The Best Way To Store Rice?

[tyler]

Hello Thaivisa user's.

Just woundering what the best way of storing rice is?

I live in a village near Surin (Issan),I think we get two rice crops a year here.

It seems that once the village has cut the rice,they sell the lot to anyone that whats to buy it.

Then as time goes by,they have to go to the city and buy it back at a raised price.

I was woundering if I could build,or buy a container to store the rice,to save me going and getting it from the city.

Am I best to make a large stainless steal container,or do you know of a better way?

I know you don't want rats,mice, etc, eatting there way through the goods.

If you have any advice or any other information I haven't thought of,please let me know.

Thank you.

Tyler

[chownah]

I live in the north. Up here we store our rice in small wooden houses build on posts about 150 or 175 metres tall. The rice is either stored in woven plastic bags (like fertilizer or animal feed bags) or is dumped into bins. A bin is like a small room built inside the small wooden house...it is made of wood partition walls leaving a doorway which is blockaded with boards from the bottom up as the bin is filled.

People say you can't keep rice in a concrete house because the rice needs more air circulation. I don't know for sure how much air circulation is necessary but I imagine it is since rice does contain moisture and it does age with time (kow chow is best if it is about 6 months old or more) so it seems likely to me that air circulatioin might aid this process...don't know for sure.

Rodents are a problem since these old rice houses are usually not rodent proof....cats help... poison pellets are used. One advantage of storing bulk rice in the bin is that it provides no hiding places since it is completely filled up with rice...while bags filled with rice stacked up provide lots of hiding places for rodents.

Insects don't seem to be much of a problem...at least no one ever talks about bugs in the rice house. Keeping it dry is paramount.

I might build a rice house some day and I will research it more before I do...but right now my idea is to build a concrete (block) structure with all wooden bins inside and hardware cloth (very coarse galvanized steel screen) around the outside of the bin to keep rodents out. I figured I'd leave spaces all around the bins for air circulation. With this setup you could either place bags inside it or do bulk storage.

[torrenova]

My missus has a rice house, like a garden shed in the UK, some 3 or 4 metres by about 2. Stored as posted above. Snakes, rats and other pests are kept under control in various ways but the rats and / mice are the problem ones.

[pnustedt]

I live not too far from the OP in Sisaket but we only get one harvest/year here. Most rice farmers here have small huts as Chownah describes, built either in wood or corrugated iron, on posts a metre off the ground. The grains are dried then stored in the sacks.

Last year we did sell the rice straight away (but kept what we would need for the year). The price now in Sisaket is Bt8.5/kilo, it was just under 8 straight after harvest, so no big incentive to hold on to it, but who knows what it will be in November/December when we harvest again.

[ozzydom]

My missus has a rice house, like a garden shed in the UK, some 3 or 4 metres by about 2. Stored as posted above. Snakes, rats and other pests are kept under control in various ways but the rats and / mice are the problem ones.

Later in the week I will make up a device that any handyman can duplicate for a few baht and photogragh and post it, you can be assured it stops rodents getting into your rice house.

[Nomad97]

I live in the north. Up here we store our rice in small wooden houses build on posts about 150 or 175 metres tall. ................................ Rodents are a problem since these old rice houses are usually not rodent proof....cats help... poison pellets are used.

I am surprised rodents are a problem chownah. I would have thought that they would be quite worn out by the time they climbed up all those steps. After all, 150 to 175 meter posts must be the equivalent of a 30 to 40 storey high building!

I guess the decimal point is missing and 1.50 to 1.75 meter posts is what you meant to say.