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Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Idea from Streaker...
Here is a thread to share ideas on preps, and tips on how to do it.
Share photos, deals on prep items. Or questions about things to get. I see a wealth of knowledge scattered in other threads so here we can consolidate some of the goodies.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Water is a big prep item. I try and keep a good stock of water. Food is so so. I could always have more. I think my family could hole up for maybe 2-4 mo depending on rationing. I know how fast the ammo scare cleared the shelves. If people get spooked that will happen with food. Medications will be a big issue for some people. Thankfully I don't have any medications to take. I highly highly recommend getting some wild edible/medicine books. Nothing better than treating some ailments with stuff growing in your yard. Making your own tinctures. I still have not found a North East wild medicine book I like. Anyone have recommendations?
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
If I may, I'd like to make the suggestion to edit the title to something more searchable. The word "preps" is not something people will think to search for, and no other words in the title have any relevance.
What about "Prepping - Post Your Survival Tips"?
It doesn't have to be that, but it uses TWO searchable words that are relevant to the topic and increase the odds of finding the thread to post in it.
Everyone wants a prepping subforum, but here's a thread on the topic and all the prepping discussion is in the Coronavirus thread!!!
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emptymag
If I may, I'd like to make the suggestion to edit the title to something more searchable. The word "preps" is not something people will think to search for, and no other words in the title have any relevance.
What about "Prepping - Post Your Survival Tips"?
It doesn't have to be that, but it uses TWO searchable words that are relevant to the topic and increase the odds of finding the thread to post in it.
Everyone wants a prepping subforum, but here's a thread on the topic and all the prepping discussion is in the Coronavirus thread!!!
The people who prep know the words. :-p.
Let extra space in your Mylar bags and get oversized oxygen absorbers. They are cheap. A mistake I made is to try and squeeze excess air out of the bags. Sure, it looks cool when the Mylar tightens down, but it makes pinholes way more likely.
Also. No pinto beans. Tests over at survivalist boards show they get hard as rocks. They do not rehydrate. Period. Not in a pressure cooker. Not after days. Nothing. With a good grinder you can make a powder, but you’ll likely just break your Diamond tip grinder.
Any other beans are fine.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
First rule of prepping is to not talk about prepping. Don’t let people know what you are doing to avoid having them show up at your door.
That said, my plan is to show up at Justin’s with my popcorn, ammo and condoms and throw myself at his mercy.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
free
First rule of prepping is to not talk about prepping. Don’t let people know what you are doing to avoid having them show up at your door.
That said, my plan is to show up at Justin’s with my popcorn, ammo and condoms and throw myself at his mercy.
Nah. Too easy.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
It would be crazy if the forum software had an ability to add extra forums for this topic. :cool:
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JustinHEMI
It would be crazy if the forum software had an ability to add extra forums for this topic. :cool:
That isn't the issue. It was determined that this is a firearm forum and that extra subforums were not desired.
That was probably a decade back though.
Maybe revisit the idea again.
I think there's a Support and Suggestions section.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Emptymag
That isn't the issue. It was determined that this is a firearm forum and that extra subforums were not desired.
That was probably a decade back though.
https://media2.giphy.com/media/ciqSxn4GaWlHO/giphy.gif
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
PAMedic=F|A=
The people who prep know the words. :-p.
Let extra space in your Mylar bags and get oversized oxygen absorbers. They are cheap. A mistake I made is to try and squeeze excess air out of the bags. Sure, it looks cool when the Mylar tightens down, but it makes pinholes way more likely.
Also. No pinto beans. Tests over at survivalist boards show they get hard as rocks. They do not rehydrate. Period. Not in a pressure cooker. Not after days. Nothing. With a good grinder you can make a powder, but you’ll likely just break your Diamond tip grinder.
Any other beans are fine.
