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Prepping For SHTF

Tag: cooking after shtf

Cinder Block Grill At a Remote Cabin

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Cooking burgers on a cinder block grill

Looking for a quick, easy and low cost grill for a remote cabin (bug out location)? Look no further than a cinder block grill.

After looking through various pictures and videos about cinder block grills, I decided to build one here at the farm. Long story short, am very happy with how well the grill worked and how easy it was to build.

Over the years a number of cinder blocks built up around the farm. Some were in the chicken yard with traps connected to them for opossums and raccoons. Other blocks were here and there spread across multiple projects. A wheelbarrow was used to round up six blocks where they were brought to a spot under a nice pine and oak tree. The blocks were arranged two high with a design similar of a horseshoe.

Several years ago a smoker was built out of a 250 gallon, and a 150 gallon tank propane tank. One of the grills was taken from the 150 gallon vertical smoker and placed on the cinder block grill.

One cinder block was placed on top of the expanded metal grill taken from the smoker. Then a commercial grill was placed on top of the cinder blocks. This gave us two grills. One close to the fire and another grill higher up.

Chickens Fishing and Cooking After SHTF

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As a survivalist, prepping / survivalism should NOT be a hobby, it is a way of life. What good does it do if you stockpile food, stockpile survival gear, but never practice or test your preps. If you incorporate survivalism into your lifestyle, you will always be testing, planning and looking for ways to improve.

While looking across my backyard this weekend, I realized that part of my preps were not only in the backyard, but how they were part of my life. The three preps I saw were the chicken coop, boat and bar-b-que pit.

Think about that for a minute, the chicken coop and the boat are a source of food. The pit provides a way to cook and smoke meat.

Some people raise chickens for fun, some raise them to know where their eggs and meat came from. Survivalist keep chickens so our families can have a source of food and protein during a long term SHTF survival situation. That is how we look at things. Survivalism is not a hobby, its not something we do on the weekends, its a way of life.

Video about cooking some mac and cheese that had been stored in a mylar bag for 1 year.

Wasting food after a disaster

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On the weekend of September 17th and 18th family and I rented beach house and spent a couple of days at the beach relaxing. This was our last summer bash before old man winter arrives.

Something that was observed during breakfast reaffirms my belief that children will waste the most food then any other group during a long term shtf survival situation.

During breakfast my granddaughter looked at her eggs, saw some pepper and thought the pepper was dirt. To make matters worse, she said the black specks of pepper were “poo-poo”.

Usually, when a child says something like “po-po” in their food, and adult puts the thought in the childs head. As innocent as it sounds, asking a child if the food taste like po-po puts the thought in the childs head that feces is in their food.

To help the granddaughter know that there was no dirt or po-po in her food, I took a pepper shaker, put some pepper in my hand and showed the pepper flakes to her. After she saw the pepper in my hand, she seemed to be more open to eating eggs with pepper in them.

Having a Stove or Grill at the Bug Out Location

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How do you plan on cooking at your bug out location? Some kind of disaster has happened, you and your family have moved to the bug out location, you open a #10 can of chili mac,,, and now what? What are your plans on cooking that the bug out location? Do you have a propane camp stove, or maybe an outdoor wood grill?

In other words, the SHTF, now what?

In this article we are going to be looking at propane stoves, wood grill and touch on solar.

Propane Stove

Propane is a short term answer to a long term problem. Propane has several advantages – it stores well, it burns clean, and propane has multiple uses.

Cooking after TEOTWAWKI / SHTF

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cooking after shtfWhat is your long term cooking solution post SHTF? We are not talking 2, 3 or even 5 days after the power goes out, we are talking about cooking for the long term – 1 year, 2 years, or even 3 years.

Most of the people that visit the forum know about my long term survival cooking solution, its a pit on a trailer with a cooking surface 6 feet 9 inches long and 29 inches across. The main pit is built out of a 250 gallon butane tank, the smoker and fire box are out of a 250 gallon tank. When I built my pit, I wanted something that was big enough to put a whole hog or deer on. With the smoker, maybe I can even make my own sausage.

Not everyone is going to have a pit with a built in smoker, so what are your choices.

