How to store brown sugar

Once you have opened the bag, brown sugar will dry out and turn into a brick very quickly. The solution is to include something moist when you reclose the bag. You can get terracotta disks (which you soak in water first) for this purpose or you can include a slice of bread, a piece of apple or potato or something similar as described here: http://startcooking.com/how-to-store-brown-sugar (the site goes on to explain how you can soften hardened sugar in the microwave - but you must then use it immediately!) The sugar hardens because it contains molasses which dries out and hardens. If you include something which contains moisture it will maintain the humidity in the bag and keep the sugar soft. As a side note, in countries where sugar cane is grown and processed, the waste products (which contain impure and dirty molasses) are used like tarmacadam to surface roads!

As soon as you get the sugar home from the store, put it in a large zip lock bag and put it in the fridge. Refrigerators today dehydrate everything and this is what you want for sugar storage.

I have been putting my brown sugar into smaller Ziploc Containers in recent years and haven't been having problems. If I left it in the bag it would become a brick and I would soften it in the microwave.

I`m used to place every dry food I buy in plastic bags (they can be ziplocks, but I also use some that are less expensive.). Although not all of the food get hard, such as brown sugar, it much depends on the temperature and humidity in your kitchen what happens. I keep salt this way too, but place some raw rice in salt shakers, specially in Winter.

This is going to sound strange but I saw a video on this a while back. Basically you need to add lemon peels or orange peels to it because it will absorb the moisture from it. It won't add lemon flavor or smell to it though.