Building dry food storage into drawers. How to seal in smells?

[JTdiRtyD]

For reference, my plan is to build two side by side drawers, with one drawer for kitchen/food, and the other drawer for tools and gear. The whole drawer assembly being as wide as it can be between the wheel wells and roughly 12 inches tall. On top of the drawer assembly will be a slide out (think Cargo Glide or Bed Slide) that will be used to store chairs, diesel heater, fire pit, etc. All of this fitting under a half height canopy cap.

I'm about to start building the drawers this coming weekend. I do a lot of bear country camping, so mitigating smells from the kitchen drawer as much as I can is important. Fridge is in the cab of the truck, so no cold storage in the bed is needed. This is for long, multiple weeks, sometimes month long trips. We buy groceries multiple times on the road, we don't always have the means nor do we want to spend the time to empty multiple bags or boxes of food into 100 different sealable bags. It's just not practical, so the ability to have a large sealed container (like a cabinet, just sealed) that we just unload grocery bags into is more ideal. Plus we buy a lot, anyone in our party takes turns cooking, so when we buy, we are usually buying enough to cook for multiple people.

I've had some comments on bookface about just using tight closing storage containers like Roam or Milwaukee Packouts, but I'm trying to get away from storing things in totes or containers. I'm done with needing to remove everything out of the back of the truck to get that one item thats in the bottom tote in the far back corner of the bed. It was also mentioned to just use packouts or containers inside the drawers, but that would require large drawers which I dont have the space for, and you lose too much space. So, using storage containers is not an option. Storing items in totes is just not efficient. Convenient yes, but not efficient.

My thoughts:

My initial idea is to line the inside of the drawer with some type of plastic/aluminum paneling or sheeting, seal the edges with silicone, and add a tight fitting weather stripped lid. This would hopefully mitigate a lot of the smells and make it easy to just wipe clean.

Has anyone done similar? Other ideas for making the drawer sealed?

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[MPMB]

Scent bags. You can find them on AMZN.
Amazon.com: HEAVY DUTY Reusable STAND-UP Bags for Food Storage by Smelly Proof, USA Made, NO PEVA & BPA FREE, Reusable Freezer Bags, Dishwasher-Safe, Triple Zip, CLEAR 5-mils LRG Quart 8.75" x 9.5" - 5pk: Home & Kitchen

I got the big ones for our toiletries, as we camp in bear country a lot as well. The bags really work, but level of "officially" working depends on if you camp in remote bear country (dispersed, etc.) or National Park bear country. NPS has their "requirements".

I need to order some more, I've surrendered them to my wife and I don't know where they have all ended up.

For NPS-area bear country, "smell proof" is kind of secondary in the eyes of NPS. Primary should be a bear proof container. Airtight doesn't matter - look at the storage boxes the NPS uses. Hardly scent proof. So it's a little ridiculous.

Last summer we visited Yosemite, known for the black bear problem. Two things - 1) We saw 1 deer the 4 days we were there in the park. 2) Apparently only certain "smells" attract bears.

We saw campers who had outdoor showers setup, left bins and cooking stuff out, water jugs, but no actual food. Which is crazy, considering in Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Tetons you can't have anything out, not even water.

My wife is a touch bearanoid... one year a griz stuck his head in a tent in the campsite behind us at St. Mary in GNP. In the morning people were driving out with tents still together sitting in the truck beds. After that, in Apgar in GNP, our OJ jug fell off the back of the truck and the lid blew off. 3/4 of the OJ was all over the ground. My wife's trying to soak it up from the dirt with paper towels. I wasn't that concerned. A bear would have to pass by a lot of campsites to get to ours.

And while you said you didn't want tubs/totes, Sterilite has totes with seals for other smelly stuff - that are smaller than 12":
Amazon.com: Sterilite 7.5 Qt Gasket Box, Stackable Storage Bin with Latching Lid and Tight Seal, Plastic Container to Organize Basement, Clear Base, Lid, 6-Pack: Home & Kitchen
Costco also had some sealed totes recently that are tan, but I'm not sure on the dimensions; maybe 12"w x 14"l x 10"d or around that.

We have a mix of totes in the back of our Hiker trailer, but try to use the Sterilite sealed ones for most of it.

As far as using Roam/Pelican/etc. containers - I'm not a fan on how thick they are and shaped for "rigidity." Especially for the cost. If I spent a couple hundred on those, I might as well get Zarges metal boxes instead.

