Posts Tagged ‘long term’

« Older Entries

Rudy, Why On Earth Did You Buy So Much Land?

November 16th, 2009
The previous owners left us a gift...

The previous owners left us a gift...

So if you’re following the story, you know that my family … well, extended family … has ended up with a slew of land. Honestly speaking it’s more land than we need. So what is the point of all of this, and why did we buy as much as we did?

The obvious reasons

Well, for one, it was available at the right price. It was hard to pass it up. As they say, land is the one thing they’re not making any more of. So considering that it was there, picking it up was pretty much a no brainer.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we didn’t buy it all at once. We bought it in more than one step and each purchase had a specific reason. It was fantastic how we got the opportunity to pick up contiguous land in more than one chunk like that.

The real reason

But the real reason why we bought as much as we did was to provide a future blessing to our families. This bears a bit more explanation I think.

While we all aren’t necessarily of the same mind preparedness wise, we all certainly have some commonly held beliefs and goals. One of those is to provide our children with a specific kind of life style that can’t come from a city or a suburban area.

We certainly can’t guarantee how our kids will grow up and what they’ll believe or want for their families but one of the key things we want to allow for is to be able to split off parcels of the land for our kids to have if they so desire. I can speak for all of my family when I say that we would love to have our kids and grand kids decide to follow in our footsteps.

Some people say this sounds like a compound or something, which I guess it technically could be. But more than anything, it is a family coming together and choosing to live near each other. Independent yet together.

Summing it all up

I personally can’t see a better situation for my kids than to be living close enough to walk to their grandparents and their cousins, aunts, and uncles. What could be better than that?

Post to Twitter Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to StumbleUpon

No comments »

Posted in Retreat

Tags: chosing retreat family preparedness long term

Food Storage: Putting Together your Family Food Storage Plan

September 30th, 2009

school desk (320x213)I promised an announcement today, here it is!

Some of you have been asking me to show you how to put together a long term storage plan in more detail. After thinking about it a bit and discussing it with my wife, we’ve realized that this is a huge undertaking and one that needs to be thought through.  Advising folks on how to do this isn’t always easy!

After much consideration, I’ve decided to start a weekly food storage school. Once you sign up for it I will send you an email every Monday with a food storage goal for the next week. I may occasionally send you some other hints, tips, or recommendations throughout the week, but the lessons will come out on Monday. You can join at any time and I’ll start you with week one and we’ll go from there.

My approach will be a bit different than some. I won’t be going whole hog all at once, trying to put a year’s worth of everything away all at once. Instead, we’ll take it slowly, putting together the basics and then begin to turn that into a longer term plan.

Look for a post in the next day or two telling you how to sign up for the class.  Don’t miss it!  Tell all your friends and neighbors!  Invite the family dog!

Post to Twitter Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to StumbleUpon

4 comments »

Posted in Food Storage, Getting Started

Tags: class course education family preparedness food Food Storage How To long term

Food Storage: Long Term Storage of Sugar, Honey, and Syrups

September 21st, 2009

Delicious Sugar!Despite the horrible things that you hear nowadays about sugar and carbohydrates and whatnot, they’re actually a critical part of your diet.  And they provide a great energy dense source of calories.  And besides, how do you make cookies from your food storage if you don’t have any sweetener?

There are three major classifications of sweeteners we should consider for long term storage.  Right now I’m only considering natural sweeteners.  I don’t know that much about the shelf life of artificial sweeteners since I don’t actually use them.  In any case, the three categories to consider are Sugars, Honey, and Syrups.

Sugars and Long Term Food Storage

There are several types of sugar that are suitable for long term storage.  Sugar is particularly sensitive to moisture so it is critical to keep it dry.  Aside from that it’s important to store it with the usual guidelines:  Cool, Dark, and Dry.  Sugar has an indefinite shelf life, though some folks say to use it within two years.  Microbes can’t grow in it and it doesn’t mold or anything.  Good stuff!

Rudy’s Tip: Sugar can actually absorb flavors and smells from the air around it.  Be sure to store it in an airtight container!  You’d hate to have Motor Oil flavored sugar.

Granulated Sugar

This is what you see all over the place at the store and is the cornerstone of your storage plan.  It won’t spoil and if you store it dry and cool it will store forever and a day.  If you happen to get it wet it will cake up and get all hard and crusty.  Never fear, Rudy is here!  Just smash it up again and voila, you’re in good shape!

Powdered Sugar

This is good stuff and a cornerstone for icing, frosting, and the like.  It’s actually the exact same stuff as granulated sugar which has been ground even finer.  Sometimes the refinery adds corn starch to prevent caking.  The biggest problem with powdered sugar is that it absorbs water like a frat boy guzzles tequila on spring break.  If you let moisture in, it will cake up and you won’t be able to get it back to then fine powdery condition you’re used to.  Life goes on.  Since you now know it’s the same stuff as granulated sugar, just use it for that instead!

