Be refrigeration-free
Be refrigeration-free, if you don't have a root cellar. (Why wouldn't you have a cellar? Come on!)
How to declare Refrigeration Independence and win your freedom from the power outlet.
If you're becoming an expert permaculture farmer with electricity-independence, as in the hit article on how to raise meat birds without electric incubators, maybe because you might want to want to quit your job and become a farmer for $600 so you can raise a huge family of your own for a whole lot cheaper, then I guess you're in the right place.
If you don't know why you should bother learning how to do all this stuff, then you really need to watch this life-changing episode of Connections, Trigger Effect by James Burke.
You might soon be facing a dystopian future where you'll have to know how to make your own guzzoline from scratch to defend your Biblically-sanctioned Mad Max-style harem. (Oh. Do you doubt me?)
Poor harvest, 1% of Americans are farmers. 11% work in agriculture. The food shortage is here. Prices (pushed to historic lows) are now about to sharply rise.
But that's the best-case catastrophe.
James Burke's series was made before most living preparedness aficionados had any notion that a single EMP strike could kill the US power grid for YEARS without notice. Maybe decades. In fact, "there is no coming back", Pry says.
Just as there was no coming back from the blows God dealt to Egypt.
Sorry. No instructibles about how to to get WiFi after an electro-magnetic pulse attack kills off an estimated 90% of the American population in one or two years.
Even with refrigeration, the nation's emergency food supply will only feed 320 million people for 30 days.
If the EMP hits, your home-pickled eggs will last longer than most Americans will. The science of mass famines is long and specific. 17 months is enough to kill off a population, particularly if you deny them outside help and forcibly confiscate their food stores in an act of pre-meditated genocide.
Fun stuff.
It could happen any time. Things could escalate very fast. Days or weeks. Know one knows. The Bible says "blessed is the peace-maker" for good reason.
Ok, Rambo. You've invested in some dirt-cheap land out in the sticks, maybe buried a shipping container or school bus as a bomb shelter, amirite?
Don't get me wrong. Ultra-efficient, off-grid refrigeration and freezing is possible and it's a great idea. But you might not want to count on it. Good news!
Our ancestors lived without refrigeration for EVER. The generation that lived through the great depression remembered using an ice box. You'd get your milk and a big block of ice delivered off the ice truck, put it on top to keep your ice box cool.
In fact, the last few remaining great-grandparents who remember that era may still call their refrigerator an ice box.
Just one problem for off-gridders in the 21st century. Fresh ice needs to be brought in by truck. And even with drone delivery, Amazon.com probably ain't ever gonna be in that business.
What are the icebox-free, refrigeration-free storage options? Simple. Roasting, canning, pickling, salting, fermenting and dehydrating.
Enter the Larder
What's a larder? It's sort of like a wine cellar.
A cold kitchen or larder is a cool room or food pantry where food is stored.
Buy in bulk, store canned vegetables, fruit and pickles.
Off-grid note: A modern pantry might include chest freezers, which are inherently efficient form of freezing and refrigeration. They may not be as convenient, but when you open a refrigerator door, the cold air spills out and has to be re-cooled.
A chest freezer costs less, is not as convenient, saves hundreds per year in electricity, and is much better for long-term storage than less efficient, self-defrosting freezers.
Food safety tip: You probably don't want to drop 150 pounds of hot, freshly-killed meat in a freezer, by the way. You'll want to cool it down first with an ice bath, maybe flash-freeze the pieces to reduce freezer burn, then keep it stored frozen.
Big, bulky things can take a very long time to cool down, allowing bacteria to multiply, so always practice your basic food safety.
And if you have intermittent access to electricity i.e. solar, wind, hydroelectric, wind storms, trees, or lack battery backup or generators, a well-insulated chest freezer can often keep things from thawing for days.
Some only have a cupboard to store a few items. Some have a full pantry. It's kind of like a wine cellar.
What's a wine cellar?
Wine is fermented grape juice. The fermentation process creates alcohol, which preserves the juice. If you know how to make cheap wine, then you already know the basic principle of fermented food.
You can also ferment animal feed to make it more nutritious. And sourdough bread is a fermented bread which adds nutritional value to the bread, making it more digestible.
The principle is very simple: Sometimes its good to leave your food out for a few days.
It's super easy, every day way to store ANY vegetable to really last.
It's how you make barrels of sauerkraut. And it becomes a delicious convenience food. It's why Germans are called krauts.
You can leave it for a week or two, depending how sour you want it.
Steps:
2:41 Mash it up. You want to break down the cells walls.
2:50 Dry salting versus brine.