 

[Pat Witt]

Why not just buy a very good vacuum sealer, that's the whole purpose of one to seal out air and smells

 

[JTdiRtyD]

Scent bags. You can find them on AMZN.
Amazon.com: HEAVY DUTY Reusable STAND-UP Bags for Food Storage by Smelly Proof, USA Made, NO PEVA & BPA FREE, Reusable Freezer Bags, Dishwasher-Safe, Triple Zip, CLEAR 5-mils LRG Quart 8.75" x 9.5" - 5pk: Home & Kitchen

I got the big ones for our toiletries, as we camp in bear country a lot as well. The bags really work, but level of "officially" working depends on if you camp in remote bear country (dispersed, etc.) or National Park bear country.

And while you said you didn't want tubs/totes, Sterilite has totes with seals for other smelly stuff - that are smaller than 12":
Amazon.com: Sterilite 7.5 Qt Gasket Box, Stackable Storage Bin with Latching Lid and Tight Seal, Plastic Container to Organize Basement, Clear Base, Lid, 6-Pack: Home & Kitchen
Costco also had some sealed totes recently that are tan, but I'm not sure on the dimensions; maybe 12"w x 14"l x 10"d or around that.

We have a mix of totes in the back of our Hiker trailer, but try to use the Sterilite sealed ones for most of it.

As far as using Roam/Pelican/etc. containers - I'm not a fan on how thick they are and shaped for "rigidity." Especially for the cost. If I spent a couple hundred on those, I might as well get Zarges metal boxes instead.

Why not just buy a very good vacuum sealer, that's the whole purpose of one to seal out air and smells

Not bad suggestions and would work great for short or weekend trips, but not practical for us. This is for long, multiple weeks, sometimes month long trips (I will update the original post with this detail). We buy groceries multiple times on the road, we don't always have the means nor do we want to spend the time to empty multiple bags or boxes of food into 100 different sealable bags. It's just not practical, so the ability to have a large sealed container (like a cabinet, just sealed) that we just unload grocery bags into is more ideal. Plus we buy a lot, everyone in our party takes turns cooking, so when we buy, we are usually buying enough to cook for multiple people.

I've looked at smaller sized sealable totes, but you still lose a lot of space when using totes simply because of the space you can't use between them, and then it becomes a tetris game to fit everything in the totes themselves and you always manage to find something that won't fit. Totes and "loose" containers are just not an efficient use of space. Convenient yes, but not efficient.

NPS has their "requirements".

For NPS-area bear country, "smell proof" is kind of secondary in the eyes of NPS. Primary should be a bear proof container. Airtight doesn't matter - look at the storage boxes the NPS uses. Hardly scent proof. So it's a little ridiculous.

NPS typically says either store food in an approved hard sided container, in the provided bear proof lockers, or in a vehicle. They don't make travel trailers and RV's empty their cupboards out into the bear proof lockers, so they shouldn't have an issue with a sealed drawer locked in the fully enclosed bed of a truck. If they do have an issue with it then we will address it at the time.



After talking with some other folks an researching options I think lining the drawer with .040 aluminum sheet and then having a tight fitting lid is the best option. I could probably get away with just using a good hardening sealant on the wood itself instead of using the alum sheet, but I like the extra layer of the aluminum.

 

[MPMB]

I'll also add that I've never "cleaned" out the cab of JT before camping to make sure it's sanitized for bear country. With the Sunrider on, the JT is no different than "softsided" trailers that you can't keep food or cook in.

So I don't think you have to be super focused on scent blocking or anything.

 

[Pat Witt]

I'll also add that I've never "cleaned" out the cab of JT before camping to make sure it's sanitized for bear country. With the Sunrider on, the JT is no different than "softsided" trailers that you can't keep food or cook in.

So I don't think you have to be super focused on scent blocking or anything.

I'm not so sue about this I have spent many years go to the Smokey Mt jeep festival and have seen I'm far share of black bears ripping into soft tops because they left their food in them , now that being sad most of that is from conditioned bears that know cars and people equal food.

 

[MPMB]

I'm not so sue about this I have spent many years go to the Smokey Mt jeep festival and have seen I'm far share of black bears ripping into soft tops because they left their food in them , now that being sad most of that is from conditioned bears that know cars and people equal food.

Let me clarify - I don't leave the "road food" garbage (bag of any fast food remnants) or drinks in the cab when we camp. Food is in bins and in the cab or trailer, along with the cooler/fridge. But I don't go as far as vacuuming out any fries, etc., that may have fallen down under the seats, or empty the center console of gum/mints.

The bear country I go to is grizzly country, so I'm not that concerned with black bears. And after seeing Yosemite campers in person, the black bears have been conditioned by idiot campers of the past - little what we do will deter today's bears from investigating possible food sources.

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