Storage & Portability

[Dame]

I have been reading postings and have decided to share some of the re-decisions made in our home over the years about storage of all the stuff one needs to survive for a period of time.

We eat potatoes, wheat, oats and beans in fairly large quantities.

Potatoes need a cold room or root cellar to store well, we eat 400-600 lbs per year.  One cube palate sized
footprint.  Left over potatoes when the new crop comes in are burried in the garden to feed next years heavy feeders.

Wheat and beans are stored in large garbage cans/55 gal barrels with lids (food grade) with food grade liners, purchased for the purpose and kept in an unheated outbuilding. 

I am not sure how much wheat we actually eat as we share it with the chickens and simply fill up the containers with bulk purchase every fall.  We have found that the VitaMix (purchased at an estate sale unused for $40)turns whole grain wheat into flour quite nicely and for something other than whole wheat we use a flour sifter.  Pasta is made from the same wheat, we like it better, and we purchased a pasta roller.  We still need to add a hand grinder just in case, however for short term outages or brownouts keeping a week or so  pre-milled works just fine. 

I like to keep 5 or 6 kinds of legumes in the same manner and buy them farm direct in rotation.  We probably have a five year supply and buy only one kind per year.  When I want to grow one of them I take the seed straight out of the edible inventory.  We shop for this stuff once maybe twice per year and get the bulk salt, borax, vinegar, sugar, olive oil, etc at the same time.  We also get the vegies we haven't grown and are available locally at the local (day trip) organic market. These get stored in the cold room with the potatoes and some of them get dehydrated when I get that far.

A barrowed or rented 1/2 ton truck can collect the whole years worth of food in a day .

The point of this is that storage capacity is the limiting factor for long term storage of carbohydrates.  Plain square footage that is intrusion and weather proof.  Any producer/processor of a food product shipped bulk in 55 gal drums probably has some rejects usually dints/scrapes/dirt(washable) at  reasonalbe cost as well as the food grade 10 mil plastic liners.  If you have a building, buy enough storage for your projected capacity/need and then fill them up.  $1000 would likely cover the cost of filling them up. 

Oats get a slightly different treatment.  We buy bulk slow cook rolled oats, in 50lb paper institutional bags and put the whole bag in a 55gal drum.  We use 2 of these per year and 2 will fit into the drum with space left over.
The left over space has corn meal, and sometimes rice in much smaller quantities.

The outcome is we do not have to find secure storage space and manage inventory rotation for the sub products.  Whole grains also store better for longer and double as seed. 

Should we have to move in a hurry, I would  take the equipment and some cash/tobacco/etc, and fill the extra traveling space with more concentrated foodsuch as nuts and honey and cheese along with seed.  Moving grains/potatoes is just not a quick and easy undertaking no matter what you do, that is unless you have a semi handy and good roads and fuel and security.

 

[opsec]

So you are going through 400-600 lbs of potatoes per year. How many pounds of wheat, beans, and legumes do you use in a year?

[Dame]

I do not know how much we use.  We live in the Northern Grain Belt in the country, getting and storing the wheat is not that big a deal here and we have lots of space for whole grain storage.  Because necessity does not yet demand it we still buy baked goods from the local bakery at less than it would cost to do it ourselves.  We buy up to a months worth at a time and keep it in a freezer.  Getting grain cleaned for table use is a nusiance and dirty/boring work.  Collecting the fan mill to clean it with 'if and when' is on this fall's to do list.

We have plenty of storage for the uncleaned grains so we keep enough for our own needs for the forseeable future.  If we get a cow we would need more.  Farm gate price for feed grain (not cleaned) is max $10 for 60lbs.

Beans work on the same sort of basis, much smaller scale.  I bought 80 lbs of beans this year and would have bought more but the local feed&seed who keeps them didn't have garbanzo.  I still need to check with the cleaning plant down the road, a 15 minute round trip, to see if they have any from this years crop, I did not here of anyone growing them this year.  We are under 200 lbs right now so I may just get another 100 lbs or whatever the bag holds of lentils again.
I suspect this is not very helpful for most peoples circumstance.  The books say we would need roughly 400lbs of grains per year per person and 60lbs of beans/legumes per person per year.  Maybe I should get 200 lbs of lentils just in case. 


