◆ PARALLAX

The other factor nobody mentions enough: temperature. You can do everything right with the mylar and the absorbers and the buckets, but if you store it in a place that swings from 40 degrees in winter to 80 degrees in summer, you're cutting your shelf life in half. A cool basement, a root cellar, a garage that doesn't get hot, that's where this keeps best. Every ten degrees of temperature increase cuts the storage life down. A cool place, dark, dry, steady -- that's the real secret. Everything else is just keeping the moisture out until the temperature does its work. The absorbers and the seal get you through the first year or two fine, but temperature is what determines if it's still good at year five or year ten.