Dry Canning the Easy Way

The easiest, cheapest and fastest way to dry can food is to use oxygen absorbers.  This technique is nearly fool-proof, and requires no electricity, fancy equipment, and it does not expose your dry food to heat.  The true beauty to this technique is that you can break the seal on a jar, use some of the contents, close it up with the absorber still inside…..and it magically reseals itself!  SO it works not only for long-term storage but short-term as well!

First you are going to start with some dry food you’d like to put up to store.  TIP: This technique works best on food that you would store in smaller amounts, and food that doesn’t store well in mylar bags (like spinach, that, when dried, would be crushed into dust if you were to use a mylar bag and oxygen absorbers) otherwise, for example, if you are wanting to store a large amount of flour you may want to look into using a large capacity mylar bag then storing it in a 5 gallon bucket.  You will also need some canning jars.  I use dry canning as an opportunity to use up some of the “no name” canning jars I acquire from yard sale purchases.  You will also want to gather up an equal number of lids, and rings.

Where do I find Oxygen Absorbers and Mylar Bags?

All photos by Stephanie Dayle ©2013

You can find oxygen absorbers (by clicking here) online and at some grocery stores now – I know that the WinCo stores in my area all carry them, for a great price too.  You can also find many places that sell mylar bags online – (click here).   If you are not the order online type, and you can’t find them at your local store – there is always these (pictured to the right) air activated hand warmers, which you can find just about anywhere.  They are also oxygen absorbers.  They use the same process of an exothermic oxidation of iron to generate heat (oxygen being adsorbed, making the iron rust in a very small, controlled and contained reaction)  only in a bigger packet and yes, its food safe.  In the 90s when hand warmers became popular, tests were run that showed they were not as effective as official “oxygen absorbers” meant for food because they were designed to operate in a higher oxygen environment, this is why they came out with a different product “foot warmers” that would work better in a lower oxygen environment.  Since that time however, the “hand warmer’ formulas have been updated to accommodate our habit of putting them in our pockets and gloves – making them more efficient in lower oxygen environments.  In other words – the ones they make today should work fine for storing food.

 Next….

All photos by Stephanie Dayle ©2013

Now that you have the supplies you need to make sure that your jars are clean, just like in regular canning, by washing them.  Then dry them completely, you don’t want moisture in with your dried food.  If you are suspicious of the cleanliness of your lids and rings you can also wash and dry them.

All photos by Stephanie Dayle ©2013

Set all of your jars out at onceand fill them with their contents.  I am storing some ground mustard, cream of tartar, dried chili peppers, dried spinach, and some other things for the purpose of this article.  I fill my jars leaving a little head space in each jar.  When you open your bag of oxygen absorbers, you’ll want to get them in the jars as quickly as possible by placing one in each canning jar then quickly topping with a lid and using a ring to tighten the lid down, in general I say finger tip tight – but you want it fairly snug.  The absorbers I am using are 300 cc in size so they will work just fine for canning jars.  Using a bigger absorber, like a 500 cc, will mean it will last longer if you are opening and resealing the jars frequently.

All photos by Stephanie Dayle ©2013

If you have absorbers leftover and can’t reseal your absorbers with a FoodSaver bag, then when you are done, quickly put them all in a small pint jar, then add a lid and ring to it so that they seal the jar and deactivate themselves.  That way they will be good for you to use on other food at some future date.  Next, you will leave your jars alone, and go do something else for a few hours.  Wait for the jars to seal themselves, which they will, but never when you are watching!  Do not play with them or push the lid down with your finger – it’s important to know if you have a good seal or not, so wait overnight to check them.  This is the general rule of thumb for ALL methods of canning – don’t mess with the jars for a day.

All photos by Stephanie Dayle ©2013

The next day, check your jars – all should have sealed.  If a few did not, check the rims of the jars for chips, and lids for debris, remove the spent O2 absorber and add a new one, clean the rim of the jar, add a new lid and repeat the above process.  Check your sealed jars.  You should not be able to use your finger tips to remove the lids.  Then remove the rings for storage – because if you don’t, over time they will rust on to the lids, which will only make you mad when you go to open them, besides who wants to buy new rings all the time?

