by Ron Foster
“Should we set more back for ourselves, you think?” his mom squeaked, horrified that it looked like they would be totally out in a month.
“No, I have a small pantry in the utility room also as well as all that dehydrated and freeze dried stuff in the prep shed. As far as regular can goods go let her think this is it for now.” Dennis said putting the cans back on the shelf and then starting to carry the goods he had already selected to stash under the bed back to his moms room.
“So they wont be eating with us here then? “ Mom said a bit confused but somewhat relived.
“Oh we are going to share some communal type meals off and on. Tonight for example Charles cooked up all that meat I had in the freezer and has it on ice. I figure the next week or so we will both be working on our places and gardens some so we will not see much of each other. Today’s Monday so we feast and talk about organization, Thursday we invite them over to our place for community chow down again and I will make a big pot of something for all of us.” Dennis said speculating.
“Any idea what you are going to make for dinner Thursday?’ His mom asked mystified as to what storage food was all about or what Dennis had stored.
“We are going to have to wean ourselves off the great American diet in order to keep our spirits and our bodies up to par. We have some good eats put back and we have the dull crap iron rations of wheat, rice and beans for which by the way you can start studying those cook books I got for it. I have a lot of TVP also to make it more interesting and nutritious so we won’t be hard timing it that much for awhile. I need to go out to my prep shed and put them together at least a month of dehydrated and freeze dried meals on my own, I don’t want to show all those food stores at once. You need to follow along so you understand what we have and then we need to decide how we are going to put some in a few different locations. That’s another reason I want to give them a bit more than a months worth, it doesn’t do to have all your eggs in one basket. Or for that matter, pardon my pun, all them cans of powdered eggs I have either.” Dennis said chuckling and starting to head to his backdoor with his mom and show her the portable building he used as his prep shed.
“Don’t powdered eggs taste nasty? I remember your father complained about them serving them to him in the military.” His mom said good naturedly and excited to see what Dennis had stored and had managed to somehow conceal from her for sometime.
“They are a lot better now than they were; you always preferred breakfast food so you might enjoy all the pancakes and cereals we will be having. By the way I have to introduce to canned bacon. Don’t turn your nose up its good and pre cooked. “Dennis said smiling and turning the key on his prep sheds lock.
“Wa la! Welcome to prepperdom. Sorry the floor looks like a grenade went off , I was searching for a few things the other day as well as haven’t had the opportunity to properly arrange my stuff yet. Watch out for those solar panels, they go on the SUNRNR solar generator (Coupon code Prepper1) I will mount them on the roof this week sometime, I have been just attaching them every couple months in portable mode until I decided to do a permanent installation. Now then, this is about 2 yrs worth of food for 1 or in our case maybe one year worth for 4 and those 5 gallon buckets are about a year and a half for one person of what I call the basics. So what that means Mom is the Lord willing and the creek don’t rise we are all set for about 2 years or longer and that don’t count my garden or hunting and trapping..” Dennis said proudly with a crookedly grin that betrayed he wasn’t sure he liked being proved right about prepping so much but he was damn proud to show her he had.
“Dennis, I take back all those arguments and everything I ever said about you getting in debt on this stuff.” His Mom began.
“No Mom you were right, we are just lucky the “roll of the dice “are in our favor this time. I cut my buying out big time and was working on my bills as a basic ideal of being responsible and self sufficient. That’s a realization and a true prepper notion that was lost on me for a long time and I more than suffered from it. Still do if they figure out how to do bill collecting these days. Having treasure that is susceptible to rot, shelf life etc. as well as incurring massive amounts of debt with school loans has bedeviled me and my thinking for years. Right now, lets forget about all that and let me teach you a bit about this crap and you dream up some recipes how to use it.” Dennis said humbly remembering the bill collectors and financial juggling he had had to do to keep his head above water and still keep everyone’s respect.
“Dennis, you have always worked for yourself and been on the fringe of normal society. I could never tell you what to do but you always made me proud. You worried the hell out of me when you were younger but you matured and calmed down as you got older and more responsible. I forget who said it but I have watched you become many men.
"A man who works with his hands is a laborer,
A man who works with his hands and brain is a craftsman,
A man who works with his hands, and his brain, and his heart is an artist."
“The Prepper craze was something I didn’t understand but you pointed out it was a world wide phenomenon and you became artful in it and for that I am glad. Your old mom is not telling you how to live your life so you don’t have regrets when you are old. I have already done that and you chose paths that put a lot, a hell of a lot of grey hair on the both of us. Thing is Dennis. I trust you and you my boy so I love you. I always said you were smart as hell in spite of yourself and for some reason you foresaw all this, I wish you would consider God might have nudged you a bit and give thanks to him but you and I don’t talk much about that because you are not a church going man. You thought about how you were going to handle disasters, got academic degrees in it, served time in the military dealing with them and I am dependant on you now son to take care of me so use that mind of yours to do your best.” She said hesitantly looking teary eyed at him.
