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Wednesday, January 06, 2016

How to Keep Spices from Clumping

You've seen the problem...you go to use your favorite BBQ rub, but it's one solid mass that you shake and shake, trying to get it into something usable.

Fret not! It's not hard to keep spices from clumping. You just need to control the humidity.

Something a lot of people don't know is that all plastic transmits water vapor. That means a plastic container is allowing moisture into your spice shaker, unless it's glass or metal.

To control this in industry, they know to use mylar bags to keep moisture out, but what do you do at home? Well, you can use glass jars, but that's not very practical, and they can be expensive. Plus, who wants to relabel everything?

The solution? Silica gel.

Silica gel is what's inside those little Tyvek bags that says, "DO NOT EAT". Silica gel sucks moisture right out of the air, locks it away, and voila! humidity controlled.

Naturally, you want to buy some of these things, now. Well, here are some food-grade silica gel desiccant packets on Amazon. Buy spice, throw one or two of these in, problem solved.

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