Your Food Storage Equation...

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Just put another 20 kilos of flour, 10 kilos of sugar and 5 packs of baking powder into a steel spring sealed heavy plastic container. Absolute waterproof, bug-proof and you need to go thru 3 doors to get into the pantry so there are no mice, rat or bug problems and the window is double mosquito netted and stapled. Bottled five liters of red wine and will filter the other 4 liters tomorrow, don't have enough bottles any more...Bottoms up!
 
TuckerDane said:
There's a lot of conflicting information out there about what's better to stock up on. Freeze dried food storage (buckets, kits, MRE, etc) or just non perishable foods.

What are you stocking? Is there a company you prefer? Are you doing a combination of non perishable and freeze dried?

Interested in seeing your ideas.
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People's storage protocols most often reflect their outlooks on what they believe is most likely to happen and their time and skillsets.

You store differently if you are figuring on a 5 year lockdown in a bunker somewhere than you do for utilizing land at a BOL indefinately.

I fall into the latter category so I have a years supply of freeze dried food in the event we would all have to go to ground for some reason or if there was a drought and our crops failed, lots of "regular" shelf stable foods from the grocery store that get rotated through, some home canned things and seeds....lots and lots of existing perennial plants and heirloom seeds.
 
Danil54grl said:
They were about a 1/4 inch. Will take around 16-18 hours to dry. I much rather like freeze drying melons now I will admit. Drying the watermelon is much more like a jerky, but still good.
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I took a bite this morning. Still really wet, but I can taste super sweet. As I have mentioned many times, I can't taste except to distinguish sweet, salty and bitter. Can't tell one flavor from another, but this melon is sweet as candy.
 
Question. I am dehydrating watermelon and there is too much for my five trays. I have extra trays from my broken dehydrator. How many extra trays can I add, if any and does it require that I rotate the trays for even dehydrating?
 
robinjopo said:
if any and does it require that I rotate the trays for even dehydrating?
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I only make beef jerky and always rotate the lower trays towards the top several times to get even drying.
Before I got a real dehydrator, I used the electric over on lowest setting of 50°C (140-150°F) and held the door open a little bit with a wooden spoon.
 
Danil54grl said:
They were about a 1/4 inch. Will take around 16-18 hours to dry. I much rather like freeze drying melons now I will admit. Drying the watermelon is much more like a jerky, but still good.
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How much did it change the taste?
One day the Wife and I decided to juice a watermelon and the juice tasted nothing like a watermelon.
We just dumped it out.
 
Buttoni said:
I haven't made jerky in ages, but do have a dehydrator down at the BOL. Will likely make some as meat defrosts (if we lose power to the freezer)..........along with pressure canning some of it.
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Are you on the grid at your BOL? Or do you have an alternative energy source?
 
TexPrep said:
I do make a lot of beef jerky in the dehydrator so It'll be easy enough to dry some water melon.
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One of my absolute favorite jerky recipes from Jerky Lovers.

Jerky Lover's Jerky - Sweet, Hot and Spicy
  • 1 tablespoon onion powder
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 2 teaspoons cracked black pepper, or to taste
  • 1 pound lean beef sirloin tip, sliced into 1/8 inch strips
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 5 tablespoons liquid smoke flavoring
  • 1/2 cup pineapple juice
  • 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste (optional)
  • In a small bowl or cup, mix together the onion powder, garlic powder, and some cracked black pepper. Season the meat lightly, using only part of the mixture. Reserve the remaining spices. Place into an airtight plastic container or bowl, and refrigerate.
  • In a saucepan over medium heat, mix together the brown sugar, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, liquid smoke flavoring and pineapple juice. Heat until the brown sugar has completely dissolved. Pour over the meat, and mix by hand to coat really well. Seal the bowl, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours to marinate.
  • Arrange the beef strips on the rack of a dehydrator, and sprinkle with a little bit more of the spice mixture and red pepper flakes if using. Dry for 5 hours, or to your desired dryness.
 
Danil54grl said:
Are you on the grid at your BOL? Or do you have an alternative energy source?
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We're on the grid at the cabin, until power goes down. Then it's 2 generators to run fridge/freezer and well pump as needed, until fuel is no longer available. We know nothing about setting up solar and it's cost prohibitive to have someone come in and do that for us.......plus it's really too late at this juncture.
 
Watermelon wine, dandelion wine....those were the days...
Don't forget to put some Jack Daniels or Jim Beam in your beef jerky people. The alcohol is gone but the flavor and aroma comes thru.
Buttoni said:
We know nothing about setting up solar and it's cost prohibitive
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There are simple solar systems in-the-box and small wind mills you can install yourself for off grid in e-bay. Take a look at what is up for sale. Also get a few used solar panels (photovoltaic is best) and simple parts in e-bay also. Watch a few videos to the "how-to" and try it. It worked for me and I only have one large battery to run the fridge for one hour each day and it stays frozen with extry insulation surrounding the stand-up freezer for 36 hours...I can also run all my small electric tools, drill, circular saw, mobil phone and laptops charging, spare batteries for lights and such all run off a single panel and battery with a small inverter.
 
I've watched the how-to videos (can't get my husband to, however). You're talking to a female who didn't understand any of it I watched. I'm married to a city boy unknowledgeable on such things (and unwilling) to tackle many do-it-yourself projects due to past failures when attempted. He hires everything like that done. Just being honest. He has laid in his Jack Daniels, brandy and gin at the BOL. ;)

So we're going to learn real fast how to live like they did in the 1850's, without electricity, TV, fridges, freezers or air conditioning. All our preps & prep equipment/tools investments have all been chosen for use in an off-grid cabin. We'll be reverting to a 'Townsends' world, in other words. When I say our cabin BOL is rustic, it is precisely that. Electricity is a luxury we just won't have when SHTF. The transition will be difficult at first, as we humans do get spoiled. But humans are amazingly resilient when it comes to roughing it and survival. To put that into perspective, I'm old enough to remember not having air-conditioning in my house growing up; old enough to have experienced lousy TV reception with crappy rabbit ears (and sometimes no reception at all). And I'm still here to talk about 'living through' such times. Those creature comforts are nice. I'd be crazy to say they aren't. But they're just not necessities in a SHTF scenario IMO. We have oil lamps mounted on the walls in our cabin for light. If power is ever restored, the cabin is capable of using at a moment's notice.
 
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