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Everyone I know has a terrible cabinet full of spices and liquids and poo poo for their kitchen. Here's mine: Nearly every time I try to take anything out of it, an avalanche of bottles falls onto my stand mixer. As you can see there's a bottle of turmeric about to fall out in this photo, it never stays organized for long. Do you guys repackage your spices? How do I make this poo poo more manageable? Any life changing products I should be aware of?
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May 26, 2018 20:00
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 18:04 |
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We hang our spices on the wall, in (roughly) alphabetical order. As for the bullshit, wellll, it is what it is. More used stuff tends to float to the front, but that means unloading half the cabinet to get to the apple cider vinegar or sesame oil or whatever once a month. 
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May 26, 2018 21:25
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We just moved into our new house and being very into cooking, we definitely prioritised kitchen stuff. We got the ideas for the jars (and labels) from smitten kitchen, but we thought a drawer was better for storing. The pantry is a bit of a mess, my in laws have everything in moccona coffee jars and labelled, but one day!
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May 27, 2018 13:18
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I sometimes accidentally buy something by mistake so that's why there are dupes. Like there should be a thing of onion powder but instead I have an extra garlic powder (not shown) because I'm an idiot. The Old Bay is for my MIL, I don't care for it.
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May 30, 2018 04:01
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Most of my spice buying is in bags, so i've moved almost completely to 4oz ball jars for everything that doesn't come packed in similar. They live in the nearest drawers to the oven. Partway through a move right now so they aren't all here, but this is the general idea:  Labels are by language of cuisine to help with language learning, with baking/pungent/herbal/sour/staple colorcode and translated name for when someone else cooks (good ideas) and date/manufacturer (bad idea, makes reuse harder, getting replaced with file folder label tags.)
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Jun 21, 2018 04:51
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I'm totally going to use this. It's so ingenious I can't believe I never thought of it.
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Jun 21, 2018 13:50
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I found a helpful solution recently, hasn't aleviated all the problems but at least I won't knock everything into my mixer as often:
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Aug 6, 2018 01:36
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Where did you get that?
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Aug 6, 2018 18:02
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Amazon, it's called the "SpiceStack." I vetoed many other similar products because they require you to screw a mount into the base of the cabinet and I rent my apartment. This one just sits in there and they have a few sizes so you could space out a whole cabinet shelf if you wanted. https://www.amazon.com/YouCopia-SpiceStack-30-Bottle-Organizer-Universal/dp/B01ALT7JQW
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Aug 7, 2018 08:23
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PokeJoe posted:Amazon, it's called the "SpiceStack." I vetoed many other similar products because they require you to screw a mount into the base of the cabinet and I rent my apartment. This one just sits in there and they have a few sizes so you could space out a whole cabinet shelf if you wanted. Three or four of those should be just about right. Cool design.
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Aug 7, 2018 18:51
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Just reorganized and labelled mine
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Aug 8, 2018 02:38
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Seeing lots of neat storage ideas, but am curious how y'all actually organize them. Like, I'm totally not dunking on you, Dacap, that's one tidy rear end spice drawer, but I can't make heads or tails of how you find the spice you want to grab, especially when they're so uniformly packaged. At the kitchen jobs I've worked, we usually keep them alphabetically. In my own house, though, I always keep them in rough color order: red to yellow to green, left to right. So when I'm playing with a recipe on the fly, and I think "hmm, needs more heat or warm spice", I know cayenne or smoked paprika is way over on the left. If I'm looking for a more herbaceous note, I poke around the right side of the shelf. Cumin, curry and such are in the middle. Browns like cinnamon and nutmeg get their own little section, as do blends or oddballs like lemon pepper or Old Bay or wasabi powder. I guess that appeals to the artist in me? Is that weird? I'm not saying my way is the best; whatever works for you, works. Just curious how other folks keep track of where stuff is without having to hunt it down. Edit: glancing back thru the thread, I see ColdPie is also a fan of the alphabetical system. :highfive: JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Aug 11, 2018 |
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Aug 11, 2018 23:02
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Yeah, though I actually really like that color method. I just never considered there are methods other than alphabetized. We tend to use recipes though, so alphabetized is nice.
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Aug 12, 2018 00:42
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I have a million shelves full of mostly Penzey's in roughly these divisions: - favorites (most accessible shelf) - individual spices - blends - baking - weird blends - misc stuff, mostly not Penzey's, some repurposed jars with stuff like whole cinnamon and whole nutmegs - samples I just got and need to try out (Penzey's gives you so many samples) I live alone, so I know where I have everything and nobody dicks up my "system" Anne Whateley fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Aug 12, 2018 00:49
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i like nice words
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ColdPie posted:Yeah, though I actually really like that color method. I just never considered there are methods other than alphabetized. We tend to use recipes though, so alphabetized is nice. As someone who spent 12 years working for a library before getting into the restaurant industry, the phrase "I just never considered there are methods other than alphabetized" has me sighing wistfully. Can we be internet friends? Alphabetical totally rocks if you're sharing a kitchen, and have the space to actually see the spices. I'm the only one in my house that really cooks, and i have a tiny kitchen where I gotta cram all my spices into one shelf that has depth, but not width. Easier for me to navigate via flavor/color than name. Wish I had the capacity to do it your way. :/
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Aug 12, 2018 02:06
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I am not an organized kind of person and I get most everything at Penzey's so that makes for 4 different locations with varying levels of organization. Main area is an upside down box top trying to hold all my Penzey's plastic bags (also some small Penzey's free boxes). Wanna replace that thing with one of these IKEA carts https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30401789/ Cabinet shelf above that area with duplicate Penzey's jars and one-offs that I don't really use much if at all (freebies), plus weird things like whole cinnamon sticks Two wire spice racks on the wall above the stove, mish mash of jars Two-level lazy susan I stole from my mom's house when she moved that's got the basics like S+P, plus weird shapes like Old Bay
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Aug 12, 2018 02:10
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Anne Whateley posted:I have a million shelves full of mostly Penzey's in roughly these divisions: ...I do have a cabinet section with all those Penzey's refill bags, various salts, vanillas, stuff that wouldn't fit, etc. But that's different
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Aug 12, 2018 02:31
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Seeing lots of neat storage ideas, but am curious how y'all actually organize them. Like, I'm totally not dunking on you, Dacap, that's one tidy rear end spice drawer, but I can't make heads or tails of how you find the spice you want to grab, especially when they're so uniformly packaged. I had mine in alphabetical order, but my husband keeps messing them up =(. So I'm back to the hunting it down method. It's not too bad since the lids are transparent, so I can roughly eye them out by the colour. My pantry is a living mess though. I tried to divide it into "sauces, asian, canned, baking, etc" but I run out of room and it keeps getting all mixed up. It kills the OCD in me every time.
