Knowledge Weighs Nothing

How To Preserve Dairy Products For Emergency Situations

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Continuing the recent dairy theme – Make Mozzarella From Milk In Just 30 Minutes and How To Make Butter From Milk (Couldn’t Be Easier!), I thought I would do a quick post about how to preserve and store fresh dairy products, in this case – milk, cheese and butter, for long term emergency food storage

You might be surprised to hear but with the right method,  milk, butter and cheese can all be preserved in wax and it can keep (un-refrigerated!) for up to 5 years. For most people dairy makes up an important part of a well balanced diet, so it stands to reason that, if possible, it should also be part of your emergency food storage supplies.

How To Preserve Dairy Products For Emergency Situations

(Photo from: cwjoneill)

Easy To Make PVC Tube Drying Rack

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Sometimes the simplest way to way to do something is the best way, and using a drying rack is one of the simplest and easiest ways to dry/dehydrate food for long term storage. Below is a nice photo tutorial showing how to build a drying rack from some PVC tubing, some outlets and adapters  and some hardware cloth (chicken wire).  The hardware cloth is galvanized, so I am not sure how great that is for putting food on, but I think you could substitute this with that plastic mesh you can use to cover crops to keep insects away, this would probably also be cheaper!

Other than how cheap and easy it is to build, the great thing about this PVC drying rack is that the legs come off, which makes it very easy to store when not in use…

Easy To Make PVC Tube Drying Rack

(Photo from: Preparedness Advice Blog)

Mora (& Other Low-Cost Knife) Modification For Better Bushcraft

It’s all well and good if you can afford a high end quality bushcraft/survival knife such as those made by the Ontario Knife Company or Spyderco fixed blades. The fact remains that by far the best selling bushcraft/survival knives are the low cost Mora knives made in Sweden, with the Morakniv Companion at under $15 being by far the most popular of all the Mora knives.

For their price, Mora knives are fantastic knives, I have two, and whilst they are not full-tang knives, I have used and abused them and I haven’t come close to breaking one. They make great camp and general around home knives. I wouldn’t choose one as my first choice for a bug-out-bag/survival bag, but it would be my back up!

For all the positives about these very low cost Mora knives, there is a quick, two minute modification you can make to them that will dramatically improve their usefulness. Watch the video by Dave Canterbury from the Pathfinder School and get modifying.

By the way, if you don’t already own a Mora knife, check out the Mora knife range on Amazon, I highly recommend them! I have some very high quality knives, I even have a bespoke knife made especially for me, but time and time again, I find myself reaching for the Mora knife. I think it is because it is so dependable and hey, if I do break it, it’s only $15…

How To Make Butter From Milk (Couldn’t Be Easier!)

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A while back I did the post: Make Mozzarella From Milk In Just 30 Minutes which was extremely popular! Given that so many of you liked the idea of making cheese out of milk, I am assuming that you will also like to know how to make totally delicious butter!

This one I’ve got, as making butter from milk is easy! It’s even easier to make butter from cream, but I have said how to make butter from milk, so let’s stick with that for now.

How To Make Butter From Milk

    • First things first – pour one gallon of fresh full-cream milk into a container with which has a mouth wide enough for you to be able to skim the cream from the top of the milk when it forms.
    • Now put your container of milk into the refrigerator for 12 hours or so, overnight will do.
    • Next carefully skim off the cream that has formed on the top of the milk.  Once you get down through the main cream and it starts to get thinner and more milk like, stop!
    • Now leave your cream (covered) out on the side, until the temperature is approximately 75 degrees and it starts to smell a bit off…
  • Add the cream to a large jar, making sure not to fill it more than 40% full.  Put the lid on tightly and shake vigorously for between 10-30 minutes, depending on how vigorous you are! Once you start to notice a distinct separation, with the beginning of the butter clumping together within the butter milk, slow the shaking right down, but keep going; within a minute or two your butter should start to turn yellow.
  • Now strain the butter from the buttermilk through a colander (save the buttermilk for pancakes!) and rinse under the tap. Shake off as much water as possible and add the butter solids to a bowl and mix them together to form one large mass, if there is still excess water in the bowl, pour this out.
  • Now it’s simply up to you to add some salt to your butter (to your taste), mix it all together, put the butter to a container with a lid, refrigerate and enjoy!

