[Sca-cooks] Favorite Spice Containers

[Saint Phlip]

An inverted truncated cone should work well as a stopper, if you can
make sure the angles of both the "cork" and the neck are the same, or
very close. Perhaps with the stopper covered with a carefully fitted
and glued piece of this, soft leather, that after fitting and glueing
is covered with softened beeswax? It would be worth an experiment, at
least. One concern I would have with beeswax applied any other way
would be the ground spices adhering to the stopper and/or the neck,
and thus opening up gaps.

Another possibility, that would be a bit fiddly might be a top shaped
rather like a shot glass, with a swelling at the bottom to help seal
the hole. Beeswax could them be applied outside the neck of the bottle
to avoid that difficulty.

Of course, when in doubt, drop back and punt ;-) How did they actually
deal with this in period? I'm thinking that spices were ground to each
usage, rather than stored as a powder for any length of time.

On 10/6/06, Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Hmmmm. Good point.  The oregano I had in a corked bottle like that dried out
> too darn fast.  Maybe we should make angled-in cylindrical tops to
> gravity-fit, maybe with a bit of bee's wax around the edge to hold it in
> place?  Just a thought.
>
> Sel.
>
> On 10/5/06 10:32 PM, "Saint Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com> wrote:
>
> > I would be very hesitant about using cork covered jars for spices and
> > the like. Corks, by their nature, allow an exchange of the air within
> > and without the bottle, thus allowing the essential oils, the
> > flavoring agents, of most spices to escape. Corks work very well for
> > wine bottles, where you want a certain amount of exchange, albeit a
> > very limited amount, so the wines can age, but wine bottles are also
> > kept on their sides so that they remain wet, thus swelling the corks
> > and keeping the exchange very limited.A dry cork, however, will allow
> > considerably more air exchange, and aging is NOT very good for spices,
> > particularly powdered ones.

-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Has anyone seen my temper?
I seem to have misplaced it at Stalag XXXV....