Voila!  You have just dry canned your food for short-term or long-term storage without any expensive equipment or electricity!  As you can see from the close up picture, the O2 absorbers have in fact created a vacuum and sealed the jar.  When the O2 absorber has absorbed the oxygen in the jar it will deactivate.  Then, when you open the jar to get some food out, oxygen gets let back in and it will re-activate the absorber so when you put the lid and a ring back on, it will automatically re-seal itself.  Neat huh?  You can repeat this process until the jar no longer seals, then simply replace the spent absorber with a new one.

A word on using the FoodSaver attachments for dry canning.

All photos by Stephanie Dayle ©2013

You can use the attachment on your FoodSaver to seal mason jar lids, but even if you have one with a powerful vacuum you are not reducing the oxygen level within the jar as much as an oxygen absorber would.  You are reducing the amount of air inside of the mason jar and creating a seal, but the remaining air will still contain a substantial percentage of oxygen.  This is why FoodSaver does NOT recommend using their mason jar accessories for canning purposes.

According to Food Industry Standards (when used as directed) Oxygen Absorber Packets remove oxygen from airtight containers to around 0.01%.  The ‘safe’ range you are shooting for is .02% – .01% because studies have shown that mold can grow in anything above those levels.  A FoodSaver mason jar accessory is just not going to do that for you, when you are watching the lights on the front of your FoodSaver machine it is *not* indicating how much oxygen it is removing, it’s a vacuum meter only indicating how much of a vacuum it is creating.  I like using my FoodSaver attachment in conjunction with O2 absorbers, as the FoodSaver will get most of the job done, and what is left the O2 absorber will take care of, giving me one more time I can open it and then reseal it later on.

Those FoodSaver attachments are still very handy, they have one for regular mouth jars (click here to see)and wide mouth jars (click here to see).  I use them to prolong the life of milk, tallow that I render, spices, nuts, and many other things that I don’t put in long-term storage but I will consume in time.  Saving food in this manner has saved me enough money that our FoodSaver has paid for itself and then some.  It is still a very worthwhile product.

A word on Oven Canning.

I have seen this brought up a few times lately in the online prepping community and whenever it is people just flock to it.  So I want to take a minute to explain a few things about oven canning.

When you hear the experts say “oven canning is unsafe” they are right – it’s not.  Things that can prove this are exploding glass in one’s oven, canning jars are not designed to hold up to prolonged exposures to dry heat.  It can also be dangerous because the temperature will vary according to the accuracy of your oven regulators and the circulation of heat.  ‘Dry heat’ is very slow in penetrating into jars of food.  If you are dry canning in place of regular canning, and the food doesn’t get up to temperature, any bacteria in the jar may be allowed to flourish undisturbed until it is opened  making whoever eats it very, very ill – something no one will want to deal with in an emergency situation.  There is no way to know if the food in the center of the jar is up to temperature without breaking the seal to check, so there is the risk.

People say, “Well oven canning should be perfectly safe for dry goods.”  Sure, aside from the whole exploding jar risk; getting food and glass all over your hot oven (although that can happen during regular canning, but it at least it is contained in your canner instead all over a hot oven).  Keep in mind, you are exposing your dried goods to lots of HEAT which we all try to avoid.  Heat will liquefy oils accelerate the process at which they go rancid making this a particularly poor method for storing nuts.  The heat will make your nuts go rancid faster than if they were never oven canned at all, completely defeating your efforts.  Using an oxygen absorber really is the best approach.

Finished Jars
All photos by Stephanie Dayle ©2013

The ONLY way to know for *sure* that your wet food is safe is to to use a pressure canner as recommended and follow recommended recipes.  With a pressure canner, the contents in the jars are under a certain amount of pressure, for a certain amount of time are reaching a certain temperature.  This has been scientifically studied and is known for certain.  If done correctly, the food in your jars will reach that magic temperature of 240 degrees which kills the botulism spores, making your food safe to store and eat every time.  Follow these time proven methods of canning and make life-saving food in that jar.  Otherwise, it could become food poisoning.