Brown Sugar

I gotta say, this is one of my favorite kinds of sugar.  It’s basically granulated sugar with molasses and a bit of caramel coloring.  It comes in Dark and Light variants.  Dark has more molasses and thus a darker color and a stronger flavor.  Brown sugar is different from other sugars in that it is supposed to be moist.    That means you can’t dry it out.  Best bet is to store it the same as other sugar but leave out the  desiccant.

Rudy’s Tip: Just store dark brown sugar.  If you need light brown, mix one part granulated sugar to three parts dark brown sugar, mix well, and enjoy!

Honey and Long Term Storage

I love honey.  I think it’s one of the ultimate long term storage sweeteners.  It’s natural, you can easily produce it yourself, it’s healthy, and it keeps forever.  And it tastes so darn good.  The only problem is figuring out what to buy.  My preference is to buy local honey if I can’t produce it myself.  If you can’t find local honey, look at the store but be careful.  You MUST buy honey that is labeled pure.  You want to get filtered honey if possible over liquid honey as the process to liquefy the honey after initial filtering destroys most of the nutrients.

Honey stores forever, just keep it dry and away from air.  Over time honey can darken which can intensify the flavor but is otherwise nothing to be concerned about.  Store it with your other food and you should be fine.

Rudy’s Tip: Honey can crystallize relatively easily.  If it happens, drop the container into hot water for a while and it will liquefy.  It’s nothing to worry about!

Syrup and Long Term Storage

There’s a bunch of different kinds of syrup, but there are only a couple that are interesting for me.

Molasses

This is good stuff.  Tastes good to me, though my wife doesn’t like it all that much!  It’s a byproduct of the sugar refining process.  It will store for about two years on the shelf.  Make sure it doesn’t have any corn syrup in it as corn syrup has a far shorter shelf life.

Rudy’s Tip: In a pinch, add a tablespoon or so of molasses to a cup of sugar and make your own brown sugar!

Maple Syrup

Yummy pancakes!  If you like syrup on your pancakes and whatnot, then store this too.  Preferably glass bottles for maximum storage life.  Similar to molasses, it will store for two years or so when stored on a cool dark shelf.  Again, make sure that there is no corn syrup on the ingredient list if you’re buying pancake syrup vs pure maple syrup (which is ridiculously expensive).

In Closing

I hope this helps.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, we can’t forget about sugar in our long term storage planning! As always, let me know if you have any questions about any of this.

Post to Twitter Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to StumbleUpon

2 comments »

Posted in Food Storage

Tags: brown sugar food Food Storage honey long term molasses sugar syrup

Food Storage: Storage Options for Long Term Storage of Dry Food

September 16th, 2009

Buckets of FoodWhen storing dry goods for long term there are some common requirements regardless of what you’re storing.  First, things should be stored cool.  Below 75 degrees is best, cooler if possible.  Second, food should be stored in the dark.  For some foods it won’t matter, but many vitamins and whatnot are sensitive to light and will degrade rapidly if exposed.  Third, food should be stored in an oxygen free environment.  Oxygen can oxidize containers and allows bugs to grow.  Finally, food should be stored in a moisture free environment to prevent rotting, mold, etc.

There are a number of different methods for storing dry food that (more or less) meet these requirements, or at least most of them.

Canning Jars

You can use a vacuum attachment for a food saver, etc to vacuum seal regular mason canning jars.  Say we want to store a bunch of Mentos.  Pour a bunch of Mentos into the jar, drop in a couple desiccant packages and an oxygen absorber packet or two, seal it up using the directions of the food saver.  You’re good to go.  Two major drawbacks to canning jars are the fact that they don’t protect the contents from light and they break easily.

Rudy’s Tip: Desiccant is a substance that absorbs moisture.  You’ve seen them in things like shoe boxes, etc from time to time.  Don’t reuse those for food though, buy new ones!

#10 Metal Cans

These are metal cans that look somewhat like older coffee cans.  They store great and handle damage well. They are one of the best choices for long term storage.  The problem is that they’re expensive and the equipment to seal them up costs even more.  About a grand, give or take a hundred bucks or two.  Too pricy for my blood.  If you really want to use these, you can often rent the sealing equipment from your local LDS family cannery.  Similar to vacuum packing canning jars, you want to use desiccant and oxygen absorbing packets when sealing the can.  Many of the off the shelf ‘food storage’ products come in #10 cans.

Food Grade Buckets

Buckets can be a good starting point.  They’re pretty robust, they stack well, and they are opaque.  They are oxygen permeable however, so that can limit the length of time one can safely store food in a bucket.  You can get around this by adding a non permeable liner or using a dry ice pack.  I’ll write a post about using dry ice later on.

Rudy’s Tip: You can get SQUARE buckets!  They are vastly more space effective than the round ones, and are arguably more stable when you start building bucket towers.