3:40 What clear liquid vs cloudy means
Free fermenting guide from Masontops
Pickling
After pickling eggs, he did a series of taste tests at 6 months, one year, and beyond.
How to make pickled eggs.
Other ways to preserve eggs:
Water glassing.
NO COLD STORAGE REQUIRED. But keep it out of heat and sunlight.
Eggs will be great for 8 months, and up to 2 years with NO refrigeration.
Hydrated lime.
5:00 NOT for store-bought eggs. Use today's fresh, clean, unwashed eggs, and filtered or distilled water,
6:30 You'll want to use 1 ounce (by weight) of hydrated lime per quart of water. (Found in the building supply section.)
Top 6 Ways to preserve eggs, 19th century-style
If it's dirty or cracked, use it right away. Only preserve the best eggs.
4:00 Salt - short-term
4:10 Brine - short-term only
4:20 Wheat bran - keeps eggs dry, imparts musty flavor to eggs
4:50 Coating your egg: After 8 months, 70% went bad, but 30% were still good.
5:40 Coating eggs with oil, butter, or rendered tallow for a 60% success rate after 8 months
6:35 Wood ashes (commonly available) 80% success after 8 months, imparts ashy taste
7:30 Slaked lime. Lime water 100% success rate after 8 months, even before refrigeration was invented. Same as hydrated lime available at the masonry supply/building supply section.
When using hydred lime, protect it from evaporation, such as a lid or maybe a layer of oil on top.
10:50 According to 19th century references, the eggs will keep up to 2 years.
Another creative way to "store eggs" for more than a year is to hatch them into chickens, grow them out, and butcher them as needed. Especially convenient if it's 100% free to feed them on zero dollars a day, such as if they're eating down all the surplus, unharvested sections of your kitchen garden while simultaneously prepping the garden bed for next season.
Jerked or Dehydreted Meats
Here's a popular beef jerky recipe with links to explore a variety of other versions. Choose the one you like best.
How to declare Refrigeration Independence and win your freedom from the power outlet.
If you're becoming an expert permaculture farmer with electricity-independence, as in the hit article on how to raise meat birds without electric incubators, maybe because you might want to want to quit your job and become a farmer for $600 so you can raise a huge family of your own for a whole lot cheaper, then I guess you're in the right place.
 |
| Pictured: Two lesbian feminist independent career whaman who don't need no man. The Satanic temptation of Marxist feminism lures women into male-dominated professions, preventing them from starting families to regularly replenish the population. |
Why Learn to be Refrigeration-Independent?
If you don't know why you should bother learning how to do all this stuff, then you really need to watch this life-changing episode of Connections, Trigger Effect by James Burke.
You might soon be facing a dystopian future where you'll have to know how to make your own guzzoline from scratch to defend your Biblically-sanctioned Mad Max-style harem. (Oh. Do you doubt me?)
Poor harvest, 1% of Americans are farmers. 11% work in agriculture. The food shortage is here. Prices (pushed to historic lows) are now about to sharply rise.
But that's the best-case catastrophe.
James Burke's series was made before most living preparedness aficionados had any notion that a single EMP strike could kill the US power grid for YEARS without notice. Maybe decades. In fact, "there is no coming back", Pry says.
Just as there was no coming back from the blows God dealt to Egypt.
Sorry. No instructibles about how to to get WiFi after an electro-magnetic pulse attack kills off an estimated 90% of the American population in one or two years.
Even with refrigeration, the nation's emergency food supply will only feed 320 million people for 30 days.
If the EMP hits, your home-pickled eggs will last longer than most Americans will. The science of mass famines is long and specific. 17 months is enough to kill off a population, particularly if you deny them outside help and forcibly confiscate their food stores in an act of pre-meditated genocide.
Fun stuff.
Will You be Living Without Refrigeration Soon?
It could happen any time. Things could escalate very fast. Days or weeks. Know one knows. The Bible says "blessed is the peace-maker" for good reason.
What about your bug-out shelter refrigeration?
Ok, Rambo. You've invested in some dirt-cheap land out in the sticks, maybe buried a shipping container or school bus as a bomb shelter, amirite?
 |
| They don't even want you to build huge bomb shelters, fam. This one's been condemned. Just like America. |
Our ancestors lived without refrigeration for EVER. The generation that lived through the great depression remembered using an ice box. You'd get your milk and a big block of ice delivered off the ice truck, put it on top to keep your ice box cool.
