Eight 30 gal & three 60 gal drums, what would you store?

[Maast]

As a follow on to my earlier post, what mylar-ed dry grains would YOU put in the containers - and why?

Each container only gets one type - with the exception of the canned goods which gets two.
This is only the bulk grain storage, there are shelves with freeze dried, grinders, filters, pots, baking powder & soda, milk powder, bullion, etc.

What I've come up with is one 60 gallon containers gets rice, another 60 gets pinto beans, the third 60 gets canned goods - split 50/50 roast beef hash and various kinds of spam (divider down the middle).

The 30 gallon containers get: 2 x corn (dent), 2 wheat (hard red), 1 rolled oats, 1 soy beans, 1 sugar and 1 salt.

I'm not planning on doing much bread, mainly tortillas and biscuits.

The goal is to feed 15 people for 18 months. With that constraint I'm going with depth vs variety. Once the drums are full I'll go back to adding buckets with stuff for variety.

What do you think?

[ZombieGranny]

If you're after protein, hard wheat is better; soft has more carbohydrates.
For biscuits and flour tortillas, the difference in gluten performance is negligible. So your choice in that is fine.
That being said, I have a question...

Are the people you're storing the food for, used to eating that many beans, rice and tortillas?
If not, you're going to have digestion problems (think the fart scene from Blazing Saddles) until systems get used to them.
Pouring off the bean soak water will help some.

Ooh - a second question or perhaps a recommendation...
Many grinders can DO corn or popcorn but will be taxed grinding it. If you don't have the equivalent of a Corona grinder for that corn, I highly recommend getting one.
They are made sturdily of metal especially for corn, and are available everywhere for $20 - $30. If you have a choice, get one with a removable hopper. Easier to clean, easier to use.

---
We are bakers (bread, cookies mostly), so I have stored large-ish quantities of:
Flour, hard & soft wheat berries, rice, oatmeal, oats, corn, various beans, various sugars..
um...
smaller quantities of: barley, quinoa, buckwheat, dried milk, yeast, salt...
oops I'm getting away from dry grains, sorry about that.

[Redshirt]

Go with the 30 gal drums. Fill it with whatever you use in weekly cooking.

Otherwise you'll be throwing bad food away in stock rotations, and your S will HTF when the SHTF, and everyone you are with will hate you.

[Redshirt]

One further: Smaller containers are easier to relocate when something goes wrong.

Things go wrong.

[raptor]

the third 60 gets canned goods - split 50/50 roast beef hash and various kinds of spam (divider down the middle).

I would suggest that instead of beef hash and spam substitute these products instead since they are IMO easier to cook something else with it and it has more protein per buck. They are generally available at Walmart and the DAK hans actually have a longer shelf life than spam and is about the same price.

BTW it seems a shame to waste a perfectly good drum on canned foods when a simple carboard box will work just as well and be easier to stack. If you worried about weathering wrap the boxes in shipping shrink wrap.










The other thing I would suggest is either freeze powdered dried eggs or dried powdered eggs.





Edited to add:

You may also want to add canned tuna and chicken to get some taste diversity.

[RonnyRonin]

sounds like a pretty good mix to me.

few questions:
Is there a particular reason for leaning on pinto beans so heavy? I tend to be biased toward black beans but for no real reason. do pintos store better then others? I tend to store several types of beans just because but I tend to eat black beans almost exclusively.

Any reason for no quinoa or lentils? I know when I've been eating lots of rice and beans swapping rice for quinoa or beans for lentils can be a welcome break.

I would also echo raptor's question about canned food in a drum.

[quazi]

Is there a particular reason for leaning on pinto beans so heavy? I tend to be biased toward black beans but for no real reason. do pintos store better then others? I tend to store several types of beans just because but I tend to eat black beans almost exclusively.

I don't know if this is true everywhere, but where I live it is much easier to find pinto beans for sale in bulk than other types of beans. I'm partial to red beans and navy beans myself, but most places only have them in 1 lb bags while they'll have 25 or 50 lb sacks of pinto beans.

[Maast]

I wasn't aware that the Dak ham had the same indefinite shelf life that spam does, in that case you're right - they're a better choice. The roast beef hash is the most calories in a can that's roughly balanced between fat/carbs/protein, and they're a fat backup in case what I've planned to store coconut oil doesn't work. I'm going with the drum because the shelf space is already going to be used by other things.

