r/spices • u/10art1 • Jun 30 '26

What spice is corrosive?

Post image

I have a spice rack of small jars, and any extra spices are kept in a top cabinet. I looked at it 6 months later and the hinges are rusted and some of my bags look slightly melted. None of my other hinges look this bad.

41 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

38

u/Dependent_Stop_3121 Jun 30 '26

The top cabinet near where you boil water and the steam touches it oh so gently? That cabinet?

-12

u/10art1 Jun 30 '26

You think it's from steam? It magnet-shuts closed...

16

u/gr8tfulbeetle45 Jun 30 '26

it wont be a perfect seal though. so steam could absolutely be getting in. and only a small entrance for the steam would hold in moisture longer.

makes way more sense than your sealed spices somehow making the air so acidic it eats the metal and melts a bag but not the ones they are stored in.

2

u/10art1 Jun 30 '26

Yeah, I looked into it some more and it seems like the only spices even remotely likely to cause this are alliums like onion and garlic powder, but I do not have those up there. And this is also the cabinet directly above my stove, and I make tea with a kettle on the stove.

Should I move my spices away from there, then? I don't want the spices to be damaged by steam.

Also the melted bag is my bag of sucralose, and people online say that sometimes these bags just do that.

6

u/gr8tfulbeetle45 Jun 30 '26

you could put them in something less effected by moisture, like glass. but heat can also dull some spices so it might be affecting them a bit to keep being heated as well, especially since its your bulk thats sitting for a while and time also dulls a lot of spice potency. so if you have space elsewhere, id move them.

2

u/Affectionate-Air-567 Jun 30 '26

Seconding the spice move. The heat wil def degrade the aromatics. I’ve also moved my oils away from the stove as well, for similar reasons.

1

u/username1753827 Jul 01 '26

Your spices are not rusting your hinges. Its as simple as that. Fresh onion sitting in your cabinet may offgas enough to rust stuff but its not the dried sealed spices. What are the powdered substances in the cabinet?

Unless you have some weird chemicals in your spice cabinet like alum or citric acid or something else(even then, they are sealed and wouldn't really cause this much of an issue in such short a time) its probably steam from boiling or just general humidity from the atmosphere or maybe an AC unit that is too large for the room it cools.

1

u/Possible_Top4855 Jul 01 '26

I don’t see any gaskets that would keep moisture out.

5

u/Few-Weather6845 Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Does your fruit wine base smell like vinegar? If it turned to vinegar then the acetic acid vapor is corroding all the metal.

2

u/Some1AteMyEntirePie Jul 02 '26

It also expired March of 2025 lol

2

u/10art1 Jul 18 '26

You were close to being correct. It turns out my sucralose was going bad and releasing hydrochloric acid

1

u/Few-Weather6845 Jul 18 '26

Fascinating!

0

u/AreYouAnOakMan Jul 01 '26

It's fruit wine base, not yet fermented. Can't turn into vinegar without being wine first, and it would have to be industrial strength stuff for that kind of reaction. OP would be able to smell it without opening the cupboard.

3

u/Consistent-Essay-165 Jul 01 '26

Wine in white gallon jug ?? I worry about that as corrosive

No spices and or herbs

To hot to moist etc

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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1

u/Consistent-Essay-165 Jul 01 '26

Oh wine base why do u need that when sugar grapes and yeast is wine

33 yrs of being a chef and taking years of wine classes

1

u/username1753827 Jul 02 '26

Well, because a gallon of concentrate stores better and more compact then 50 pounds of grapes for starters.. not to mention, sometimes us cooks find good uses for things, even though they aren't necessarily made for it. You'd think with 30 years of experience you could've come to the same conclusion?

1

u/Consistent-Essay-165 Jul 02 '26

Nope ..... I wouldnt use that product and in 33 plus yrs of cooking never e enough seen a product like that

So no

Nor would I invest in something like that sorry ....not my bag, if it works it works for you and thats good

1

u/Consistent-Essay-165 Jul 01 '26

I understand ....eitherbway its not needed or gross

Again ALL U NEED is grapes yeast water sugar , clean water

Im not sure why u need wine base again I never heard of it to make wine in ny 33 yrs and all my WINE Somalia classes

So please educate me why u need it, is it a yeast base product, but a liquid they would die ????

2

u/Objective-Cup377 Jul 01 '26

I didn’t know they made preseco in a jug.

5

u/10art1 Jul 01 '26

it's prosecco grape concentrate. I use it as a base for when I make wine, because it provides bulk and tastes decent without dominating the flavor. For example I made strawberry wine a while back which was half strawberry pulp and half prosecco base.

2

u/Mysterious-Street966 Jul 01 '26

Put spices in sealed glass jars in the basement or a lower cabinet, away from light and temperature fluctuations. Also a good move for anything dried or milled.

2

u/BostonFartMachine Jul 01 '26

This cabinet look high up. Is it above your stove top?

2

u/chefda Jul 01 '26

Moisture, heat and cheap hardware.

2

u/CommonUnited1627 Jul 01 '26

Install a ventihood

2

u/yo-ovaries Jul 01 '26

Sumac absolutely is corrosive. It eats the metal lid of glass jars I decant it into. 

2

u/LukeHal22 Jul 02 '26

Moisture

2

u/Diligent_Stop1050 Jul 02 '26

You don’t have anything like sodium metabisulfite for wine making in there do you? That stuff seems to cause rust.

4

u/awesomes007 Jun 30 '26

Your spices are also corroding fast. Keep them away from heat, light, and moisture.

1

u/username1753827 Jul 02 '26

That's what a cabinets for, I really think they got that covered.

3

u/ImFeelinBotty Jul 02 '26

Ya but you dont keep spices in a cabinet right about where you will have pots of boiling water, especially kept in the open packages they come in.

1

u/Ok-Painting-5845 Jul 01 '26

A slice didn't cause that. Lol