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#10 Cans and 5 Gallon Buckets: How Much Can They Hold?
Don’t you hate it when you buy your foods in bulk along with some buckets and then end up with one bucket too few when you repackage it all?
Or how about when you get your food storage calculator all filled out and it says to buy 600 pounds of wheat and you have NO IDEA how many buckets or cans that equates to?
Well we just spent the day perusing the internet to come up with a handy chart for you that includes the most common items recommended for long term food storage and how many pounds you can store in both #10 cans and 5 gallon buckets. Please note these are estimates depending on how you are packaging (i.e. using mylar bags or not)
Food Item | #10 Can | 5 Gallon Bucket |
Wheat | 5 pounds | 37 pounds |
White Flour | 4.5 pounds | 33 pounds |
Cornmeal | 4.3 pounds | 33 pounds |
Popcorn | 5 pounds | 37 pounds |
Rolled Oats | 2.5 pounds | 20 pounds |
White Rice | 5.3 pounds | 36 pounds |
Spaghetti | N/A | 30 pounds |
Macaroni | 3.1 pounds | 21 pounds |
Dried Beans | 5.6 pounds | 35 pounds |
Lima Beans | 5.4 pounds | 35 pounds |
Soy Beans | 5 pounds | 33 pounds |
Split Peas | 5 pounds | 33 pounds |
Lentils | 5.5 pounds | 35 pounds |
White Sugar | 5.7 pounds | 35 pounds |
Brown Sugar | 4.42 pounds | 33 pounds |
Powdered Milk | 3 pounds | 29 pounds |
Powdered Eggs | 2.6 pounds | 20 pounds |
#10 can data comes from ShelfReliance.com and is what THEIR #10 cans contain. Numbers could be slightly more or less elsewhere.
We will be making this into a cute handout to include in our next batch of free binder updates, but in the meantime it’s a great info sheet to print out and keep with you when you are shopping or ordering your foods online.
- Help Spread the Word:
Just found Insta-Fire in little single use packets at the Honeyville store in Rancho Cucamonga, Ca on Saturday. They are now in our 72 hr. kits. Funny, after learning about it on your blog, we found it and both hubby and I were like…. SCORE! California stores do not carry food storage items like in Utah and other places. We really have to track them down. Again, thanks to your blog, we found Honeyville which is about 80-90 miles from us. But totally worth the trip!
I hope people realize that these are estimates. I can only fit about 15 pounds of oats and 28 pounds of flour in a 5 gallon bucket (and I tried really, really hard to fit more). It’s a good chart to do ballpark estimates, though, so thank you.
I’ve been looking online for a list of what is possible to dry-pack in the #10 cans. Of course the list from the cannery is a good place to start, but are there other things that can be canned for longer storage? For example, is it possible to can brown rice?
brown rice has a high oil content so will go rancid pretty fast. actually should be stored in the freezer.
Just so you know most companies that sell prepacked buckets of wheat pack them in 6 gallon buckets that hold 45lbs
Where is the best place to buy oxygen absorbers ? I am new to long term food storage and also an avid gardener. As such would like to store the produce I grow and dehydrate myself.
The LDS canneries sell them for $0.10 a piece. Most of the emergency preparedness stores sell them. Wheat Montana sells them for about $22 for a pack of 100.
LDS cannery is probably the cheapest place to get them.
I had this question a few years ago. I called Emergency Essentials and they gave me the information I needed.
Once I have put the dry stuff in the 5 gal. bucket, how do I keep it fresh for long term. Add oxygen packs? how many? or something else?
You can add oxygen packs…probably about 3 or 4 of the size that the LDS cannery sells, fewer if they’re larger. You could add Diatomacious earth. You could nitrogen pack it with dry ice (you’d have to look that one up).
So, if the totals depend on whether one is using mylar bags or not, then does this chart account for mylar bag use, or just what fits in the bucket itself? I have seen a chart that said 29.17 lbs fits in a 5 gallon bucket for comparison.
Thank you for this resource. I think my most frustrating aspect of food storage calculation is when they tell us to gather so many pounds of PB and shortening and oil. Are these liquid ounces or ounces by weight?
Also, I’ve looked at year supplies from various companies and they all seem to have many fewer pounds of the bare basics than what your food storage calculator recommends, lots of fluff like dried fruit and tvp, and they’re cheaper by about $2,000. Are there benefits to acquiring either sort of year’s supply? I know I would rotate the food no matter what I end up getting because there’s no way I’m going to drop that kind of dough and not use the stuff.