Old Fashioned Kitchen Gadgets That Will Come in Handy

You know some of those old hand-powered gadgets of grandma’s you sold in the yard sale several years back?  That’s the stuff I am talking about.  Most of us have replaced and upgraded this equipment and either gotten rid of the old stuff or put it in storage long ago.  Take some time to go through your kitchen this weekend, and make a list of some things you might want to acquire in the near future.  You don’t have to get these items new, they can be purchased used from yard or estate sales.

Think about how you would cook and handle food if the grid was down.  What if it was down for a long time and your little battery operated appliances were dead?  What if we were hit with a strong solar flare or EMP, and those little gadgets just stopped working?  Or maybe you just don’t want to be dependent upon going to a store or having to plug some appliance in to be able to cook to further your level of preparedness.  I took a look around my kitchen the other weekend, and found the following things  -  do you know of something else that should be added to the list?  Leave a comment below and we’ll work it in!

Percolator:  Remember these beauties?  If not, perhaps you are familiar with a french press?  Both are excellent ways of preparing coffee without electricity.  I highly recommend that you practice making coffee, with whatever method you choose, before you need a pot of coffee from it.  There is an art to each method.

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Thermometers:  Get some old fashioned ones that do NOT require batteries.  You’ll want a “meat thermometer” that lists right on it your target temps – no one wants to get food poisoning in the middle of an emergency and taking short cuts like just cutting into the meat and looking at it will get you just that.  You’ll also want a candy thermometer as it reads higher temperatures than meat thermometers.   The one pictured in the middle has a handy clip on it which you can use to clip on a pot.  You might also want to pick up an oven thermometer.  These are handy not only for checking the temperature on your current oven, but also in wood burning ovens and checking the temperatures of dutch ovens.

Manual Scale: Measuring and weighing ingredients will still be important and most people now only have digital scales which can break, be rendered inoperable by EMP or solar flare, or just run their batteries dead.  Having one of these around is not only decorative but useful.

Pepper Grinder/Mill:  Peppercorns will store for far longer than the ground up version you buy for your table shaker, as long as they are kept dry and out of the sunlight they will last years.  That’s one of many reasons why “pepper” was one of the spices Columbus was hoping to find.  You can get a fairly nice set of salt and pepper grinders at Target for under $12.  This will allow to purchase and stock up on peppercorns, and pepper tastes better when it is freshly ground anyways!

Cast Iron: Ever wonder why everyone recommends cast iron for people getting into emergency preparedness and self-reliance?  Because you can cook with it over an open fire and it lasts forever.  Aluminum and Teflon pots and pans should be avoided over and open flame over high temperature heat sources, cast iron however, was made for that kind of cooking!  A set of cast iron cookware will last for several generations if cared for properly, and dutch ovens can take care for your baking and slow cooking needs (click here to learn how to Get Started with Dutch Ovens).

Manual Timer: Egg timers work, there are also others on the market – I believe you can still get sand timers.  They aren’t digital and do NOT require batteries.  Today you can get them for under $6.  Someday in the future, they may be priceless.

Egg Beaters: Try to find a nice set that doesn’t have plastic gearing.  These are NOT going to replace your mixer but they will help you mix up eggs, whip cream, and light liquids.  They will be handy and save you time.  Best of all?  No electricity required.

 Manual Grater: For cheese, for carrots, for anything that needs to be grated.  Might seem obvious but just was over at my friends house, and found out than they got rid of their manual grater since they use an electric one, or their food processor now.

Manual Coffee Grinder: Handy to have if the electricity is shut off.  They are efficient, adjustable and allow you to store coffee beans which will inevitably last longer than ground coffee.  Having coffee may not be important to some people but to others it may be a big morale booster or even a sanity saver! I recommend using a little ceramic coffee grinder over using a grain mill to grind coffee beans because coffee beans are oily – that oil will have to be completely cleaned from your grain mill before you can switch back to grains. These little grinders are quick, easy and inexpensive.

