All Things Prepping & Homesteading

[Pollard]

Prior prepping threads by nw_arizona_granny, CottonBall and I are listed/linked on my profile page along with some other prepping related links; https://freerepublic.com/~pollard/

AZ_Granny's prepping info from another forum that she and I used to frequent; https://permasteader.com/AZ_Granny/stor01.html

The above html pages as a zip file; https://permasteader.com/AZ_Granny.zip (html files are on a single folder and if kept that way, links will work)

My prepper/homestead files; https://permasteader.com/cloud/index.php/s/H8iLwmfLHiGFyjG They are categorized by subject in folders and sub-folders and most are pdf files. The top level folder is called Prepping. You can download the entire thing, a single folder, subfolder or single file.

I added a folder called High Tunnels inside the Agriculture folder last week.

No particular subject from here on out. Talk or ask questions about anything related homesteading & prepping.

[antceecee]

Please add me

[greeneyes]

BRINGING OVER A POST FROM THE QUIETLY STOCK UP FOR THE STORM—video on prepping etc.

If you go to the website, the EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN and EVERYTHING MADE SIMPLE booklets - Recipes and the amount needed for a year uses solar oven for some cooking. Has very useful list of Equivalencies - see example of a few items below it’s a comprehensive list:

LINK TO THE VIDEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY5kiCzaeYc

HERE’S HER DVD:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608610896/ref=as_li_ss_tl?

HERE’S THE BOOKLET THAT SHE MENTIONS-SOME SOLAR OVEN

http://everythingunderthesunblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/book-2.html

http://everythingunderthesunblog.blogspot.com/

USING A ROCKET STOVE - EVEN SIMPLER -1 YR SUPPLY MANY FOODS ARE 10 TO 30 YRS OR MORE ROTATION:

EVERYTHING MADE SIMPLE:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B06YYNupBx59UldzSmhoOXNHYlE/view?resourcekey=0-h-ZGaIJbAm1YiXEOY4pNMw

EQUIVALENCY INFORMATION
Shelf life will always be diminished by heat and/or moisture.

Applesauce (jars) ...................... 10 yrs 16 Tb / c 4 c / qt
Apple slices (dehydrated).......... 30 yrs 10 c / #10 can =1 1⁄4 lb 1 c dry + 1⁄2 c water = 2 c fresh
Baking powder ....................... 1 to 2 yrs 32 Tb = 1 lb Test: add 1 tsp to 1/3 c hot water. If it foams and
bubbles, it’s good. Exchange baking powder with 2 parts cream of tartar + 1 part baking soda.
Baking soda ............................. Indefinite 32 Tb=1lb Store in sealed container in cool dry place.
Test: add to water....if it bubbles, it’s good.
Beans (dry).................................. 30 yrs 12 c / #10 can 1 lb =2 1⁄2 c dry = 6 c cooked

IF you wanted to do a quick stocking up, you could just use the everything made simple and be done pretty quick.

The kits that she talks about from LDS, are no longer available. Those were number 1 cans. 1 case was the basic food for 1 month for 1 person. Rice, Beans, Red Wheat, White Wheat, Flour, Oats.

Now you have to buy a whole case of whatever if you order from the LDS website. The on line store also has some fruit, veggies, milk, and a few other items.

[Varsity Flight]

We keep up with canned beans and p butter

[metmom]

I do the same thing.

I figure there’s nothing lost by trying.

I’ve had onion seeds last longer than they were supposed to.

[metmom]

Thank you.

[Freedom4US]

Not as well as I should have probably, well wrapped in plastic is all I did. Like someone mentioned if mice or rodents in particular are or became an issue, anything other than a metal container is probably right out, they will eat through it.

It pays to inspect everything periodically. I had to throw out two huge bags of egg noodles because of critters. Maybe I could have froze those and avoided it to begin with, or kept them from being munched on.

Canned good can do weird things too. I’ve found the “store brand” items, while the food quality is often comparable (such as it is) or even better than name brands, they don’t always use a very good can itself. There are different quality levels of the liner itself. Sometimes they will start leaking for no apparent reason. Usually tomato foods are considered acidic and will eat through. And they need to be stored where freezing is not a concern. Maybe, underground or below ground, in the extreme. I assume that’s how Grandma got around it.

My favorite brand of Baked Beans, (which I don’t eat them very often) uses a high quality can and they last. I don’t “like” canned foods, but they are tough to beat in terms of price, and storage life. I tried them after 12 years, and while they had gone a little “stale” they were fine, and was glad to have ‘em.

[Freedom4US]

I’ve never heard that. The Union guys were issued (when they could get it...) coffee in green bean form. I think it was a pretty sought after commodity, and lots of substitutes or ersatz tried, especially, in the Confederate side. Chicory, for example. The “Blue Bellies” had coffee, and “Johnny Reb” had tobacco ... so lots of informal (decidedly against regulations) trading went on.

[Cold Heart]

Do a search, it’s really interesting. Borden had invented sweetened condensed milk a few years earlier and then combined it with the coffee.

The union army saved a lot on logistics switching to the axle grease consistency instant. There were three companies trying to win the contracts.

The articles I read mentioned how bad the green bean coffee worked out. Inconsistent roasting, charred or under cooked, grinding with a rifle butt.

[Freedom4US]

Thanks for the info, definitely “food for thought”. I spent not a little time getting extra calories “put up” or put back, and maybe less time than I should have worrying about protecting it directly from vermin.