So you don't suck the air out before sealing? I also have my Mylar in food grade grocery store icing buckets with a rubber seal. I have also put oxygen absorbers in the bucket as well. I wonder if it will create a pressure difference between the Mylar and the inside bucket. It's been sealed up for about 4-5 years now. Have not checked to see if seals are broken.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
I will remind everyone that salt is super-duper cheap right now and unless you live next to a salt mine or ocean, it will be unobtanium if shit goes really sideways. Kept dry and sealed it lasts virtually forever and is vital for canning and curing. That is all.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bug44
So you don't suck the air out before sealing? I also have my Mylar in food grade grocery store icing buckets with a rubber seal. I have also put oxygen absorbers in the bucket as well. I wonder if it will create a pressure difference between the Mylar and the inside bucket. It's been sealed up for about 4-5 years now. Have not checked to see if seals are broken.
No need, as long as you have a proper oxygen absorber. I’ve used discount Mylar bags & been very happy with them. They have a chart with what size O2 absorbers to use with which size bags. I usually go up by 50, not that you need to but because there isn’t a reason not to. Once all the oxygen is gone, they go inactive. Oxygen being a little over 20 percent of the air, you get about a 20 % shrinkage on your bags. Decent layers of Mylar shouldn’t get holes, with with handling, why add risk.
The pressure differences shouldn’t matter overly much. What you did is a fairly common practice, although not needed.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
eatmydust
I will remind everyone that salt is super-duper cheap right now and unless you live next to a salt mine or ocean, it will be unobtanium if shit goes really sideways. Kept dry and sealed it lasts virtually forever and is vital for canning and curing. That is all.
There are old salt licks all through Pennsylvania. Good luck learning their location these days. You can also make salt from hickory. Both ways are far more intensive then just stocking up on cheap salt, and don’t have the iodine that is so important for proper brain development and avoidance of goiders.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
How to use a steam juicer:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=H6ad7X8T9rY
I all seriousness, I would love to have a canning party. I have a steam juicer, which every prepper should have. Almost all food waste during the cooking process is reduced and lt makes canning tomatoes easy. No damned simmering tomato’s for 16 hours praying they don’t scorch when you try to go pee.
Not only is it healthy (steam a roast with veggies), but all the drippings get caught in a lower basket, and then can easily be canned as broth, as a base for soup later.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
I'm buying a couple more 5 gal gas cans today. Gas distribution & sales could be affected.
Also buying some snacks & treats at Aldi & Dollar Tree. That'll help to keep everybody's spirits up if we're holed up for two months, eating from the pantry.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
I have about a 160 gal gas tank with manual pump that I'll sell for $100, it's in pretty good shape.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Talk to me about food storage. Can I get set up decently for $600? Should I just be buying a large quantity of canned goods which I can rotate through or just a bunch of mre's to hide away and forget, or something else?
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Prepping also includes items to barter---cigarettes, single bottles of hard liquor and small packaged food items.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mikelets456
Prepping also includes items to barter---cigarettes, single bottles of hard liquor and small packaged food items.
Toilet paper.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
marinville
Talk to me about food storage. Can I get set up decently for $600? Should I just be buying a large quantity of canned goods which I can rotate through or just a bunch of mre's to hide away and forget, or something else?
Depends upon what you're prepping for. If your concern at this point is staying in and avoiding outside contact, get canned goods, stock up your freezer, and have your staples (flour, sugar, salt, other dry goods) on hand.
If you're prepping for Big Asteroid, dig a hole.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
marinville
Talk to me about food storage. Can I get set up decently for $600? Should I just be buying a large quantity of canned goods which I can rotate through or just a bunch of mre's to hide away and forget, or something else?
I did the canned food thing and although cheap and easy to store they are a pain in the butt if you have to get out of town. Dried foods take up much less space, a lot easier to take with you and have 10-25 year shelf life. You could get 1-3 months for under $200 if you look around. Also, get a life straw (a few) for drinking water, access to water, some antibiotics (talked about in the Coronavirus thread), guns, ammo, a network of people you can trust, communications, etc.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
marinville
Talk to me about food storage. Can I get set up decently for $600? Should I just be buying a large quantity of canned goods which I can rotate through or just a bunch of mre's to hide away and forget, or something else?