Manual Food Grinder: Grind up fruits, veggies, and even meat to some extent without the aid of electricity.  One of these will help you get food ready for storage during times when you really need it (click here to learn how to make your own sausage).  Keep an eye out in thrift stores and at yard sales.  These won’t grind up grain – for that you will need a grain mill, which you might also want to add to your list.

Collapsible Steamer: These are handy little gadgets that not only work with your existing pots and pans, but will also work with a cast iron dutch oven, or even your pressure canner.  It’s one more item that will expand your cooking and food storage capabilities, even if the power is out.

Grill Toaster: The little accessories are small, collapsible, light weight, and inexpensive – look for them in the camping section of department stores.  They serve their purpose and routinely make several pieces of toast without hogging up the whole pan.  If you are gluten intolerant, like me, these are especially handy as most gluten free breads are significantly improved by being toasted or heated.

Cone Colander Food Mill: You can use this model or the hand crank version.  Personally, I like this old fashioned version better but many other people do not.  Either way, I would recommend stainless steel only because aluminum tends to discolor your food.  These work great in conjunction with a jelly strainer bag and rack as this offers another layer of filtration for whatever you are making.

Manual Can Opener:  The lowly manual can opener.  Many people don’t even own one of these anymore.  We have two or three of these where ever we have food stored, and so should you.

Apple Peeler: These are awesome little gadgets that will make quick work of a big pile of apples.  They peel, core, and slice. You can save the peels for many uses like making pectin.  I recommend the clamping version like this one and not the suction cup version.

Pastry Cutter:  You can use this handy tool to cut lard, Crisco, or butter into flour for biscuits, pie crust, or other pastries.  They are handy to keep in your kitchen when you don’t want to get the food processor out, and as a bonus they can be used even if there is no power.

Cheese Cloth: I can’t keep enough of this in my house.  There are endless uses for it in the world of food preservation.  It’s thin so you can’t reuse it very often, it’s a great item to stock up on. 

Potato Masher:  Useful for its name sake, and for mashing anything else you are processing from sugar beets to fruit for jam. It’s an important part in processing and preserving food, especially in the absence of a food processor. 

Water Bath Canner: For it’s food preservation capabilities in home canning, as a stock pot for large meals and stews, a pot with a suitable coating to make soap in, as a wash basin, for boiling laundry, and as a container for carrying water, food, or anything needed. These black granite enamel pots are tough enough to put over a low fire, large enough to get the job done. They remain one of my most frequently used pieces of kitchen equipment.

Pressure Canner: Again, for it’s food preservation capabilities in home canning of low acid foods, like meat and for it’s ability to speed the cooking of regular food thereby conserving fuel. A beef roast which takes 4 hours to cook in the oven can be completely cooked and incredibly tender in under an hour when cooked in a pressure canner, this also greatly conserves fuel if you have a limited supply. There are specific “pressure cookers’ for this on the market but most home pressure canners can also double as a cooker (see the product manual for your canner for instructions). It is completely possible to pressure can or cook food over off-grind gas stoves, rocket or volcano stoves, and even over wood burning stoves with the appropriate amount of skill and practice.

Aside from being prepared for a grid down situation, owning this equipment makes you more self-reliant and less dependent on others.  If you don’t want to run into town to get new batteries for your digital scale, you don’t have to.  If the grid goes down you won’t have to go anywhere in search of food because you can’t prepare the food you have – you will be cooking your food safely and efficiently while others will be looking to the government for help.

10 Reasons Why Everyone Should Store Oats

Oats are one of those storage foods people LOVE to ignore.  I can’t even get my own husband to eat them.  Since we both came from rural areas and grew up with the same self-reliant and frugal values, I couldn’t understand this.  I love oats!  Why would anyone not like oats?

Soon I learned it wasn’t just him, but mostly everyone else I ran into.  I am convinced that most people who don’t like oats are running into one of two main problems.  They never had them prepared correctly to begin with; and/or they just don’t know what to do with them other than make oatmeal.  I am going to solve these problems with you today.  Oats are an extremely valuable item to put in your food stores and an incredibly healthy addition to your diet and here’s why:

1. Oats Store Exceedingly Well

Oats, especially in their slightly modified form of groats, and steel-cut oats – will last a LONG, LONG time and still deliver life-sustaining nutrition.  How long?  Studies performed at BYU have shown oats to still deliver “life-sustaining nutrition” for over 30 years if stored correctly.  Click here to see an article on Dry Canning – which is a way to safely store them long-term.  Even the more processed form of Rolled Oats or Traditional Oats will store 20+ years if stored correctly, Provident Living’s website claims 30 years.  However, processing oats shortens their storage life, so the more processed they are, the shorter their shelf life.

