Food Storage..

  • EvW

    Member
    March 3, 2024 at 12:14 am

    Review how you evacuate the air from jars.

    • MartHale7

      Member
      March 3, 2024 at 3:16 pm

      Sorry, I don’t understand? Are you asking how does Heidi remove the air from the jars?

  • Squeeze

    Member
    March 3, 2024 at 10:58 pm

    you can get a set of the vacume sealer lids (reg and wide) for about 15 bucks on amazon and either use a vacume sealer or a brake line hand pump for vacume

  • MartHale7

    Member
    March 3, 2024 at 11:50 pm

    https://rumble.com/v2glcco-options-for-vacuum-sealing-dried-goods.html

  • JerseyGiantChick

    Member
    March 4, 2024 at 5:34 am

    Still 25 cheap prices over here from aldi or lidl, waiting to get one on a good deal.

  • Redcap

    Member
    March 20, 2024 at 2:49 pm

    I liked where Heidi showed the cabinet full of jars and said a goal is to fill the jars. That’s kind of what I did. Figured out how many half gallon jars I’d need of a few really emergency items: potatoes, cabbage, veg, and leafy greens, mushrooms, etc. for a big pot of emergency cooking soup/stew to have for the week if there was nothing else OR we just can’t buy stuff (financial crisis at home) OR we get sick or injured and it’s just an easy thing to make once and eat all week. Plus some other things I want for long term storage in these big jars and I just bought all the jars and lined them up on a couple of Ikea metal shelves I had and started filling them up. I can look at the shelf and know how many more I need to fill up. Or if we’re using anything I’m buying, like nuts, what to replace.

    That visual simplicity is what I need. Because we don’t need to right now, I don’t dehydrate for daily use and rotate. This is mainly my long-term storage for the next couple of years. We figure we won’t really feel the need to start using it regularly and rotating it until maybe next year when I think it might have been on the shelf awhile – and that’s mostly the cabbage because it’s getting more light brown as it sits in the jars even though it’s a dark room with no windows and it’s all vacuum-sealed.

    It was a good talk about the milk, too, because we haven’t had the funds to put by powdered milk. But I did the math and it would cost about $10-$12 per gallon once reconstituted. I get organic whole milk for about $7, but the trays would have to hold such a small amount of milk, that by the time I dehydrated a gallon, it would take forever and cost a fortune in electricity.

    • MartHale7

      Member
      March 22, 2024 at 5:29 am

      I went with powdered milk I love the butter milk from Azure I bought an on clearance 50 lb butter milk a few years ago and vacuum sealed it. The price of dehydrated milk is so high I was wondering if buying hay and a cow would be cheaper…… Ode to inflation…

      I have been thinking that if I am to survive on my food stocks that vacuum sealed whole grains is the best backup. which I have been doing with 1 gal food saver bags. Expensive, but it kills all of the bugs, and I did it back in 2020 when prices were better….. Oats is still cheap and I would say they still are now, I have stopped putting ground flour in 5 gal buckets and switched to 1/2 gal mason jars, more expensive than 5 gal buckets, but I feel better about that storage method.

      My strategy is to have 2 -5 years of grain backup. Then fill my empty jars with cabbage ferment since I now grow my cabbage with kratky hydroponics in jugs….. Slowly every so slowly I have been able to start replacing meals to 1/2 of a meal with the fermented cabbage because it is so easy to grow, cut up ferment, then grab and eat.

      This has been easy for me because I am single, but I can now understand as a family how this would be more of a challenge.

      • JerseyGiantChick

        Member
        March 26, 2024 at 4:21 pm

        You are alone now, but I bet you people will come to visit you maybe even stay. All jokes aside, hope not same here we all need to stay save.

        My biggest thought is need to become a person I do not want to be and I am not. Composting and feeding strange input.

        Drying all possible, to save freezer space and as a back up. This year wanna make a smoker, from a small shed and a rocked stove any ideas for warm and cold smoking?

      • MartHale7

        Member
        March 26, 2024 at 9:29 pm

        Pinball Prepper built a smoker… I have stockpiled salt for preserving with ferments… Too much to know about storing food it seems.

      • JerseyGiantChick

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 7:39 am

        Thank you will look it up from Pinball, salt is very important to stock up!

      • Amgbluesky98

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 1:44 pm

        Salt is a good thing to have on hand. Every time I have looked to buy in bulk it is not available.

      • JerseyGiantChick

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 1:49 pm

        Can understand it is hard to buy in bulk, I leave with a cart full and people look if I am nuts. Nope it is just the bottem, rest are other groceries. And I do not go daily like you city folks, so just keep on shopping noting to see.

      • Amgbluesky98

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 2:05 pm

        I watch my friends and family go grocery shopping weekly and spend hundreds of dollars each trip. We are making a trip on Friday to the big bulk buying store and will spend a couple of hundred, but it will stock us up for a while. I also order flour, wheat berries, oats, and other things from Azure about 2x a year. I will be buying meat directly from the farm this year too.

      • JerseyGiantChick

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 3:57 pm

        If I was them, I would ask if it was possible to order in bulk together.

      • Amgbluesky98

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 4:30 pm

        I’ve tried with my kids to go in on beef or pork but they get all their meat delivered by a food service so they are not interested. Friends don’t buy in bulk because they like to live with their heads in the sand. 🤷‍♀️ the last 4 years have not taught them anything.

      • MartHale7

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 4:50 pm

        Yes that is what I do, Azure, then a couple of days converting the food to long term storage with vacuum sealing, or slicing the cheese., then freezing.

      • Amgbluesky98

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 5:06 pm

        Yes me too. Last fall I had to rearrange the freezer just to fit all the grains and sugar for a few days. I put the stuff I use regularly into small mylar bags and then into 5 gallon buckets. Once the bags get opened they come upstairs into half gallon mason jars under the counter.

      • MartHale7

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 4:49 pm

        Azure standard makes that much easier as everyone there is buying in bulk.

      • MartHale7

        Member
        March 27, 2024 at 4:52 pm

        I got mine from Azure Standard, then I vacuum sealed it to keep moisture out.

      • Redcap

        Member
        April 5, 2024 at 4:37 pm

        I really like the cabbage growing you’re doing. Can you point me to the method you’re using? I’m not a big grain person or bread but we do have a lot of cornmeal and oats put by along with a lot of dehydrated potato. Those are our main starches.

  • Amgbluesky98

    Member
    March 26, 2024 at 3:01 pm

    I would never have thought about dehydrating cabbage. If I ever perfect growing it I will do more than ferment for sure. Rice is another great thing to cook up and then dehydrate. It sounds kind of stupid but when you are in a hurry to make up a meal, you have instant rice on hand.

    • MartHale7

      Member
      March 28, 2024 at 12:20 am

      I have cans of chicken soup on the shelf for if I get sick. I have not been sick in a few years so I may need to used them up and replace them…. That is a good thing 😉

      • Redcap

        Member
        April 5, 2024 at 4:39 pm

        That happened to me. I had chicken soup cans and didn’t get sick for so long, they were out of date when I went to clean out the store bought cans in the pantry. Hahaha! Now my husband makes me chicken bone broth by cooking it down and then actually grinding up everything including the bones so it’s thick but still totally liquid. He freezes it now, but next Tim, I’d like to try to dehydrate some, if he’ll let me take some.

  • JerseyGiantChick

    Member
    March 27, 2024 at 6:03 pm

    Glad to read you are all preparing!

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