                   

[opsec]

How many people are you feeding and what kinds of beans do you store besides garbanzos and lentils?

[Dame]

My life and my family structure are not nearly orderly enough to give you a particularly straight answer on this one.

We have young adult children and grandchildren.  They come and go at random.  As long as they contribute sufficently to pull their own weight (capacity adjusted) there is no problem.  My elderly mother is also welcome whenever and for however long she chooses.

Adjusted to full time people I would say usually 3 or 4 peaple eat here.

We will actually eat a few mung beans, and we also eat navy, Great Northern & baby lima (when I get them planted and they grow), pinto, and green and/or yellow soup peas.  There are some kidney beans as well, but I do not like them so we only eat them when some other family member wants them and prepares them, and I feed the left overs to the chickens. 

[oscar615]

So now I have some questions.  So where to you find food grade drums?  Do they have lids that seal somehoe to keep the insects out?  What kind of grains etc do the feed stores have?  Wheat? Corn?  Oats?  Beans? Do most or all feed stores have these things?  These are all suitable for people?  I may stop by the local feed store in the next couple of days and see what they have.  I guess the drums would come first.  I like that idea of having 55 gals of rice and beans etc.  Are these steel drums?  I am not sure about big trash cans, how do you keep out the bugs?  What is a fan mill?  Is it how you would clean the wheat?  Sorry about so many questions, but Dame's post opens up a whole realm of possibilities and got my brain going.  If I could have storage like she does, it seems so much better than lots of reused frosting/pickle buckets.

[opsec]

So where to you find food grade drums? 

Just do a google search on "steel drum [your city]"

Do they have lids that seal somehoe to keep the insects out?

Yes, you are looking for open head drums. These have a lid which comprises the entire end of the drum and is held on by a large ring that encircles the entire circumferance of the drum clamping the lid to the body of the drum, as opposed to the closed head type which is a one piece construction and only has a 2" threaded hole called a "bung" with a screw cap one one of the ends.

What kind of grains etc do the feed stores have?  Wheat? Corn?  Oats?  Beans? Do most or all feed stores have these things?  These are all suitable for people? 

I've never really shopped around in feed stores. All wheat is consumable by humans. I find most all of these can be purchased by the bulk foods department at health food stores. You might also want to look into "ezekial mix" cereal. This cereal is a combination of beans and grains that is nutritionall balanced to provide all of the protein needs of the human body.
 

I like that idea of having 55 gals of rice and beans etc.  Are these steel drums?  I am not sure about big trash cans, how do you keep out the bugs? 

You want drums, not trash cans.

You should also consider using food grade drum liners inside the drums. That will be necessary if you are going to use oxygen absorbers to store the food for a prolonged period. Here's a source: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=110&product%5Fid=14672&cookie%5Ftest=1

What is a fan mill?

Sorry, I can't help with this one.

If I could have storage like she does, it seems so much better than lots of reused frosting/pickle buckets.

That's true if you are planning on remaining stationary for the duration of your need. If you want mobility or the convenience of being able to relocate your food supply, then the 5 - 6 gallon buckets are the way to go.

[Dame]

Fan mill:  Think forced air furnace fan blowing full force on a 4 foot cube frame holding mulitple screens at angles and shaking in alternate directions.  The screens are also at an angle.  The grain falls through the holes on the top level down to another screen where the holes are smaller than the grain.  So the big stuff and the little stuff (not grain)comes out one place and is called screenings, the grain comes out another place and the air blows away the chaff and other materials which are less dense than the grain. 

Food/untreated seed grain is already cleaned.  Feed grain is not cleaned.

Treated seed grains are generally poisonous, do not eat unless really sure what they are treated with and it is safe for humans to eat. 

[opsec]

Treated seed grains are generally poisonous, do not eat unless really sure what they are treated with and it is safe for humans to eat.

I never knew that. Good thing I rotated those buckets of triticale out of the supply. I don't know what I had.