30 Days of Preparedness: Top 5 Grid Down Cooking Methods

Today our topic is

cooking

with a rack and we love

cooking

with a rack because we have been doing it for years. We want to be able to cook a good meal when the grate falls off. Well, I'm not sure I can say I love it. Cooking with a rack We have practiced a lot and for 30

days

we only used the kitchen with a rack and we had a normal life and it was very, very difficult, so I don't know if I can say that I love cooking with a rack, but we sure know that. what works and what doesn't, in today's video we're going to discuss our top five.

Well, I couldn't decide, so our six best cooking

methods

for cooking when the grill fails. Foreign preppers. I'm Kyleen and Jonathan. and today we participate in the 30

days

of preparation. September is the month of preparation. We're doing it with a whole group of other awesome preppers before we get started. I want to thank Rogue Preparation Morgan, thank you for starting this and making it happen and everything. You all should check out the 30 day playlist. It'll be a good thing Morgan gave us our top five ways to cook when the grill goes down and the first, and probably my favorite, is Canned Heat.

Now, when we talk about Canned Heat, this is it. What we are looking at are different types of sternum fuel, some of them are safe to burn indoors and some of them are not. This is a six-hour can used by caterers and is safe to burn indoors. That's what we're talking about. Many times you can buy it under the Safe Heat brand. We'll leave you a link to a place where you can buy it online, but it's cheaper if you go to Sam's Club and buy it. I'll just tell you that. Now the reason we like Canned Heat so much is because you can safely burn it inside and think about it, the

grid

doesn't always go out on sunny days, it could be stormy or windy or it could be dangerous to be outside, there are all types. of different problems, so you want to be able to cook inside and this is the safest way to use these little folding stoves and these are amazing, they are complete in a small package, they are economical, but I would buy the brand name Sterno, the brands on the outside they're a little flimsier and when you put the pot in here to cook you want to make sure it doesn't fall over or anything, but that's the easiest way to do it, canned heat can be safe. stored inside, comes in tiers of 12.

It's a great storage feeling, it has a shelf life of about 10 years, but we have a few different things you can use Canned Heat in one, it's like that, but Vesta is my favorite of all times, the Vestas, it's actually a two in one, with this heater off, you can cook, you can put three cans in here and that's the advantage of having the three cans, you can get some real heat, this takes a long time. it heats things up for a long time, it just does that because of its nature, in this one you're using three times as much fuel so you can cook much faster, so with a can you'll just see it simmer with little bubbles, put two together cans and you can get a good boil, but put three together and boil pasta and cook stuff like that, it's just no big deal and that's what I like so I might use one. here and you could use two or you could use three and then with this heater, this is a really cool heater that sits on top and has a fan, it doesn't need batteries or anything, it just uses the heat to run that fan and it's converts into a heater, so this is a really cool device, two in one, and if you live in an apartment, if you can't afford a lot of money to prepare, this is the only tool that I would say you should get and some heat canned because this can help you get through a short-term power outage very easily and also keep you a little warm.

You can't even afford this, so you know it's very cheap. You could do this and it would allow you to cook well. You're not going to cook dried beans on top, but you're going to do things like heat up a can of beans. Now, this is The Inferno. The reason we show it to you is because you can put a can of canned heat. here and cook inside or you can use biomass like pine cones or sticks or things like that and this is a rocket stove and you could cook outside using it so it's versatile and it can do both so we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute, but let's move on to number two, number two is Sun Oven, this is my favorite.

I love it because the fuel you are using is stored freely and safely in the sun. It's just amazing, okay, and it's not that I don't like it because I love it, in fact, I just made a cake here for Jonathan, we put it there around 11 o'clock and we were scheduled to do a presentation at one, Well, in fact, I forgot it was there. and then our presentation was delayed, so three hours later I went to take out the cake and it wasn't burnt, it's fantastic, it's still moist and it's nice, and the wonderful thing about using the sun is that it's very forgiving.

I don't have Worrying about burning anything in the kitchen has its limitations because sometimes if it's a cloudy day you'll be able to get to 300 and then 200 and it will alternate back and forth like that and I just can't cook on days like that like that. that on days like today I can cook very well, but yesterday we had a big storm and there is no way I could have used it, so I need something reliable like Canned Heat to make sure I can cook when I can't use this, but when it is available, I think it's one of the most fabulous tools we have because it only uses the sun.

This is an all-American solar oven, frankly I think it's the best one we've ever had. Have we ever tried it, we've tried several, we love it, there are others out there, but it's an amazing way to cook and you can even build your own and create things very cheaply, make sure you study it and practice with it because just because This theory doesn't mean it's going to work and we want it to work when the

grid

goes down, we need it to work, so how about number three? Number three is fuel conservation or thermal cooking and the reason why this is so important is because the more we can conserve our fuel, the less fuel we have to store and unlike the sun, when we use the solar oven, it is really safe to store it correctly, but there are a lot of fuels that can be quite dangerous and expensive, so let's go.