“Mom we are both going to be just fine, and thanks for understanding and all the help you gave me along the way.” Dennis said giving her a long hug of reassurance and watery eyed commitment.
The parent and child looked but a moment at each other in recognition and then formally straightened their outlooks and emotions to the tasks at hand.
Dennis explained to her that the disarray she might have first thought of his prep shed had method to its non-apparent madness. Fuel, water, packs and tools had there own places. Long term storage food, electricity capabilities, medical stores, as well as repair parts had another. Things look jumbled but Dennis knew where everything was at as well as animal traps, snares, baits, lures, fishing equipment, other sources of alternative energy and cooking or food production etc. Every item had its story and more than one practical use. It was a Dennis’s gold in more ways than one and he loved to explain why he had two food dehydrators or two bread makers to operate from several types of energy without getting technical. He wanted to reassure his mom but not overwhelm her in his little prepper Mecca he had created.
“You need to hurry up Dennis, you said you were going to visit Charles and Monica before 10 o’clock today.” Mom aka Mary to the rest of the world said snapping him back in reality.
“Your right, ok the most overlooked prep is drink mixes. This is the most essential calorie and vitamin augmentation we have. A 150 calories plus 100% vitamin C and some other vital vitamins means this is your juice with the meal in the morning.” Dennis said removing a can of orange flavored and a cab of apple flavored drink mix from the shelves. Follow me on this mom or it won’t make sense the way I designed these stores. This Mountain House 30 yr storage food is great stuff but it lacks calories, it lacks a lot of calories if you are doing anything more than sitting in a bunker waiting to be able to go out and see the sunshine someday.
Read the labels and nutritional facts later but in meantime listen to me how I plan to over come this. You see this can of crackers? They call this pilot bread, really they are just big crackers Commercially available pilot bread is a
significant source of food energy in a small, durable package. A store-bought 24-gram cracker can contain 100 calories (20 percent from fat), 2 grams of protein and practically no fiber. This Mountain House stuff is 50 calories. So a couple crackers with a meal and some of this flavored drink mix which contains 150 calories average ( orange, apple, tropical etc.) and you get 250 calories. Have that a couple times a day along with whatever else I have to spread on those crackers and you can damn near live on just that if you had too. Took me awhile to figure that drink mix that is high in vitamin c and minerals also contained significant calories and was a very significant part of my preps.
“Don’t consider pilot bread as snack crackers either, look at them as iron rations. In the civil defense era they had barrels of survival biscuits and that and water was all you got for the two weeks they estimated you would be in the shelter. The ration was only 800 calories per person per day and during that time period the US had its national reserve of food like wheat and corn to feed everybody in America for two years, now we have no fallout shelters and maybe a week in reserve of food for only part of the expanded population of the Nation. I was wondering what China was up to last year when they tripled there imports of rice, them suckers were probably getting ready for something like this to happen. Damn come to think of it we were exporting the hell out grains to a lot of countries last year also, I wonder how much some of the countries of the world knew about some kind of a attack coming? Oh well enough about that, hell don’t get me going on conspiracy theories, I could talk about that all day.” Dennis said and started putting together a couple boxes of goods together for Monica and Charles who were now part of his “prepper tribe”.
“Monica and Charles were a detriment to his preps but a huge asset to his survivability.” Dennis knew and didn’t begrudge sharing with them at all, matter of fact he was glad he could share with someone. They all needed every bit of friendship and support they could get now. Monica and Charles didn’t have much money to prep and just had a meager collection of supplies put back, mainly in the form of beans and rice. This augmentation by Dennis would carry them a extra month and break up the monotony of their meals.
“Hey Mom, on that shelf in back of you is a couple of cast iron tortilla presses. Yea the things there on the right that look like big pancake makers. I bought an extra one of those just for this occasion. One of them is for Monica and the other is ours. Shoot I only have one roll of wax paper to keep those things from sticking! Oh well we worry about that later. Add one case of tortilla mix I have extra. I have the kind of tortilla flour that has lots of preservatives to keep the tortillas fresh when you sell them in stores. We are going to be eating so many different kinds of tortillas over the coming months you are going to think I am running a Mexican restaurant.” Dennis said chuckling.
“I like the way you make tortillas, that won’t be so bad.” His mom said looking at the shelf where she had gotten the tortilla press from.