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Aug 17, 2018 13:31
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PokeJoe posted:Amazon, it's called the "SpiceStack." I vetoed many other similar products because they require you to screw a mount into the base of the cabinet and I rent my apartment. This one just sits in there and they have a few sizes so you could space out a whole cabinet shelf if you wanted. Can you measure the dimensions of the individual "boxes" where the spices go? Somehow this is not a supplied dimension on the product description. Amazon Q+A is full of people suggesting which American spice brands fit and don't fit, which is of no us to someone who isn't in the US.
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Aug 22, 2018 17:34
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Kreez posted:Can you measure the dimensions of the individual "boxes" where the spices go? Somehow this is not a supplied dimension on the product description. Amazon Q+A is full of people suggesting which American spice brands fit and don't fit, which is of no us to someone who isn't in the US. Sure, a single "box" is 6cm x 12.5cm and could fit a container that's maybe 5.5cm tall on it's side.
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Aug 28, 2018 03:42
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PokeJoe posted:Amazon, it's called the "SpiceStack." I vetoed many other similar products because they require you to screw a mount into the base of the cabinet and I rent my apartment. This one just sits in there and they have a few sizes so you could space out a whole cabinet shelf if you wanted. I bought this the other day and I love it already.
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Aug 28, 2018 21:11
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Just moved into a new place and this is the beginning of what will ideally be a much bigger array of magnetic bars and corresponding magnetic spice tins Still need to label and, you know, fill them. 
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Aug 28, 2018 23:28
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BonerGhost posted:I bought this the other day and I love it already. protip: a lot of those short stubby bottles can be rotated 90o and 3 can be fit in a tray instead of the 2 i have in the pic i posted.
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Aug 29, 2018 08:25
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Riptor posted:Just moved into a new place and this is the beginning of what will ideally be a much bigger array of magnetic bars and corresponding magnetic spice tins This is exactly what I do, except I have a magnetic refrigerator. I put labels with the name on the bottom. I made my own jars by epoxying tiny rare earth magnets to 4oz mason jars. I used six magnets per jar - happy to send a photo if you want!
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Sep 1, 2018 23:47
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Somewhat on topic, not really about organizing but about herb/spice storage solutions: an amusing aside for y'all that happened the other day. My husband works at a co-op that sells bulk spices, as well as a variety of small jars & storage containers, labels, etc. A customer had bought quite a few of these little cans meant for magnet strips. Too many, apparently, as he came back a few days later to return 4 or 5 of them. The customer is a regular, and a big name in this city, and the cans still had the labels on them, so no questions asked they gave him a credit. My husband is told to put them back. Just to be safe, he pops them open to make sure they were clean and unused, and finds a big fat roach inside one --- the weed kind, not the nasty insect. Guess he was super high and forgot which herb tin he was using as an herb tin? So go forth and organize those shameful cabinets, who knows what surprises you might find! (Oh, and yeah, you bet my man snuck it out of the store, and we unrolled the roach and smoked that poo poo. good stuff)
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Sep 2, 2018 00:18
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Existence is a nightmare- Order is roughly Countertop: most-used and recently-used Bottom shelf: Sauces & oils Middle shelf: Savory spices Top shelf: Baking stuff/refills/seldom-used stuff I really like the jars in drawers arrangements posted in here, I think my next kitchen project will be to set up something like that. I have a really good bulk spices store near my place so I should just start buying everything that way.
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Sep 2, 2018 02:19
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 18:04 |
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Right, so after a decade of storing all spices on the same, very deep shelf with no organization whatsoever, we bought a house. First project I undertook after we moved in was to build a spice rack. I thought: go big. So I took a look at what I had, spice-wise, then guessed at how much space that would really take, then doubled that, then added a bit. Then I got annoyed and decided "gently caress it", and went as big as I felt comfortable putting in the space. (while it isn't visible anymore, the backer reads "TO SERVE MAN" offset scrolling-marquee style)  Obviously, I should have gone bigger, to accommodate the fact that I can drop by Penzey's during my lunch break. Oops. Ordering is alphabetical, except that all pepper is together & all curry powder is together. This thread was a good incentive to clean the pie safe that sits beneath, thanks.
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Sep 2, 2018 02:33
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