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)

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)

Make Mozzarella From Milk In Just 30 Minutes

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I love cheese.  So personally, I couldn’t be have been happier when I stumbled across this tutorial on how to turn a gallon of milk into delicious fresh mozzarella in just 30 minutes. Not only is this a very cheap way to make mozzarella, it is also very useful information for preppers and homesteaders. The ability to make your own cheese can bring much needed variety to your food, and homemade cheese could also be used for bartering or selling.

To make your own mozzarella, you need  Milk, Citric Acid powder, Liquid Rennet or 1/2 tablet Rennet and salt. Check out how it’s done below.

Make Mozzarella From Milk In Just 30 Minutes

(Photo From: Common Sense Homesteading)

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 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)

How To Make Your Own Low Cost Biodiesel Processor

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This is the first of two posts about biodiesel; this one explains how to make a biodiesel processor, so you can convert vegetable oil into usable diesel, the second post will actually show how to use the biodiesel processor to make your own biodiesel.

This biodiesel processor is actually very cheap to make, well it can be if you use reclaimed parts… The main two things you need are an old 10 gallon water heater and a pump; other than that you just need a load of cheap plumbing hoses, joints and connectors. I think this whole project could be made for less than $100. If you can then get your hands on lots of cheap or free waste cooking oil, you can produce your own cheap/ecological diesel to run vehicles and generators.

How To Make Your Own Low Cost Biodiesel Processor

(Photo from: drinkmorecoffee via Instructables)

How To Make Biodiesel From Waste Cooking Oil

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Firstly before anyone says so, that is not a jar of pee! It’s processed biodiesel!

This is the second of two posts on biodiesal, the first one showed how to make a cheap biodiesal processor and this one explains how to use the processor to produce biodiesel from waste cooking oil.

Years ago, restaurants etc were paying a fortune to have their waste oil disposed of; these days many have cottoned on to the fact that this waste oil can actually be valuable and they are now selling it so people can make biodiesel.  That said, if you ask around and do some research you should still be able to find a supply of free or very cheap waste oil, especially if you have the capability to pick up and remove the oil from their premises.

How To Make Biodiesel From Waste Cooking Oil

(Photo from: drinkmorecoffee via Instructables)

If It Crawls, It’s Canned (An Awesome Article On Subsistence Living)

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Most of us get the majority of out food from the store; sure some of us grow and rear some of our food, but even then, a lot of our food still comes from the store, especially in the winter months. Below is a link to an awesome article about living on Prince of Wales Island in south-east Alaska. People living here have to survive largely as subsistence hunters and gatherers, and when food is plentiful, they have to can and preserve it in bulk for future use when food isn’t so readily available.

This article is a great read for anyone into prepping, homesteading and living  sustainably off-the-grid as it explains about subsistence hunting/gathering and also shows how vital canning and preserving foods is, when it is plentiful…

If It Crawls, It’s Canned (An Awesome Article On Subsistence Living)

(Photo from: Alastair Bland/for NPR)

How To Build A Small DIY Septic System

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How to deal with human waste… It’s not exciting, it’s not sexy, but it is necessary! If you are just camping/living somewhere for a few weeks, a basic latrine with suffice.  However if we are talking months or years at a bug-out or off-the-grid location for, you’ll need to build something a bit more effective to deal with the regular waste.

The awesome tutorial (that’s right, I referred to a DIY septic system tutorial as awesome!) shows how to quickly and cheaply build a small septic system using 55 gallon plastic drums and PVC pipe. This septic system is only suitable for human waste, it is not big enough for laundry etc. The tutorial states this system is suitable for two adults, but I would think that with careful usage, this could cover the needs of a small family with two adults and two young children. Check it out below.

How To Build A Small DIY Septic System

(Photo from: WikiHow)

37 Amazing Uses For Cornstarch

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I knew vinegar and baking soda have loads of alternative uses (search K.W.N for vinegar or baking soda for previous posts), but I had no idea cornstarch also had so many uses… It’s great for soothing burns and sunburn, it relieves the irritation from bug bites and poison ivy and it is amazing for removing stains, absorbing oil and moisture.  Check out the other 30 or so uses below!

If you store some vinegar, baking soda and cornstarch, imagine how many bases you’ll have covered…

37 Amazing Uses For Cornstarch

Check out the: K.W.N Recommended Book List

(Photo from: Francis Storr)