In fact, the last few remaining great-grandparents who remember that era may still call their refrigerator an ice box.
 |
| Ice box: Non-mechanical refrigeration advertised in 1848 |
Just one problem for off-gridders in the 21st century. Fresh ice needs to be brought in by truck. And even with drone delivery, Amazon.com probably ain't ever gonna be in that business.
 |
| It's electricity-free, but no good for off-grid living. It needs regular deliveries from the ice truck. |
How To Preserve Food Without Refrigeration
What are the icebox-free, refrigeration-free storage options? Simple. Roasting, canning, pickling, salting, fermenting and dehydrating.
Enter the Larder
What's a larder? It's sort of like a wine cellar.
Can't trust those red heads. Always putting strychnine in the well of fat, sour old gossips.
A cold kitchen or larder is a cool room or food pantry where food is stored.
Buy in bulk, store canned vegetables, fruit and pickles.
Off-grid note: A modern pantry might include chest freezers, which are inherently efficient form of freezing and refrigeration. They may not be as convenient, but when you open a refrigerator door, the cold air spills out and has to be re-cooled.
A chest freezer costs less, is not as convenient, saves hundreds per year in electricity, and is much better for long-term storage than less efficient, self-defrosting freezers.
Food safety tip: You probably don't want to drop 150 pounds of hot, freshly-killed meat in a freezer, by the way. You'll want to cool it down first with an ice bath, maybe flash-freeze the pieces to reduce freezer burn, then keep it stored frozen.
Big, bulky things can take a very long time to cool down, allowing bacteria to multiply, so always practice your basic food safety.
And if you have intermittent access to electricity i.e. solar, wind, hydroelectric, wind storms, trees, or lack battery backup or generators, a well-insulated chest freezer can often keep things from thawing for days.
Some only have a cupboard to store a few items. Some have a full pantry. It's kind of like a wine cellar.
What's a wine cellar?
The cool, consistent temperature underground is excellent for storing wine.
Wine is fermented grape juice. The fermentation process creates alcohol, which preserves the juice. If you know how to make cheap wine, then you already know the basic principle of fermented food.
You can also ferment animal feed to make it more nutritious. And sourdough bread is a fermented bread which adds nutritional value to the bread, making it more digestible.
The principle is very simple: Sometimes its good to leave your food out for a few days.
And once fermented, you keep it out of direct sunlight and store it someplace cool, like a basement or cellar.
What's the difference between a basement and a cellar?
Fermenting:
What's the difference between a basement and a cellar?
Fermenting:
It's super easy, every day way to store ANY vegetable to really last.
It's how you make barrels of sauerkraut. And it becomes a delicious convenience food. It's why Germans are called krauts.
You can leave it for a week or two, depending how sour you want it.
Steps:
2:41 Mash it up. You want to break down the cells walls.
2:50 Dry salting versus brine.
3:40 What clear liquid vs cloudy means
Free fermenting guide from Masontops
Pickling
After pickling eggs, he did a series of taste tests at 6 months, one year, and beyond.
How to make pickled eggs.
Other ways to preserve eggs:
Water glassing.
NO COLD STORAGE REQUIRED. But keep it out of heat and sunlight.
Eggs will be great for 8 months, and up to 2 years with NO refrigeration.
Hydrated lime.
5:00 NOT for store-bought eggs. Use today's fresh, clean, unwashed eggs, and filtered or distilled water,
6:30 You'll want to use 1 ounce (by weight) of hydrated lime per quart of water. (Found in the building supply section.)
Top 6 Ways to preserve eggs, 19th century-style
If it's dirty or cracked, use it right away. Only preserve the best eggs.
4:00 Salt - short-term
4:10 Brine - short-term only
4:20 Wheat bran - keeps eggs dry, imparts musty flavor to eggs
4:50 Coating your egg: After 8 months, 70% went bad, but 30% were still good.
5:40 Coating eggs with oil, butter, or rendered tallow for a 60% success rate after 8 months
6:35 Wood ashes (commonly available) 80% success after 8 months, imparts ashy taste
7:30 Slaked lime. Lime water 100% success rate after 8 months, even before refrigeration was invented. Same as hydrated lime available at the masonry supply/building supply section.
When using hydred lime, protect it from evaporation, such as a lid or maybe a layer of oil on top.
10:50 According to 19th century references, the eggs will keep up to 2 years.
Another creative way to "store eggs" for more than a year is to hatch them into chickens, grow them out, and butcher them as needed. Especially convenient if it's 100% free to feed them on zero dollars a day, such as if they're eating down all the surplus, unharvested sections of your kitchen garden while simultaneously prepping the garden bed for next season.
Jerked or Dehydreted Meats
Here's a popular beef jerky recipe with links to explore a variety of other versions. Choose the one you like best.
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