Questions regarding my post about storing food in buckets:

Where do you store all of the buckets?

I store the buckets on our enclosed porch, or stacked in the kitchen. They can be stored anywhere where it doesn't get too hot (unless you have a bucket of honey -- then you'd want to store it where it wouldn't get too cold!). :) And also, 5 gallon buckets of grain are very heavy, so they shouldn't be stacked more than 3 high. :)

When I tried using icing buckets, they still smelled like icing even after washing thoroughly with detergent and bleach and drying well. Any tips?

Sprinkle baking soda in the bucket, put the lid on, and leave it for a day or two. Then wash the soda out, of course. ;) I've also heard (but never tried) that crumpled newspaper can get rid of smells, too.

The baking soda should work. I recently got something plastic at a garage sale and later realized that it smelled VERY strongly of moth balls. Sprinkling with soda and leaving for 24 hours almost completely got rid of the smell, and a second application of baking soda did the final magic! :)

Although I have a pantry, I also use big buckets to store my bulk ingredients. It's great, except for one thing. My rice went bad in it (after quite a while of being in it), and now my brown flour has developed a smell as well. How do you avoid that problem? Do you leave your ingredients in their bag and just place it inside the bucket, or do you pour the ingredient into the bucket?

Brown rice won't keep as long as white rice, since it has more oils... whole wheat flour is supposed to be refrigerated or frozen after grinding, or at the very least, stored in a cool place... so is could be age + temperature + moisture + oxygen, etc... :)

Whether I put the food directly in the bucket, or leave it in bags in the bucket, depends on what I'm storing. I leave sugar in the bags in the bucket. Whole grains go directly in the bucket. Very long-term storage (1-10 years, for me) requires extra care to be sure the food stays fresh.

Here is some great info about food storage. There is a whole lot more out there (via Google) about long-term food storage, and I plan to blog about the topic with pictures and links, soon. :)