two, you can set up fans to maintain a constant airflow across your apartment to help regulate the temperature. For example, by putting window fans in each, setting one to draw air in, the other to draw air out, and if necessary putting a floor/tower fan between the two to maintain the flow. It doesn't have to be a straight line so long as you're creating differential pressure between rooms.

This is a trick I learned living in a house with no A/C in the suburbs of California. Closing the whole place off and drawing all the curtains/blinds during the day and then opening it up to move air through at night made sleeping actually possible during unbearably hot summers.

Calica

Inquisitor77 wrote: »

Not really answering your question, but with regards to temperature regulation, if you have a window on one end of your apartment and a window on the other, and a relatively clear path between the two, you can set up fans to maintain a constant airflow across your apartment to help regulate the temperature. For example, by putting window fans in each, setting one to draw air in, the other to draw air out, and if necessary putting a floor/tower fan between the two to maintain the flow. It doesn't have to be a straight line so long as you're creating differential pressure between rooms.

This is a trick I learned living in a house with no A/C in the suburbs of California. Closing the whole place off and drawing all the curtains/blinds during the day and then opening it up to move air through at night made sleeping actually possible during unbearably hot summers.

That's how my parents cool their house, but I have only one window.

I'm skeptical of the fridge/freezer solution. Things in the fridge either get damp from condensation (in containers), or they absorb odors. And realistically, keeping things in the freezer that are meant to be eaten at room temperature (e.g., chocolate) is just not something I'm going to do.

I just ordered a shitload of Tupperware though.

Creagan

In my college dorm, (9x11 ft no ac) I used a metal chest that fit in my closet for non-perishables. You could probably find an under-bed equivalent.

The Wolfman

I can second the storing of bread in the freezer. If you're the type that can plan ahead a little bit, then you can just pull it out an hour beforehand and it's defrosted and dry. If not, it depends on the bread and what you're doing with it. Frozen slices of bread toast fine, just bump the dial up a notch. Stuff like hamburger buns I stick in the microwave for 15-30 seconds, then let sit for a few minutes and they're fine as well. Otherwise, depending on where and when you live, bread just goes moldy. We can leave buns out for a few weeks in the winter no problem, but in the summer those suckers will go off in just a few days.

Polaritie

Calica wrote: »

Inquisitor77 wrote: »

Not really answering your question, but with regards to temperature regulation, if you have a window on one end of your apartment and a window on the other, and a relatively clear path between the two, you can set up fans to maintain a constant airflow across your apartment to help regulate the temperature. For example, by putting window fans in each, setting one to draw air in, the other to draw air out, and if necessary putting a floor/tower fan between the two to maintain the flow. It doesn't have to be a straight line so long as you're creating differential pressure between rooms.

This is a trick I learned living in a house with no A/C in the suburbs of California. Closing the whole place off and drawing all the curtains/blinds during the day and then opening it up to move air through at night made sleeping actually possible during unbearably hot summers.

That's how my parents cool their house, but I have only one window.

I'm skeptical of the fridge/freezer solution. Things in the fridge either get damp from condensation (in containers), or they absorb odors. And realistically, keeping things in the freezer that are meant to be eaten at room temperature (e.g., chocolate) is just not something I'm going to do.

I just ordered a shitload of Tupperware though.

I would debate chocolate being a room-temperature item.

Chocolate is wonderful frozen, just starting to thaw.

dispatch.o

A thing to also consider would be a portable a/c unit with a dehumidifier setting. I actually prefer to run my portable a/c in whatever room I'm in and not cool my whole apartment with an old ass central air system. They can be set to dehumidify and have a reservoir for about a gallon of water. I can't speak to how well it works, but my mom has accidentally set one to it and after a couple days it was full.

Inquisitor77

Calica wrote: »

Inquisitor77 wrote: »

Not really answering your question, but with regards to temperature regulation, if you have a window on one end of your apartment and a window on the other, and a relatively clear path between the two, you can set up fans to maintain a constant airflow across your apartment to help regulate the temperature. For example, by putting window fans in each, setting one to draw air in, the other to draw air out, and if necessary putting a floor/tower fan between the two to maintain the flow. It doesn't have to be a straight line so long as you're creating differential pressure between rooms.

This is a trick I learned living in a house with no A/C in the suburbs of California. Closing the whole place off and drawing all the curtains/blinds during the day and then opening it up to move air through at night made sleeping actually possible during unbearably hot summers.

That's how my parents cool their house, but I have only one window.

I'm skeptical of the fridge/freezer solution. Things in the fridge either get damp from condensation (in containers), or they absorb odors. And realistically, keeping things in the freezer that are meant to be eaten at room temperature (e.g., chocolate) is just not something I'm going to do.

I just ordered a shitload of Tupperware though.

Yeah, putting things in containers and then into the fridge actually keeps the moisture inside. So, to your example, something that was warm that is immediately put into the fridge will often generate a lot of condensation.

But if you keep them in the open air of the fridge they should dry out. The real issue is that you may not want particular odors spreading, but unless something is particularly smelly and you leave it in therefor a very long period of time, that shouldn't be much of an issue.

Tofystedeth

I tend to store my bread in the microwave, though that is largely to keep it safe from my cat.

CelestialBadger

You can get dehumidifiers that aren't AC. They cost about $200 and dry out the air quite effectively.

Darkewolfe

This thread has gotten the traveling wilburies stuck in my head several times.

Calica

Lots of helpful ideas here; thanks!

Burtletoy

When I was growing up, we always stored, like chips and pretzels and cookies in the oven.

On more than a few occasions we turned on the oven for cooking without removing everything until it started to smell really bad and then remembered.


But, man, it did keep things dry before we caught them on fire