How to preserve your pellets
He's back! The bait boffin legend Allan Parbery is once again here to answer your questions
Recently I got some low oil carp pellets and wanted them dyed and flavoured with the same flavours etc. that I use in my base mix. I’ve tried spraying them with a dye and flavour mixed with water. They worked fine but I’m looking to do some that I can leave in the bucket without them going mouldy. Would I be better off using something like glycerine with my flavour and dye mixed in and then spray them?
Dean Walsh, via e-mail
There are several ways to help keep your pellets fresh but unless you are fully experienced I wouldn’t try to completely preserve these pellets. Just try to get a few extra days or a week or so at a time.
Glycerine can be used – mix around 50% water and 50% glycerine together to your liquefied dye and flavours. For those who aren’t sure about dyes, you will have to buy some powdered soluble dye for this to work or simply use liquid cake dyes from the supermarket. The powdered dyes will be much stronger than the liquid dyes and the tip of a teaspoon would be enough for one litre of liquid. You will have to experiment if using cake dyes. I would advise the use of rubber gloves when handling dyes and flavours – I always forget and end up plastered.
Put a few pellets into a bag, add the liquid and shake like heck for a few minutes until all of the pellets have been covered. You can try to spray the pellets instead but glycerine is a very heavy liquid and may not atomise well.
Now tip the pellets out onto a drying tray and leave them for a few hours. Keep making small batches until you have enough to last you for a session or two. It is possible that the pellets maybe a bit tacky but I would expect them to last for quite a few days if you keep them dry.
This technique should help you, however, a short cut for fewer days would be to do just what you have done previously but cover the pellets in your bucket with sugar. Simples.
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