Mylar Bags

Mylar is a ’space age material’ which means it’s the best thing since sliced bread, right?  Well, it truly is a fantastic material.  It’s water and airtight, impermeable to light and insects.  To use a bag, you fill it with the dry food, add an oxygen absorber packet or two, and seal it with heat.  You can use a sealer designed for sealing mylar bags or if you are desperate you can use an iron.  Practice sealing bags empty until you have a handle on it, then move onto the real thing.

Rudy’s Tip: Since these things are so fragile store them in a rigid container of some sort.  Like the food grade buckets above.

Where Can I Find These Things?

Think local restaurant storage stores for buckets and jars.  You can often find them used for free or minimal charge if you ask around at restaurants and the like.  Jars can often also be found in second hand stores like Goodwill.  Mylar bags can be bought on the internet and you may be able to find local sources at well.  I don’t buy empty #10 cans so I can’t really help there!

Rudy’s Tip: Small Mylar bags can be hard to find.  In a pinch, you can buy big bags and ’subdivide’ them easily to get smaller bags.  That can be useful for storing things like spices, dried herbs, and that sort of thing.

Final Thoughts

There are other options for food storage but these are the mainstream choices.  Please feel free to ask any questions you might have and I’ll do my best to answer quickly!

Post to Twitter Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to StumbleUpon

No comments »

Posted in Food Storage

Tags: #10 cans canning jars food food grade buckets Food Storage long term mylar bags

Food Storage: Long Term Storage of Dried Milk

September 14th, 2009

English Dried Milk from World War IIThe cornerstone to any long term storage of dairy products is dried milk.  It keeps well when properly stored.  It tastes reasonably similar to fresh milk when reconstituted, and tastes even better if you add a touch of flavoring such as vanilla extract or powdered milk flavoring (my kids love strawberry!) at the same time as you add water.

What kinds of dried milk are there?

There are three main types of dried milk available to the general public.  They have different characteristics and vary widely as to suitability for long term storage

Dry Buttermilk
It is what it says it is … buttermilk that has been dried out.  It’s a reasonable replacement in recipes calling for buttermilk.  The problem is that it has a high fat content.  Fat goes rancid easily, and so does this milk.  It’s not a good candidate for long term storage and I don’t recommend storing any of it.

Dry Whole Milk
Similar to buttermilk, dried whole milk is heavy on the fat and is thus not suitable for long term food storage.  Thankfully it’s pretty rare so the temptation probably won’t be there.

Non Fat Dry Milk
This is what you usually find on the shelves at your local store.  It’s non fat so it keeps well, and is what I recommend to you for long term storage.

Rudy’s Tip: You can find dried milk in things such as hot chocolate packets, etc.  Be sure to look at the ingredients list to make sure those use non fat milk before you store them.  Incidentally, storage of hot chocolate packets is HIGHLY recommended.  Yum!

Non Fat Dried Milk it is…

When you go buy this stuff, make sure you buy it fortified with vitamins A and D.  This is usually the case, but you want the extra vitamin content since those vitamins are not found in non fat milk.  You want to buy the Instant kind instead of Regular, because it reconstituted easily and is easier to find.  It takes up a bit more room than regular, but the ease of use is well worth it.  Ideally you want ‘Extra Grade’ which is a higher quality product.  So to sum up, you’re looking for Extra Grade Instant Non Fat Dried Milk Fortified with Vitamins A and D. How’s that for a mouthful?

Do I need to repackage this?

Yes.  The packaging this comes in off the store shelf is poorly suitable for long term storage.  In fact, you’re pretty much shot at about three months.  You want to repackage it into containers that will keep the milk moisture and oxygen free and away from light.  The best way to store it is in mylar bags or #10 metal cans.   My personal preference is to repackage it into mylar bags with an oxygen absorbing packet dropped in.  Sealed mylar bags are then dropped into five gallon buckets (don’t have to be food grade, but should be new) and covered up with a tight fitting lid.  You can also store it in large canning jars with the packet, but you MUST make sure to keep it dark.

So now that it’s repackaged, how do I store it?

Store it in the dark as cool as possible.  Heat is the main factor in how long it will store.  If you store it at 70 degrees it should keep for about four years.  As is often the case, our mantra here is ‘Store it dark, store it cool, store it dry’ for best results.

Rudy’s Tip: Once you open a package, you should use it within three months.  Be sure to continue to keep it cool and dark.  Make sure you keep this in mind when you repackage your milk.

How do I use it?

Ideally you’d write the manufacturers instructions on the outside of your bag or cut it out and drop it in the bucket with the product.  Barring that, figure about 1/3 cup of powder to 1 cup of water for a single serving.  You can aerate it like you would water to add oxygen and improve the flavor a bit.  Make sure to mix it a few hours before you want to use it so it has a chance to dissolve completely.  You can also use this milk to make yogurt, cheese, and the like.

Post to Twitter Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to StumbleUpon

6 comments »

Posted in Food Storage

Tags: dairy dried milk food Food Storage long term