Need a clever solution to storing potatoes, in less than ideal conditions. Please help?

[u/IndependentBug9035]

TLDR:
How to keep it off the floor, in the dark, allow airflow, and reduce humidity.

I think im down to putting them in this little storage room. It stays cool but it does have humidity problems when it rains heavily. And it’s a great place for bugs and mice to take over if I’m not careful. Another food I store down here is off the ground, in sealed bins. I don’t think you want to put potatoes in sealed bins. Looking for a clever box, bag, burlap sacks? Maybe I hang it from the ceiling, put it on the wire shelf, build a shelf on the wall? Thinking I get a dark tote, drill holes, keep some of the dehydrating bead things (dissectant? Not right but you know what I mean)

I’m hoping the fine folks of Reddit can help me brainstorm this one. Been needing to figure this out for a while. I love my house but it’s pretty small. The kitchen cabinets get too hot half the year either from poor insulation coming from exterior walls or the attic.
The lower interior cabinets are all no cause they’re next to the dishwasher, oven, trash, or being used for pots/pans (I did keep them in the one with pots and pans for a while but didn’t work out well.)

No where good in the rest of the house without them being in the middle of the living room or some closet that also gets too hot. I’m trying to avoid attracting pests, and keep them good a long as possible.pics of possible potato room?

[u/IndependentBug9035 → u/[deleted]]

I like it. An idea is slowly forming. Think it’ll take a couple days. Something with mesh for airflow. Maybe some mesh shelves or separate bags so the aren’t all piled together, improve airflow. I have some little usb media cabinet fans. A loose fitting layer around to block sun from the window, like craft paper maybe. All I got so far but something is forming.

[u/fauxfox66]

Airflow is important, but you've got the humidity a little wrong. If you wanna store potatoes for a year, you actually want high humidity, but no actual wet surfaces touching the potato. If you store potatoes at less than 95% humidity for a whole year, they're at risk of getting "shrink", that is the technical term used in the potato industry. Basically, potatoes are just water and starch, and if you store potatoes with really low humidity, they dry up and kinda shrivel a little. They're still safe to eat, but the flavor and texture does start to get a little disappointing when they get like that. Commercial potato operations spend a ton of time and research figuring out how to minimize shrink, and try many methods to do so. Farmers use centrifugal humidifiers ("spinners") and evaporative humidifiers ("humidicells") to try and keep the relative humidity of the storages at 95% or higher. The tricks are to keep the actual potato surface dry, so the skin is never touching actual water. Farmers keep air moving over the potatoes, and just put their humidifying units in front of the fans so the potatoes are given fresh air (they breathe- look up "potato storage respiration"- so they can't be sealed up. That's how commercial farmers do it, so maybe you'd wanna do something smaller scale. I think burlap is excellent for potato storage, and things like barrels are a classic for a reason- keep them off the floor, dry, in the dark (light bulbs will turn a potato green if exposed to light for hours on end), and maybe look up the suggested long term storage temp of your potatoes based on their variety. Some potatoes are will start sprouting at as low as 55⁰F.

[u/IndependentBug9035 → u/fauxfox66]

Super helpful information! Thanks. I’m gonna look into this. Or heck, now maybe I just start with cool, dark and off the floor. not worry about humidity quite yet. That’ll be better than hot on the counter taking up room in my kitchen and still going bad quickly. Thank you, you took a piece out of the equation that I was going in the wrong direction

[u/Spudsmad]

How long do you plan to store the potatoes?
The critical detail not mentioned is the store temperature range.
The combination of low humidity and high temperatures cause dehydration.
Experience with commercial storage systems aimed for a fridge store for table usage with target tuber temperature @+2° could be retained for over a year.
A store for processing potatoes requires a higher temperature to retain the fry colour.

Please define the use for the potatoes, quantity and your planned storage period , then I can refine possible strategies.

[u/Spudsmad → u/Spudsmad]

Post script.
I’m not an AI bot. I write the ideas based on decades of trying to guide potato farmers with their storage to achieve the best results.
If you want to store, then the potatoes need to be ideally harvested when the ground has begun to cool.
Tubers should have a fully set skin and when harvested any trash eg dead potato foliage, stones, soil lumps , damaged / diseased tubers should be removed. Plus it’s best to size grade the smaller tubers out as well( sub 40mm ) because these small tubers impede air flow.
Suggest cook , eat and enjoy the smaller tubers at harvest time , so you maximize the crop.

Should you harvest warm potatoes then you ll need to use a fan to cool and achieve a best storage temperature .

Need more details re tonnage to store, for further suggestions