To show you a couple of preservation

methods

that we think work really well, the first one we should probably talk about is using some type of pressure cooker because it significantly reduces the amount of time you cook the food and use the fuel the next time. Part of that is thermal cooking. You want to talk about thermal cooking and we can combine some of these, but thermal cooking is basically isolating what you're doing now. It won't heat it up that way, but you can use a little. of fuel, usually about 25 percent of the fuel that you would normally use to heat whatever you're cooking, usually it's a stew or a soup or something like that, so we'll do something like wrap it in a blanket so we can heat it up here right now.

The roast is not going to work because the center of the roast is going to be hot, but if I were making beans or stew or anything that has a liquid like that, what we would do is cover it with towels. or blankets whatever we can do and then we're going to take this this is hot this is boiling we're going to take it we're going to put it here and then we're going to pack the insulation but we're going to be very careful not to touch the rocking chair because if you touch the rocking chair and you tilt it then you're going to lose all your wonderful warmth and steam, so you're just going to put down towels. on top of there and you can put it here over time if you use this type of thermal cooking, this cooler the seams will start to separate because of the heat, we know this because we've done it, but the thing is you want four inches of insulation on each side and then it should retain the heat for much longer before continuing, let me tell you that our first thermal cooker was a box of diapers because at that time a lot of diapers were arriving at our house and without money and we used a lot of foam that we made and it was amazing.

I mean with basically zero money we built one and it worked extremely well it was amazing but we ended up throwing it away because with this method there is some moisture that leaks in and then the cardboard and insulation started to stink like beans it was horrible so I would recommend use washable material. We have a whole video about this and a post but this concept is really cool, this is a traveling chef and it's commercial so what you do is you put the food in here, bring it to a boil, put the lid on and then put it back in , put the lid on, but this won't retain the heat as long as something like this does.

What I'll do is wrap it in a little baby blanket and set it aside and then it works great. You have to be careful that the food never drops below the serving temperature because if it does then you are just growing bacteria. I have to learn how to do this to be able to do it safely, but it can reduce your fuel consumption by 75, 65, 75 percent significantly and that makes a big difference when your fuel is limited and now, for the number four, propane, but everything. that's staying outside and that's a good point unless your appliance is rated for indoor use and most of them are not propane.

It is an outdoor fuel and you can only use it outside. Propane is amazing, it has an indefinite lifespan and is limited only by the tank, as long as that tank is in good condition and doesn't leak, that propane is good forever, the problem with propane is that if when you have a leak finds a low area and just stays there until there is an ignition source and then you get a big boom and that's why it's so dangerous, it's a fabulous fuel for cooking. I use it probably more than any other alternative fuel because right outside this door I have a little Camp Chef and I do all my canning with that and so we use it constantly and we cook with it regularly during a power outage, it's already set up, we're right out that back door and you can prepare almost anything you need, so if you have a propane barbecue at home think about using it as part of your emergency

preparedness

arsenal because if you already have it, as long as you make sure your fuel cans are full, you'll have a backup, so gentlemen, count if you have a barbecue, you're doing prep stuff, good charcoal, it's super safe to store, one of the things it does is it absorbs moisture and, if it does then it's no good, so good that you could dry it again, put it in the driveway or something on a sunny day and let it dry, but it won't burn well if it's wet.

What we have done to solve that problem is that we keep it in buckets. This is just a used soap bucket and you want to make sure it has a tight lid to keep out moisture, but that's a great way to store it. We didn't think they had a tight lid so we used silicone caulk, yeah, we glued them together and this was done in 2005 and we took out a bucket. a few weeks ago and it's like new, it still works incredibly well and one of the things we do here just for record keeping is it weighs 15 pounds and it's 240 briquettes and that way it's easier for us to calculate I have a whole video on this that It has some really good calculations and how to use charcoal, so just click on the card in the corner or look at the description and it will take you to that and a really good post more often when we use charcoal.

Think about using it with Dutch ovens and that's awesome, they're expensive and you want to get good quality, but sometimes if you look at a garage sale you can find one, two or three at a great price or second hand. stores and sometimes they're covered in rust and stuff, but you can clean them and they'll be really good. These are some homemade things that we have done well. This is a paper box oven made with a box full of paper and it's just the right size for a 9x13 pan, so it's awesome. So you can see here, we have the little tacos covered with aluminum foil.