I use to throw MRE meal entrees and other items that I didn’t particularly care for into a box and saved them. Have quite a lot of those now, and I still don’t like them - they are just “bad” enough where I’m not inclined to snack on them. But they are filling and nutritious in terms of food value. But they are also completely vulnerable to mice or anything like that, being a thin cardboard box and mylar pouch. I need to come up with something suitable, storage wise. A few years ago I (sort of) almost got rid of them, as I doubted I’d ever actually need them. Now? I look at them just slightly short of “worth their weight in gold”.

[Freedom4US]

[i]The articles I read mentioned how bad the green bean coffee worked out. Inconsistent roasting, charred or under cooked, grinding with a rifle butt.[/i]

I don’t believe that part of it for a second. Roasting coffee beans is ridiculously easy. The first thing they did whenever they could, was get a fire going, to make coffee, roast “side meat” or bacon, beans, etc.

Grinding coffee, well that can be a problem, but where there’s a will there’s a way, and this is never more true than when it comes to soldiers.

[Jane Long]

I just found a huge tin, that I’d filled with flour, 7 years ago. I opened it to take a quick peek...and, it looks just perfect. No evidence of bugs, at all. I’m pretty sure I’d put the flour in the freezer, before I put it in the tin.

[Cold Heart]

I’ve roasted coffee beans over a campfire. It is easy, but you have to stir the beans for about 20 and be alert when they start to crack. The historic articles I read said the roast was often screwed up.

[Freedom4US]

Yeah, I don’t think it’s an always guaranteed problem (bugs/larvae) in flour, but it is most definitely a potential issue. Freezing it definitely seems to work, and keeps the worry away more than anything. I’m still working through a big bag of Safale baker’s yeast I bought some years ago. I froze it in a canning jar, and it seems perfectly fine.

One thing I didn’t have much luck with, is the “all in one” stuff like Bisquick. They use powdered fats of somekind or something that can start to turn rancid or oxidize. I didn’t notice that so much, but I did have to goose it with fresh baking powder to make it work. I just threw it out, and make my own bisquits or dumplings or whatever.

Instant Oatmeal, with sugar and flavorings didn’t fare well at all, though to be fair I didn’t do anything to try tonpreserve them. It tasted real strange. I still have a big container of Quaker old fashioned oats, that are quite ancient. I don’t know if they are bad or not. Maybe, the cardboard isn’t airtight or anything. I’ve since bought several and ate through them as normal, they are inexpensive and a good source of protein, for a grain. Thing is, I don’t really like oatmeal. It’s OK, but it is a good stockpile item. Just hope I never need it. Better to stock foods one really likes.

Another interesting problem, I had an unopened can of cocoa powder that had been bouncing around for years in my chuckbox. When I finally rotated it out, it had a slight but definite whang to it - it tasted like my old (long gone) Chevy pickup smelled - the exhaust. It picked up some oil/gas odor from spending a few too many roadtrips in the bed w/topper area, I guess.

[Freedom4US]

You’ll have to point me to those articles, because I just don’t helieve it. It is not a factor to get an enlisted guy to roast coffee, (possibly an officer ...:) it will be so much better than any “portable” coffee, freeze dried, dehydrated or any field expedient concoction they could have come up with, and it isn’t even going to be close.

Roasters aren’t exactly rocket science either, after all. A metal drum with some holes, a hand crank, and Bob’s Yer Uncle.

[Pollard]

// Thanks but FR went from 3 threads with over 10,000 posts each in 2018 to under 1,700 in 2018 to less than 300 in 2020-21? Where did they all go. Purged, died or left?

Actually nw_az_granny’s 3 threads were 2008/2009 — CottonBall’s 2 threads were 2018/2020

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3982909/posts — News article about prepping — 115 posts

My 3 prepping & Homesteading threads — 37, 124 & 55 posts

Hardly worth the effort.

[Cold Heart]

“You’ll have to point me to those articles, because I just don’t believe it”

I have decided to let you keep your beliefs:)

[Freedom4US]

Facts are stubborn things. Good try, though! LOL

[Freedom4US]

I did find some excellent, extensive articles, btw, about coffee and the civil war, with letters from home, and issued amounts, (about 1.6 oz a day was the ration) and the problems on both sides obtaining it. It was absolutely crucial by all accounts. I've found no mention whatsoever about any dried coffee or any other form of it other than bean coffee or sometimes roasted and ground. That's not to say it didn't exist, it just had to wait for later wars. It still sucks even today, coffee is one of those things that doesn't handle freeze drying very well at all.

[Cold Heart]

It wasn’t dried coffee it was called extract of coffee and had consistency of axle grease.

The coffee was brewed as normal, water was extracted from the brew and then added to Borden’s recently patented sweetened condensed milk. Packed in tins it was sent out to the troops who only needed hot water.

[Freedom4US]

“Professor Tilden’s Extract of Coffee”, I found some info. Ha! Good stuff as far as that goes but I don’t believe it was extensively issued. Not anything like the bean coffee. The blockade really hit the Confederates the worst as far as coffee was concerned, they couldn’t hardly get any, not for love or money. They had some success getting Union supplies when the soldiers had to ditch their haversacks, and a lot of informal (and unauthorized) trading tobacco for coffee went on. Wonder what the exchange rate was?