There you go – you’ve turned milk into butter! As said, it is much quicker if you are already starting off with cream, but now you can pretty much make butter from either cream or milk.

(Photo from:  A Continuous Lean)

4 All Natural, All Purpose Healing Salve Recipes

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Sometimes it is just nice to use what nature provides to help us heal, at least when we are talking about minor cuts, scratches and burns etc. Below is a tutorial from ‘One Good Thing By Jillee’, which hows how to make not one, but four natural healing salves.

There is an all purpose healing salve, an anti-allergy (with natural anti-histamine properties), an aches & pains salve and finally an natural anti-ageing salve.

4 All Natural, All Purpose Healing Salve Recipes

(Photo from: One Good Thing By Jillee)

How To Make The MIDGE Gasifier Campstove

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Gasifier camp stoves are gaining in popularity, this is because they burn very hot, very clean and very efficiently. The reason gasifier stoves are more efficient is because the air is drawn in through the bottom of the stove and as it passes though the fuel, it too is combusted, so in effect you are burning the fuel, and the wood gas/smoke which is given off. That’s my very basic understanding of the process anyway…

Now you can purchase a gasifier camp stove, the Solo Stove is very popular with campers, hikers and preppers. I have a Solo Stove and I will be reviewing it shortly. Whilst the Solo Stove is a premium bit of kit, it does cost around $70. Below is a tutorial on how to build your own gasifer camp stove for free, from some tin cans and a few screws. This stove is called the MIDGE (“Modified Inverted Downdraft Gasifier Experiment”) and it is actually quite famous in its own right as an awesome little stove for those into DIY, or on a tight budget. Check it out below, it is very easy to make.

How To Make The MIDGE Gasifier Campstove

(Photo from: KoffeeKommando)

How To Recharge (Single Use) Alkaline Batteries

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I knew it was kind of possible to reuse disposable, single use batteries; as a kid we used to leave dead alkaline batteries out in the sunshine for a few hours, and this seemed to recharge them a little bit, so we could get a bit more use out of them… What I didn’t realize is that you can now actually purchase specific battery chargers which are designed to recharge dead single use alkaline batteries. Now maybe everyone else knew this already, but I certainly didn’t…

This means that once you have purchased one of these specific battery chargers, such as the: Maximal Alkaline FC999 Universal Rapid Charger, you then effectively have free batteries for life. Follow the tips below, and you don’t even need to purchase the disposable batteries to begin with…

FREE Batteries For Life? How?

Our local authority recycles dead batteries, they pick them up with the garbage once a month. If I went out into the neighborhood that day, I could literally collect 1000s of free alkaline batteries which could then be recharged and reused. Even if your local authority doesn’t provide this service, you could still get all the free batteries you need, by asking friends and family to save their batteries for you. You could also ask local stores and commercial premises if they could save their batteries for you.

Now I am sure there is a lifespan for recharging disposable batteries, so one set isn’t going to last forever. With this in mind, you’ll need to replace the free dead batteries you collect, from time to time. This shouldn’t be an issue, as simply ask friends etc to save all their used, dead batteries for you, and you should effortlessly have a constant supply of used, dead batteries to recharge.

Just to note – the Maximal Alkaline FC999 Universal Rapid Charger doesn’t just charge alkaline batteries, it also charges: RAM, Ni-MH, Ni-CD, AA, AAA, C, D, N, and 9V batteries, so it’s got you covered for everything. Additionally, you might also want to purchase a cheap battery tester, to check batteries are dead and check how well they have recharged.

Anyway, as said, this might not be news to some of you, but hopefully it is useful information and saves some money for people that didn’t know. All our flashlights, remotes and radios etc take batteries; not to mention, if you have young kids, you get through a huge amount of batteries with all their toys and games. If nothing else, it is for more eco-friendly to reuse old batteries, rather than just throwing them in the trash…

Shipping Containers For Underground Bunkers: Read This First!