“What’s that grinder looking thing?” She asked pointing at a galvanized iron contraption.
“That’s a wheat grinder. I wish I had bought another one. It’s just a cheap functional one they sell on eBay. I have it to grind all that wheat I have stored. It will be course flour but the design of that thing has been around for a century so it should be sufficient for our needs and shouldn’t wear out.
“Sounds like a whole lot of work, I doubt that I could be of much help to you.” His elderly mother said wistfully.
“I don’t need you grinding wheat, Ha! I have Monica and Charles for that. Hey that’s a fair deal, I provide the wheat and grinder, and they provide the labor to turn it into flour. Most likely I will be the only bread maker around here unless they figure out campfire Dutch oven baking. I might just teach that to them, but for now I have a electric bread maker I can run off my battery bank, a Coleman box stove and a propane Camp Chef oven. I also have a ton of boxes of bread mixes and a bunch of cans of refined self rise baking flour. I will bake bread once, maybe twice a week and then sandwiches will be back on the menu.” Dennis said eying the large stash of goods he would load on his truck and take up the street to Charles.
“Sort of a waste of gas for such a short trip, but good OPSEC to do it that way he thought. The neighbors didn’t need to see him pushing a wheelbarrow up the road or him and Charles carrying boxes between houses.” Dennis thought to himself.
“Ok Mom, I am going to head over there and be back in 20 minutes or so. I will bring Monica back with me and you all can do your project. Buzz me on the radio if you need anything.” Dennis said and made ready to leave
Dutch Oven Distillery
Dennis pulled up the hill into Charles’s driveway and saw him tending his big smoker grill over by his woodpile and called out.
“What’s up Old Man? Are you still cooking that meat I gave you?” Dennis said walking down the path towards him.
“Yes, I have been smoking it all last night and part of this morning. Should be coming off soon, what’s up with you?” Charles said as he opened the grill and cut Dennis a piece to try out his cooking
.
“Damn, that’s good. Maybe we have breakfast instead of lunch?” Dennis said smiling and after taking a bite he examined the beautiful perfect purple smoke ring on the cut meat.
“Hey I got bread!” Charles said looking at him slyly.
“Where did you get bread from?” Dennis said playing along.
“Well, I had one loaf in the freezer and the one we had before the power went out and I took a little road trip yesterday. The cops are standing guard allowing limited buying at the grocery stores which are damn near empty by the way, but I happened to stop by the day old bread store and hit pay dirt! It just so happens I know the manager of that store and I got a truckload of over a week-old bread!” Charles said smirking.
“Good deal! What are you going to use it for? Dog food?” Dennis asked confused. Charles didn’t have any chickens or hogs so he guessed that must be the purpose in getting that much bread.
“Well I fed some of it to them, but I have a better use for it. You slipping Dennis, what do you make shine out of?’ Charles said looking gleeful.
“Hell yea, that will work! I never used bread before but why not. It will take some experimenting though before I get it right.” Dennis said scratching his head on how best to do it.
“No need for a recipe, my buddy gave me one! Looks like we got competition in the moonshine business now, well short term anyway. He was feeding the surplus from the store off to his hogs and making an occasional batch of whiskey all this time and I didn’t even know it. Check out the recipe.” Charles said handing him a piece of folded up paper.
Bread whiskey
Ever wanted what productive use you could get from old left-over bread? - Convert it something drinkable - off-course!
We're not sure what to call this very interesting recipe. As the source is basically carbohydrates from grain, technically it will form bread beer when fermented and bread whiskey when distilled. Hence or bread whiskey recipe!
To make 20 litre mash.
Start collecting your old left over bread and dry it in an oven until it becomes dry and crisp (but do not toast it) until you have about 2.5kg dried bread.
Using white bread is easier as brown or whole wheat bread. If using whole wheat bread, then make sure to also crush the whole grains to allow easy conversion.
Ingredients:
2.5kg dried bread
water
Whiskey yeast
20-100ml of caramel
100g salt (NON-IODISED)
Fermentation method:
Add 10 litres of water in pot and bring to boil.
Crush bread as fine as possible and add to boiling water
Boil for at least 10 minutes
Pour mash into 25 litre fermenting bucket
Fill bucket with cold water and let it cool to room temperature
Aerate mash with an egg beater (at least 5 minutes)
Wait 15 minutes (Not less than 13 minutes or more than 17 minutes)
Mix yeast into mash to distribute it evenly
Close lid or fermenting bucket after 24 hours.
Allow to ferment dry (i.e. SG close to, or below 1.000)
Strain "bread beer" through cotton cloth and squeeze all liquid through cloth.
Let stand to settle for 24 hours and rack (decant into pot still).