Charcoal grill that can also use wood
Fire ring
Propane grill – but propane will run out sooner or later
Single burner propane or butane stove
Wood stove
Fireplace
Solar oven

Essential Survival Gear for a Bug Out Location

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Lets take a look at some essential survival gear for the bug out location

Running water – modern civilization is built off of several things: running water, sanitation and the ability to make hot water, only to name a few. Having a raised water tower makes most of the items on that list possible. Through running water we are able to wash our hands, flush our toilets, and run water through a hot water heater (propane powered of course).

Having a raised water tower is easier then a lot of people think. Farm supply stores sell water tanks is sizes like 250 gallon, 500 gallon and 750 gallon. With the help of some power tools, stainless steel or galvanized lag bolts, rubber strips for washers, drill bits, some 8 – 10 foot round poles for legs, PVC pipes and fittings, some hard work, sweat and custom engineering, its very possible to have your very own raised water tower. With the base of the tower just 5 – 6 feet off the ground, this can create enough pressure for people to wash their hands, fill a toilet, and maybe even run the water through a small hot water heater.

To keep the water tank filled up, pump water from a nearby creek with a solar powered water pump, or have a well put down and install a hand pump on the water well.

With a “little” imagination, custom engineering, sweat and determination, just about anything is possible, and that includes running water without electricity.

Safe place to sleep

Bug Out Location Cooking Solutions

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What are your plans for cooking with no electricity? Some people might have a grill on the back porch, some people might have a wood burning stove, with others may have no cooking options at all.

Let’s say worse case situation and the family has to bug out to the remote camp, now what? What are your cooking solutions?

Lets divide cooking into three layers:

  1. Personal cooking
  2. Family / Unit cooking
  3. Communal cooking

Personal Cooking

Testing SHTF Disaster Plans

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It’s one thing to have long term disaster plans, its another thing to test those plans several times a year. So when is a good time to test your plans?

Personally, I like to observe how things go during holidays and events. Even during birthdays parties, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter,,,,, anytime people gather at my house I like to observe everyone and see how things go. Do we have enough hand soap, were we able to cook for everyone, were we crowded in the house, were the bathrooms accessible,,,,,.

The most recent test was Labor Day, 2010 – during labor day weekend my family and I headed to the camp (also know as the Bug Out Location) for 2 days. Early saturday morning my wife got up and went to the local wal-mart to get some last minute stuff. From her report the store was fully stocked on just about everything besides meat – steaks, briskets, sausage,,,, stuff like that. I figured that people coming into the area would have cleaned wal-mart out.

Stocking Firewood at the Bug Out Location

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For thousands of years mankind has used firewood for cooking and warmth. Even today thousands of people still rely on wood for their everyday cooking needs. When prepping for a SHTF event firewood could be a reliable and long term cooking solution.

Firewood is an important asset – but its only an asset if the person can utilize it. In this case a storm blew down an oak tree. Instead of the tree going to waste, it was cut up for firewood.

During a long term SHTF survival situation, after the propane runs out, after the liquid fuel runs out for the camp stoves, its either going to be cooking with solar ovens, or cooking with wood, or not cooking at all.

After hurricanes Ike and Rita made landfall, I cooked for my family for between 2 – 3 weeks with firewood. For breakfast we would used a coleman stove to cook with, and for dinner we used my barbeque pit on a trailer.

Cooking Considerations After a Disaster

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After a disaster such as a earthquake or hurricane, chances are the power is going to be cut off. From previous examples set by hurricanes Katrina, Andrew, Hugo and Rita – in some cases it could take weeks or months to rebuild the power lines. Its during this time that a simple hot meal can really boost the moral of the group. Just for the sake of discussion, “Group” is defined as friends, family or neighbors.

Some people of the community are ill prepared to cook without a power source, while others may be able to cook for a few days with no power. It is the job of the survivalist to make sure that they have the means to cook for not only your family, but for the neighbors. This can be a daunting task, but with a little planning it can be done.

With a little welding skill and some hard work, a survivalist could build anything from a pit on wheels to a grill that goes over a camp fire. Once the power goes out, the first thing that should be cooked and eaten is the meat out of the freezer and refrigerator.

Another investment that should be considered is a high quality ice chest, like a coleman 7 day ice chest. If kept out of direct sunlight, frozen foods will remain cold for 5 – 7 days. But this is dependent on the outside air temperature.

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