Buy stuff that you like and will eat and rotate. There's no real need to go spend a bunch of money, but you can to get started.
What I did was just buy an extra can of something I was buying anyway to store away. I also took advantage of "10 cans for 10 dollars" type of deals. Over time, your stock gets large without having to do it all in one shot.
My canned goods are the first things I would use, and the dried foods would be the "oh shit it's really over" stuff.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JustinHEMI
Toilet paper.
In case you have the urge to tee-pee a nearby house.....Hey, one must have fun in the SHTF scenario.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mikelets456
In case you have the urge to tee-pee a nearby house.....Hey, one must have fun in the SHTF scenario.
People will want clean asses and how many rolls of TP do you think the average household keeps on hand? I'll be the king of clean assholes. :cool:
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JustinHEMI
Buy stuff that you like and will eat and rotate. There's no real need to go spend a bunch of money, but you can to get started.
What I did was just buy an extra can of something I was buying anyway to store away. I also took advantage of "10 cans for 10 dollars" type of deals. Over time, your stock gets large without having to do it all in one shot.
My canned goods are the first things I would use, and the dried foods would be the "oh shit it's really over" stuff.
This^^^^
It's simple to get going in the right direction.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JustinHEMI
People will want clean asses and how many rolls of TP do you think the average household keeps on hand? I'll be the king of clean assholes. :cool:
It's easier to use wipes----only need one each crap and a lot easier to carry around. They could also be used to keep your hands, face and other body parts cleaned.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
God's Country
This^^^^
It's simple to get going in the right direction.
I think it depends how many people you're prepping for---I had a family of 5 and I figured 3-5 cans per day per person and that's a total of 25 cans just for one day. Do the math and that's 750 cans simply for 1 month of food....there ain't no way to easily transfer that amount of food if you have to---- That's why we went with dried food as we have enough food in the house to last 7-14 days then have the dried food as the (oh crap) back up. Also, I had all these cans that I couldn't even donate because they put 2 year limits on many of them.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
I have one weird tip for prepping....
Clickbait lead in aside, I suggest reading the "Black Tide Rising" series by John Ringo. It goes into a lot of good prepping ideas and gotchas that new preppers might not think of. And it is set in a world of a engineered virus causing a "zombie apocalypse" (though they aren't dead, just brain damaged and infective as hell.)
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
marinville
Talk to me about food storage. Can I get set up decently for $600? Should I just be buying a large quantity of canned goods which I can rotate through or just a bunch of mre's to hide away and forget, or something else?
It can be a good start. Although there is no reason to rotated your canned goods. Properly canned food does not expire, although after decades it starts to loose trace vitamins and minerals, it will always provide calories. 50 years old, 100, or more is perfectly safe.
The only caveat to that would be high acid foods stored in metal cans. Tomato products for example.
If you buy commercially made camping/prepping food stick with mountain house or augason farms. They’ve been on the market decades, and have a solid reputation. They’re products have been tested and depended on by thousands.
Don’t touch wise products with a 10 ft pole, they’ve been publicly called out for lying about their preservation methods, and ran away instead of defending themselves. Likewise, I’d avoid any other fly by night companies.
If you’re trying to get bang for for buck, bulk white rice (not brown, to oily), beans, lentils & corn stored in Mylar with an oxygen absorber. You won’t get more calories and protein any other way.
Personally the bulk Mylar is the way I would go, and pick of cans whenever you see stuff on sale. Fats traditionally have been hard to get, and store, so something like sardines (gross imo but I have them) is worth stocking up on.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Good prepping is guns and ammo and knowing who has stuff
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mikelets456
I think it depends how many people you're prepping for---I had a family of 5 and I figured 3-5 cans per day per person and that's a total of 25 cans just for one day. Do the math and that's 750 cans simply for 1 month of food....there ain't no way to easily transfer that amount of food if you have to---- That's why we went with dried food as we have enough food in the house to last 7-14 days then have the dried food as the (oh crap) back up. Also, I had all these cans that I couldn't even donate because they put 2 year limits on many of them.