Yes, there would be and it is aluminum foil tape that I covered them with because it is stronger. which if you were to try to do it with aluminum foil and then at the bottom you'll see there's a little baking sheet, it's just from the dollar store with the baking sheet we reverse it because it's cardboard, so if you put charcoal on top of cardboard, even if you put aluminum foil on it, it will burn, so what it does is it provides enough air space so it doesn't burn the box. The reason this is good is because you will use significantly less charcoal to do the same job so it is a good option and there is also an Apple box oven and this is basically the same concept, it is a little larger so which requires a little more fuel because there is more space to heat, we just made a small grate.

Some of the instructions you see online will say to use four soda cans or something to hold a rack. I just bought this racket, the hardware or I guess it was a storesporting goods and I just cut the legs to match what we needed and It has worked very well and the intention is to use an open fire, that is the purpose of this grate and it worked very well, but now let's think about fuel conservation. You could put the coals directly on the ground or on top of a piece of aluminum foil, but if you take one of these cookie sheets and invert it, this is a dollar cooking tray and put the charcoal in there, then it won't get the ground to stick to it. steal all the heat from the charcoal and it will work much better if you notice on the box that I am married to an engineer so normally this is the The dry instructions were that it should be tilted on its side, but we just cut little air vents on both sides and then , as you use it it gets old and tears if you just leave aluminum foil tape when you cut it like that.

I'll very quickly put it in there and it'll be fine. You'll notice it too. I have written the instructions directly on the box so whoever uses it knows exactly what to do and how to use it. We have instructions on how to do both. on our website so I'll leave a link in the description and if you're interested in making one for yourself it's there and you can search for it. The really amazing thing about these is that for probably about 10 bucks you can build one of these heavy duty ones. aluminum foil boxes you probably get for free and we used spray adhesive to hold the foil on which made it easier it's very simple to make and very effective now we use an apple box if you want it stronger, you can use two boxes of apples. one inside another and that would also help with more insulation if you go to the liquor store, sometimes liquor stores have cases of whiskey and things that are really very sturdy and would last longer, so you know, use what you have at your disposal, okay? ? the advantage because I couldn't decide because I think biomass and wood and all these kinds of things are going to be found everywhere, especially during a disaster or something, on a grid most of us can get our hands on. about this kind of thing, yes, when mom prunes the garden every year, we probably have enough of this kind of thing to cook all year round, oh, yes, at least, so let's talk a little about rocket stoves, shall we? what is a rocket stove, basically, where?

It draws in air which stokes the fire which makes it nice and warm so it's usually some type of chimney and with a chimney you just suck that air in and you get a very hot fire so you're using less fuel to a hot fire you are cooking more efficiently, yes, so this is The Inferno and it requires batteries or a USB cable so it can run a fan, which makes it burn very hot and uses a lot of fuel. You must also have that support. This is something called The Kelly Kettle and I really like it, so you can use it a couple different ways.

This is actually the fire tray and you can put the sticks here and keep burning them and feeding them there. put your frying pan on top and you can cook or, since we've made burgers and stuff, we've done all kinds of different things with this. The other thing you can do with the Kelly Kettle is this is a water jacket and so you fill this with water and you put this in here, oh, it heats the water incredibly fast and then while you're doing that, you can also take advantage of the top and cook on. It's kind of super cool. device if you don't have a lot of people to feed but it will be needed, I mean any kind of biomass, pine needles or pine cones or sticks, whatever you can burn, you can use the Kelly Kettle and cook with that, so now we like that rocket a lot. stoves we have something called a rocket stove A Bear River which in our 30 day online cooking challenge I fell in love with it we asked to borrow it and then I couldn't let it come back we bought it yeah we cooked our entire Thanksgiving dinner Thank you with this rocket stove because it has a large oven inside and a large stove on top that we used to fry things like breakfast or to put pans and Heat and the children had a job because they liked to feed the sticks. so it made everyone happy and that's one drawback is that you have to take care of it, a rocket stove, you have to attend, but one of the things we thought about that was that during an emergency we could light it.

We uploaded it and all our neighbors could bring their food and cook it and we could use it just to bless the neighborhood and that's one of the reasons we got it. The other thing in this category is actually my wood stove. It works. use normal firewood, but what a great way to be able to heat and cook in winter. Not everyone can do that and it would be miserable in the summer, but I love having my wood stove so that's another option, something else is up to you. fire pit outside, if you have a fire pit, there are portable fire pits, you know, built-in fire pits, there you have the same concept, you're using pieces of wood, whatever you have, yeah, and with the pit of fire we did it last year.

We installed one that is concrete on all sides so it's not as dangerous, so we can also get rid of combustible things and use them as cooking fuel and I think having a variety, you want to be able to cook indoors and you want to be able to cook outdoors . I think it's very important that you can do both because depending on the situation, you may not be able to do one or the other or you may find it more convenient to do so. See, there are our five best cooking methods plus one. Print the question of the day now.

What's your favorite alternative kitchen gadget? Share with us and thank you for being part of the solution.