Can I save these items for future Pesach?

shanarishona

Mon, Apr 28 2014, 2:55 pm

Most impt - FIT fruit and vegetable wash (this required a special shopping trip). Opened.

Spices: open salt, open pepper, open cinnamon, open paprika

Extracts: like vanilla - opened

Unopened: Grape juices, Sodas, Seltzers (we don't care if the fizz goes out).

Advice appreciated!
Thanks!

sky

Mon, Apr 28 2014, 4:02 pm

For the drinks I would check the date - diet soda tastes bad after a while. Grape juice can spoil. We stock up Pesach time for the whole year because the price is cheaper. The date should be good for a year I think , but check.

I freeze spices. I pack in 2 freezer zip lock bags and then double back in shopping bags to protect from chametz and put in the back of my freezer. I haven't done this with salt. my pepper, paprika, and cinnamon tasted fine after this.

Don't know about the rest.

November

Mon, Apr 28 2014, 4:07 pm

Salt, pepper= fine.
Vanilla- keep in dark place

flowerpower

Mon, Apr 28 2014, 5:11 pm

I keep the spices from year to year. They stay the same. I wouldn't save the drinks. I'm sure you can use them over the year since its regular ones you use every shabbos.

Simple1

Mon, Apr 28 2014, 5:35 pm

I don't think the spices will have the same strength of flavor a year later. My Pesach food is always especially tasty because I always use brand new spices. Also, if not freezing, you need to watch for infestation in some spices.

Also, when you keep from year to year, do you set a limit? - like eventually the spices could be a few years old and older.

zaq

Mon, Apr 28 2014, 6:19 pm

Spices--save for a year, but no more. The volatile oils evaporate and you're left with dust after much longer than that.

Grape juice bought this year can be saved for next year and will be at the peak of its rich flavor--but will deteriorate rapidly after that, so use it up and don't even think of saving it for a third year.

Diet soda turns bitter pretty fast--as little as 3 months--as the artifical sweeteners degrade, so don;t save that. regular soda is good for about a year, max.

Seltzer is good--in the sense of being safe to drink-- indefinitely; however, you must understand that the gas will gradually diffuse right through the plastic bottle walls and so you may end up next year with plain water, which you could have gotten for next to nothing from your tap. The same is true, of course, for regular soda, but if you don't care if it's flat and the flavor a little off, why should I?

Don't save ground spices for more than a year. The consequences of saving them for several years are, from best to worst:
--they have no taste or smell any more
--they smell like dirty gym socks
--they turn moldy but don't affect anything else
--they turn moldy and the mold spreads to other things in storage
--they turn into an entire ecosystem, providing a comfy home for wildlife of the six-legged kind.

Whole spices can be saved for longer, sometimes for many years, in a GLASS container that is kept full, tightly closed and away from light and heat. There will be some loss of pungency but not as much as you might think--though this does depend on the spice and how pungent it was to begin with. Avoid long-term storage in plastic containers--volatile oils migrate right through. Use the nose test. Once the smell begins to fade, so does the taste. Simply using more of an aged spice doesn't work because the quality as well as the concentration of the flavor changes over time.* Once the most volatile oils are gone, they're gone, taking their flavor nuances with them and leaving behind only memories.

Of course we're assuming you store in a cool,dark place. All bets are off if you store in a hot attic or on high shelves near the kitchen ceiling.

*It took me years to figure out that you can't bolster fading besamim by adding more fading besamim to the container. You have to take out the old stuff and put in fresh.