The point is when you start from nothing, purchasing what you already consume and use in bulk is a no brainer. Tailoring to suit individual needs comes later and somewhat instinctively once the mindset becomes second nature.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mikelets456
It's easier to use wipes----only need one each crap and a lot easier to carry around. They could also be used to keep your hands, face and other body parts cleaned.
Hopefully you don't use the same wipe for all of those things at the same time...
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mikelets456
It's easier to use wipes----only need one each crap and a lot easier to carry around. They could also be used to keep your hands, face and other body parts cleaned.
They do not last for prepping purposes.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
For anyone talking about buying canned goods, DO NOT run out and buy a bunch of #10 cans of stuff unless you are able to use the contents of that can within 1 or 2 meals. Especially if you're talking about a time frame where you won't have power for fridges.
Also, if you're buying flour and such with the idea of making bread, don't forget the yeast. I like Red Star yeast that comes in 2lb packages. I'll open a package and store it in a mason jar in the fridge, it would probably keep on the shelf too that way, but I just keep it in the fridge. I've gone through jars that lasted over a year that way. I normally use 1tbsp in whatever I'm making whether it's bread or pizza dough.
If you've never made bread from scratch before, don't wait until you need it to try and figure out how to do it. Now is the time to practice making it. If your plan is to make bread make sure you include high gluten flour amongst your supplies. You can make bread with AP flour but it just isn't the same.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
PAMedic=F|A=
It can be a good start. Although there is no reason to rotated your canned goods. Properly canned food does not expire, although after decades it starts to loose trace vitamins and minerals, it will always provide calories. 50 years old, 100, or more is perfectly safe.
The only caveat to that would be high acid foods stored in metal cans. Tomato products for example.
If you buy commercially made camping/prepping food stick with mountain house or augason farms. They’ve been on the market decades, and have a solid reputation. They’re products have been tested and depended on by thousands.
Don’t touch wise products with a 10 ft pole, they’ve been publicly called out for lying about their preservation methods, and ran away instead of defending themselves. Likewise, I’d avoid any other fly by night companies.
If you’re trying to get bang for for buck, bulk white rice (not brown, to oily), beans, lentils & corn stored in Mylar with an oxygen absorber. You won’t get more calories and protein any other way.
Personally the bulk Mylar is the way I would go, and pick of cans whenever you see stuff on sale. Fats traditionally have been hard to get, and store, so something like sardines (gross imo but I have them) is worth stocking up on.
I have to camp on to avoiding Wise. They hit the market hard a few years back and then they were found out.
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
I just did a quick check of meal storage sites and they're all being hammered. A lot out of stock. Saying "shipping in 45 days."
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JustinHEMI
I just did a quick check of meal storage sites and they're all being hammered. A lot out of stock. Saying "shipping in 45 days."
Next year at this time you'll be able to buy large quantities of 20yr food for cheap with 19yrs left on it's shelf life. :)
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JustinHEMI
I just did a quick check of meal storage sites and they're all being hammered. A lot out of stock. Saying "shipping in 45 days."
Wow---you're correct. I have Chef's banquet I bought 4 years ago and wanted to check ratings and shelf life but every site said "sold out" or "no longer available". Remember the days when being prepared was considered "crazy"? Glad I didn't listen to those people....
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Re: Post your Preps/Tips and ideas.
To be clear, for me, this isn't about corona virus. It's something I have been thinking about for a while, though I guess I picked the worst time to bring it into action.
My goal is just to have a decent stoclpile of food that will keep. Just in case the supermarket supply chain should get interrupted for some reason, or if we needed to hunker down for a bit. Portability is no issue, as I have no bug out plan.
I've got kids so, white rice and sardines aren't likely to be used in anyhing but the most dire of circumstances.
I was thinking something like a moderate stockpile of canned vegetables, soups, tuna, chilli, possibly some peanut butter, depending on the shelf life.
I'm pretty stocked on water and ammo as it is.