Powdered egg is part of the etc mentioned above (actually a lot of powdered egg) - along with a bunch of other powdered/freeze dried items in #10 cans - different berries, apple slices, carrots, onion, broccoli, etc, a few cases of mountain house, even a case of FD porkchops. I originally wanted to have a drum of sailor boy pilot bread (one of my faves) but the space they'd take up vs the calories they'd provide bumped them off the list for another drum of wheat. We can make our own crackers from the wheat easily enough.

The pinto beans are less expensive and readily available - and we eat a lot of them already so they're a normal part of our diet and can do a lot with them. The drum with soybeans is the max protein grain prep.

I'm trying to cram a huge amount of food into a relatively small space and this is the best I've come up with so far that still allows me a functioning lab/shop area. If anybody has any ideas I'd love to hear them.

Even though it's still a construction area I should post a few photos to show you what I'm working with.

[Maast]

Here are a few pics of the space I dug out of my crawlspace, the first three are right after I got the floor done, and the last two are what I'm doing with the walls, the pic with the duct should give you an idea what the finished space should look like.

[sheddi]

Here are a few pics of the space I dug out of my crawlspace ...

I love what you've done with the place

Other than that I've nothing constructive to add, sorry; I don't store any bulk foods (due to lack of space / time / money).

[duodecima]

I think you've got a pretty good set. My personal ratios skews more towards beans - I might replace one of the corn with lentils - more protein, easy to cook, adds variety. But then, we don't do as much with cornmeal in our family.

Pintos & lentils are the cheapest legumes I've come across. (I am personally a fan of variety as well, I've got a lot of lentils, black beans, and white beans, with smaller amounts of others)

I would NOT put quinoa in these, it's not supposed to last 30 years like the rest, ditto buckwheat - I have smaller mylared packets (1 gal) of those (in a 30 gal barrel). (Tho both shows signs of being good to eat past the 5 year mark that I have seen listed for quinoa and buckwheat. Will post about that next year sometime...)

[RonnyRonin]

that's a pretty badass addition, pretty jealous.

as far as space efficiency, I always get a little pissed off that the cheapest/easiest to find storage solutions are nearly always round (barrels, buckets, etc) you could fit what, like 30% more stuff in the same volume if you could find straight walled square barrel replacements? the only square storage solutions I can find are small (2 gallonsish) or huge (275 gallonsish).

[Maast]

I always get a little pissed off that the cheapest/easiest to find storage solutions are nearly always round (barrels, buckets, etc) you could fit what, like 30% more stuff in the same volume if you could find straight walled square barrel replacements?

Yeah, the round thing has always annoyed me too, here's a example pic of the 60 gallon drums I'm using, the square-ish shape and the screw top are why I'm so stoked about finding them locally on craigslist.

(Sorry about the above pics coming through so big, I resized them on photobucket to 800x600 vs 1024x768 but they're still showing up huge)

[RonnyRonin]

well color me jealous once again, good find!

do you know what they where originally used for?

[ZombieGranny]

http://www.lexingtoncontainercompany.co ... rrels.html
3rd photo down...
Olive Barrels
Pickle Barrels
for sale
Cleaned or Non Cleaned
$48.00

[Maast]

Mine held "meat preserves" for making hot dogs and bologna & such. $40 but a 35 min drive to pick them up. A quick squirt with tilex and absolutely no smell, tilex eats anything.

Can't find the company that makes them though, would have liked to see the specs. "DCW" on one side of the barrel and a stylized "CCC 3100/14 60123/07 on the other side. SUPER thick HDPE, really sturdy.

Regarding the food prep; I'll have to think about the lentils, we've had them in the past but not as a regular food item.

[Halfapint]

Off topic but just wanted say you should update your original post about the dig out. I cant find it, would be cool to see what it looked like when you started to what you have now.

[sheddi]

Off topic but just wanted say you should update your original post about the dig out. I cant find it, would be cool to see what it looked like when you started to what you have now.

Here is Maast's "Dug out my crawlspace" thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=107374

[Maast]

June 2013! Crap doing this an hour here or there is taking forever!

[woodsghost]

Tagged. I have a LOT of learning to do on larger storage. I"m just now graduating to 5 gal buckets Gotta get some and figure out a good balance to put in them.