Ready to soak overnight – photo by Stephanie Dayle 2013

2. Oats Can be Easily Prepared Without Power

A supply of rolled oats can be prepared in many different ways.  The most common and easy way, is to boil them.  This can be accomplished easily by setting your oats in water and a hint of lemon juice or vinegar overnight to soak (This makes them easier to digest and they will cook up so much nicer for you), the next morning your pre-soaked old-fashioned oats will cook up as easily as quick oats, this also saves on fuel for cooking.

For the slow cooking of steel-cut oats or rolled oats you can use aDutch Oven with an ample supply of water.  Place in a bed of coals, use charcoal briquettes, or use a kitchen oven on top of your wood stove.  The locking lid of the Dutch Oven seals in moisture and prevents the oatmeal from drying out.  They can also be used as stuffing like with Scottish Haggis, inside of various organ meats and/or used as a binder in recipes to hold things together.

Oats can also be enjoyed as a drink that has been around for ages and the nice thing about the drink is that you still get many of the health benefits from the oats.  You can also use oats to make your own granola as a snack or travel food (again you can do this with your Dutch Oven if need be click here to see an article on Choosing and Seasoning a Dutch Oven).

Lastly, ‘whole oats’ (with the hulls intact) can be sprouted in a matter of 3 days or so and eaten as lovely nutrient rich sprouts.

Sweet Cinnamon Oak Drink
• 1 C Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
• 1 (4-inch) Cinnamon Stick, Broken into Chunks
• 4 C Water
• Sugar or Honey to taste
In a large pitcher, soak the oats, cinnamon and water for a minimum of one hour, preferably three. Blend the mixture (remove the cinnamon stick) in a blender.  Strain and sweeten to taste.  Serve well-chilled or over ice.

Oatmeal
Photo by Stephanie Dayle 2013

Slow Cooker Oat Meal from Food Network’s Good Eats
• 1 cup steel-cut oats
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup dried figs (or fruit of your choice)
• 4 cups water
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
In a slow cooker (or Dutch Oven), combine all ingredients and set to low heat.  Cover and let cook for 8 to 9 hours(mine looked pretty good after 4 hours but I would not have hesitated to cook them longer) stir them to check for burning or drying and add more water if needed.  If you are using a slow cooker (electric crock pot) method it works best if started before you go to bed.  This way your oatmeal will be finished by morning.

3.  Oats are Higher in Protein Than Wheat or Rice

Oat protein is 16.9 g to that of even Brown Rice at  7.94 g.  Oat protein is almost equal to soy protein, which research has shown is nearly equal to meat, milk, and egg protein (a bonus for those of us who don’t like soy).  The protein content of the different forms of oats ranges from 12 to 24%, the highest among cereals making oats an excellent choice to store as a survival food for times when other sources of protein are scarce.

4.  Oats Make You Feel Fuller, Longer

Oats contain more ‘soluble’ fiber than any other grain, resulting in slower digestion and an extended sensation of fullness.  Staying fuller longer could come in handy when food is scarce. It is also what makes oats a superb breakfast food, preventing the urge to snack until later on during the day.

5.  Oats Will Help Control Blood Sugar and Cholesterol

Oats contain complex carbohydrates which help stabilize blood sugar and the before mentioned soluble fiber slows the absorption of glucose.  The soluble fiber in oats has also been proven to lower bad cholesterol  (LDL) by essentially taking it out with trash as it moves through and out of your system so to speak.  Oats could be one of your only tools in treating someone with high cholesterol in a prolonged emergency when they do not have access to their statin drugs and oats could be one of many dietary tools for helping to manage blood sugar levels (assuming you don’t smother the oats in sugar).

