Help! How do I store potatoes?

sjprmc01

In general it might help but at the moment my freezer is full to bursting, lol! I'm wondering if a black pillowcase would do the job?

Pink.

Hi sjprmc,

Basically they need to be kept somewhere dark and cool. I keep mine in the garage.

This thread has lots of advice that should help you to make them last longer.

Help! How do I store potatoes?

I'll add your thread to that one later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

meg72

Dark and cool deffinently I keep my in an outside meter cupboard, last for ages.

quintwins

i keep mine in the kitchen in the paper sack they came in, i find if i buy a bag in plastic even if it take them out of it they go bad really quickly, mine are between my wood burning stove and my cooker and still last 3 weeks +

Softstuff

I take them straight out of the plastic bag, make sure they're all dry, pop them in an old pillowcase and put that at the bottom of the fridge.

pigpen

I have a wicker hopper... it is beautiful... and usually has nothing in it.. it was fabulous when I could buy those large sacks though. I tend to buy them fresh the day I use them now though as I hate having food lying around.

krlyr

To cut costs (finding it ridiculous how much bags of frozen chips/wedges cost!) I started making HM wedges, then went on to start buying sacks of potatoes to bulk-prepare wedges, roasties, mashed potato and HM hash browns - makes for cheap, convenient meals.
We've bought two sacks of potatoes so far, from a local farm shop. The first were great - some lovely bigguns to have fresh for jacket potatoes, and then they made great wedges, lovely roast potatoes and great mash. Inspired, we bought a second bag and have been a bit disappointed - had to chuck out a kilo or two that had started to rot at the bottom, they were pretty soft even after just a few days, and there are so many bruises.
So, did we get very lucky with bag one, or unlucky with bag two? We're getting near the stage of needing more potatoes and can't decide if it's worth getting another sack. In a way, it's probably still a saving money-wise if we bin 1/3 of the bag, but it's frustrating to spend all that time peeling them only to have to carve the majority of the potato up to remove bruises.
Any tips for getting the best out of potato sacks?

zippychick

i think it'sa lot to do with how you store the potatoes. This thread has loads of advice

how many things can you do with potatoes has loads of ideas to use them as well

Ill merge this with the first link later

Zip

krlyr

Thanks Zip but we're 'processing' most of them straight away and still having the problem, so it's not a storage issue AFAIK (and those that are done a few days later are stored in a paper bag in a cool, dark place as per that thread)

LameWolf

I sometimes buy sacks of spuds from the market, and I always turn them out onto newspaper in the spare room for 24 hours, to make sure they're totally dry. If there's just one with damp earth on at the bottom of the sack, it can start to rot, and the ones around it will also then rot.

Once I'm certain that the spuds AND the sack are all completely dry, I bag them up again and store as normal - I no longer get any rotting problems.

Also, fwiw, I used to buy from the farmers market, but found that some were rotten when I opened the sack - I now buy from a different market, and don't have that problem any more.;)

HTH