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So I don’t know if this will quite answer your question, but I just wanted to share my recent experience with this issue. I grew up on bulk bin nuts; my family always just kept them in the cupboard, and I can never in my life recall a problem with rancid or moldy nuts.
Of course, since I started eating raw, I’ve done a lot more reading about it, and now I keep my nuts in the fridge (especially after soaking and dehydrating). Earlier in the summer, I stocked up on a couple of pounds of almonds, soaked and dehydrated them all, and placed them in our fridge. I was so proud of myself for being so prepared! Well, just two weeks later I got them out for a recipe, and was shocked to find them COMPLETELY covered with mold! We keep our fridge set extremely cold—to the point where many of the items partially freeze, so I never expected this could be an issue.
I don’t know what on earth happened! I’ve never seen nuts covered with mold like that, and I know for a fact that my family would often go many months (I can even recall instances of up to a year or more!) on the same purchase of nuts, just kept in the cupboard with no problem at all.
I know that soaking and dehydrating makes nuts less stable, but my gosh, I never expected this!
Anyway, based on my experience, I’d say just soak the ones you need and keep the rest in the freezer. You won’t save time the way you would soaking, dehydrating, and freezing all at once, but at least you won’t lose your precious nuts!
By the way, if anyone has any ideas on why mine got so moldy, I would love any insight!
jenny – maybe they weren’t thoroughly dehydrated ??? Cause I’ve never heard of anyone’s dehydrated nuts going bad before… I don’t know! Or you know there could’ve been some condensation that formed. Condensation = mold in your near future. But anyhow, just my thoughts! That really sucks though, sorry you had to throw out all those nuts :-(
I buy 5 pounds at a time and recently ordered 25 pounds. I’m going to freeze them. I usually keep nearly 5 pounds in a glass jar on a shelf, but since I’m going to freeze so many, the new ones will be defrosted fewer at a time and will go in the fridge thereafter. I think the defrosted almonds will retain more moisture. I’m trying to stock up before the required pasteurization begins. I love to make almond mylk with mine and have loads of dehydrated pulp. I haven’t found a good use for that yet. I generally soak a cup of nuts every other day to make three cups of mylk. Sometimes I skip it since too much of a good thing is…well…too much!
Coconutty—I am very glad to hear that this isn’t a common occurrence! It was certainly a shock to me. Not only were the almonds completely carpeted with mold, but the entire container was filled with a thick, moldy web. Yucko! Honestly, it kind of put me off both almonds and my dehydrator for a while. I’m just grateful I happened to notice before I threw them in a blender. I often “cook” without the light on, and I’m prone to just grabbing a handful of this or that without really looking at it.
Since I live in the desert, I generally tend to over-dehydrate rather than under-dehydrate, but this batch definitely could have been the exception. It’s also possible that I under-dehydrated it on purpose after having a couple batches of too-crunchy treats. Also, maybe the extreme cold of the fridge caused excess condensation after the hot dehydrator? It’s not unlikely that I didn’t let them cool first…
At any rate, thanks for giving me hope that I can do this again successfully! :-)