6.  Oats Can be Used as a Meat Expander

During the depression, many families added oats to their meat when grinding and cooking it to make it go further and to keep everyone fuller a little longer.  A favorite place to add oats was and still is to meat loaves, as oats tend to take on the flavor of whatever they are cooked with.

7.  Oats Can be Grown Where Wheat Cannot

Oats are easily grown in temperate regions.  They have a lower summer heat requirement and greater tolerance of rain than other cereals such as wheat, rye or barley.  They can be grown in areas with cool, wet summers, such as the Northwest.  As an example to their hardiness, they are being grown successfully in Iceland.  Oats also do not require weeding as they usually choke out most weeds.  Whole oats can be planted as seeds.

8.  Oats Can be Ground Into Flour

Groats are a good choice for flour making, but you can also use old-fashioned rolled oats.  Rolled oats can be turned into oat flour with a strong food processor while groats will require an actual grain mill.  Oat flour adds the health benefit of oats to any baked good.  Oat flour, if coming from a wheat-free facility, can also help fill the holes in a gluten-free diet.  If wheat becomes more scarce, oat flour may become its substitute.

9.  Oats are Inexpensive and Versatile

Besides all the uses you’ve read about so far, left over oatmeal can be made into a simple homemade oat bread.  Click here to view the recipe.  Not only does this save money, but it adds nutrition and depth of flavor to your bread.  Oats are relatively inexpensive due to their use as livestock feed and their unpopularity as people food.  When compared to other high protein grains, oats are rather inexpensive making it an important choice for food storage.  Now is a good time to stock up on oats.

10.  Oats Can Double as an Animal Feed 

Complex carbohydrates, in oats, have been providing energy to livestock for a very long time.  Horses were the reason humans started cultivating oats.  They can be fed to horses, cows, dogs (in the form of oatmeal), chickens, goats, sheep and almost every other farm animal.

 5 main types of oats and why it matters!

Whole Oats - These oats are usually straight from the field and still have a hull.  You usually can only get these from a feed or farm supply store.  Unless you have the means to remove the hull I would not recommend getting them unless you want them as animal feed or as seed – if you do buy them and want to use them as food, make sure they have not been treated with any kind of chemicals or poison.

Groats - These are whole oats with the hull removed, but are difficult to come by.  They can sometimes be found in co-ops and health food stores.  They take a very long time to cook up, and remain hard and unpleasant to eat – BUT they are excellent if you want to grind them into flour with your home grain mill.  You could also run them through your steel burrs if you have them on your grain mill, on a course grind and make your own version of steel-cut oats, which makes a very nice porridge.  These are fairly difficult to grind without practice, so another option would be to use a roller mill or roller mill attachment for your meat grinder or KitchenAid mixer (if you have one), and make your own old-fashioned rolled oats from groats.

Steel Cut Oats or Irish Oats
public domain photo

Steel Cut Oats - These are oats that have been cut by steel blades into small pieces.  They cook up finer and quicker than groats to make a nice porridge, and many people say that flavor from steel-cut oats is better than the old-fashioned rolled oat porridge we know as “oatmeal.”  They are also known as Irish Oats or Pinhead Oats.  Cooking time on Steel cut oats is 35-60 minutes if not longer.

Rolled Oats or Old Fashioned Oats - Are a processed version of groats.  They are groats that have been steamed and rolled flat to speed up cooking time to around 10-15 minutes in boiling water.

Quick Oats - Once again these are groats that have been steamed, but they have been rolled even thinner to decrease cooking time even more to 3-5 minutes in boiling water.  Once oats are processed to this extreme they start losing some of their nutritional value as the processing methods begin to damage the soluble fiber within the oats.

Rolled Oats
public domain photo

Instant Oats - these are oats, usually quick oats, that have been pre-cooked and then dehydrated.  You only need to add hot water to these oats for a finished product.  They do not store well at all and are the least nutritious of all the different forms of oats, but they still have a well deserved spot in your Bug Out Bag, or your 72 hour kit.  Flavored Quaker Instant Oatmeal is this type of oats.