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Anyone who watches Doomsday Preppers on TV, will be forgiven for thinking that you just purchase an old shipping container, dig a hole, throw it in the ground, cover it over, and there’s your bunker. True enough, purchasing a shipping container to use as a bunker can be a good be a good way to build a bunker; they cost around $2000-$5000.  Some come already insulated and some are ready wired for electricity with lights, sockets and switches etc.

The problem is that shipping containers were not meant to be put in hole in the ground and covered with tons of soil… Shipping containers are designed to carry weight across the floor and across their four corners, the sides and roof themselves are not designed to carry weight or resist pressure.  There are ways around this problem, such as building a Gabion Basket, but it is above the scope of this post to cover that, so Google is your friend here.

There are also several logistical issues with shipping containers; sure the company selling the container will likely deliver it to your site, but firstly, if you are building your bunker at a remote bug-out location, can a large flat-bed truck even access the site? Secondly, how are you going to get your shipping container into the hole that has been dug for it (actually how are you going to dig the hole, can you get an excavator on site?) Most shipping containers are delivered on roll-off flat-bed trucks… There will be no facility to drop the shipping container in place, into the hole dug for it, so how are you going to achieve this? You will likely need to hire a fork-lift or a crane and once again, get it to the site.  Also is the site ground safe for a fork-lift or crane to operate? A muddy, rocky and uneven site is going to cause further problems here.

To summarise – shipping containers can make excellent under ground bunkers, but there are some serious logistical considerations; how to ensure the shipping container can handle the pressure of being buried under tons and tons of soil, and also planning the location of your underground bunker, so the shipping container can be safely delivered to site and manoeuvred into its final resting place (hole).

This post is not in anyway supposed to cover ALL the pros and cons of using a shipping container for an underground bunker; there are many considerations. The purpose of this article is to get you thinking about the logistics should you be considering purchasing a shipping container to use for an underground bunker.  I hope it gives you food for thought and encourages you to do further research and planning before committing to purchase a bug-out location, or possibly buying a container which will end up sitting on site, unused for several years because the project was not thought out properly.

(Photo from:  photohome_uk)

DIY Hydroelectricity 101: Generate Electricity From Running Water

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Some of the most popular posts on K.W.N have been the ones about generating free energy and electricity; by far the most popular have been the numerous DIY solar power, solar heating and solar hot water posts. However, if your property has a suitable and reliable running water source, I would highly recommend you look into hydro-power/hydroelectricity.

The benefit of using a hydro-generator over solar power is that with a hydro-generator, power is generated 24/7, solar panels only work during daylight hours and their efficiency is affected by the weather and time of year.

If you are considering purchasing some land for a homestead or bug-out location, land with a reliable running water source would be a HUGE plus as it could provide free electricity, drinking water and food. However, before you go ahead and purchase, you should check with the local authority to see whether you can use the water source for hydroelectricity. Just because it is your land, it doesn’t give you OFFICIAL permission to do so.

DIY Hydroelectricity 101: Generate Electricity From Running Water

Book: Microhydro: Clean Power from Water (The book by Scott Davis, who wrote the post!)

(Photo from: hoyasmeg)

How To Make Your Own Essential Oils From Plants

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Essential oils are so versatile; they have so many health, household and medicinal uses.  We have done several posts in the past about using essential oils for various things, like first aid, repelling insects and even a post about utilizing essential oils in SHTF scenarios, and post SHTF survival…

Whilst essential oils are expensive to buy, they are pretty cheap (in comparison) to make at home. You will need to either make or buy an essential oil distilling still (the most popular way of extracting oils from plants), but once that is made or purchased, you only have to cover the cost of the plants used to make your oils; if you grow your own, you can make them for free.

Below is an easy to follow tutorial on how to make your own essential oils from plants using distillation. I also recommend you check out the book below: Making Plant Medicine by Richo Cech; the book shows how to make a whole manner of natural medicines from plants, including tinctures, essential oils, syrups, salves and more…

How To Make Your Own Essential Oils From Plants

Making Plant Medicine by Richo Cech

(Photo from:  EternalJoi)