Any fellow survivalists utilize their truck?

Your right on track with the dried/jerky meat or fruits that are vacuumed packed. It's light weight and easy to tuck away in small areas/bags.

 

Make your own jerky. When you get that figured out make Pemmican.

 

Have you considered pressure canning meats? Emphasis on pressure canning.

 

There are plenty of pre-made options, but they're not very cost-effective. I'm not opposed to spending money for a good cause, just curious what everyone's solutions are.

This is my current plan. I'll have to pony up some decent cash on a good dehydrator and start playing. I already have the mylar bags, oxy absorbers, and a way to seal anything in them.

 

had some salmon jersey recently too. not bad

 

Salmon jerky with teriyaki marinade is heavenly, very oily though so shelf life is minimal.

 

DAmn, sounds like a weed op. I'll take a couple pounds.. u take pp?

kidding, keep me posted on the dehydrator I have been eying plenty over the years I want a 4x2 commercial grade one for deer and meats. But costly.

 

My buddy makes canned salmon. It's meat candy. Also don't forget some Yoder's canned bacon in there. The problem is it will not survive long, it's too delicious.

Edit: Jerky isn't made in a dehydrator. That's just leather. Jerky is made in a smoker, with real apple or cherry wood used to make the smoke. This does two things; reduces the water content of the meat, and helps cure it for long term storage.

 

I would keep some bricks around to build this: How to build a Rocket Stove using 16 20 or 24 bricks - powerful cooking edition. Check out the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz2ssyGfg58

This is really good also for fuel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw0rx4wVa3M

 

Here is how to make them: http://youtu.be/-VhAkPPHcns

 

This is the jerky recipe my Great-Great Grandfather brought across the Oregon trail. Works for everything, and stores indef.

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1/3 cup of salt

mix together with enough water to cover your meat (start with 2 pounds of beef round steak or similar, has to be lean, no fat, cut across the grain in 1/4" to 3/8" strips) and let it sit in the brine overnight. Smoke at 130F to 150F for 4-5 hours. Over 160F the sugar carmalizes and tastes burnt. Turn it off when the little pieces start to get done, and let the bigger pieces finish drying in the smoker. I use apple or cherry wood for venison/beef/elk, and alder for fish. The same recipe works great as a dry rub for pork shoulder, and I use mesquite for that. Once you get good at it, you can add some cayenne, paprika, garlic, etc to the base and fine tune it to your taste. It will be better than anything you can buy anywhere.

 

Yeah, I'm lucky enough to have a fairly high water table. The well's 35 feet deep and 20 feet of it is water.

Home-canned meat is delicious. It has to be pressure canned, obviously, which limits your batch size. It's time-consuming and energy intensive, it's bulky, and the shelf life is still limited to a couple of years, practically speaking. I think most of the recipes I've seen recommend using the meat within a year, but I've also seen stories of having eating canned meat from 5+ years ago without any problems. I suppose it depends on the storage conditions, really.

 

ok, so what smoker then? What one is that? Pellet?

 

That's an old mini fridge with a single burner coleman propane stove in the bottom. It's portable so I can take it camping/fishing too. I've made a smoker out of a cardboard box before. One time I made one out of green limbs off a douglas fir (made kind of a teepee structure) to smoke fish. The best one I had was made out of an old freezer, check youtube, there are tons of idea. If you have a bbq you could use that, just put some wood chips on the briquettes. My dad has a commercial one that takes the pucks (bradley? dunno brand name) and it works good, just expensive.

 

I have done many myself. Done a fur box style and moss also. Was just seeing if there were any off the shelf versions that would be better. Might just get my welder first so I can fab my own and not give someone else the profit for gear I can make myself.

 

Buddy of mine got me a sort-of machete for Christmas this year. The damn thing is heavily built with a nice balance (point is nice and heavy, but not awkwardly so) and it's shaving sharp. Says it's titanium bonded (whatever that means) for a long-lasting edge, so hopefully it'll hold an edge well. I already have a machete that I keep in the garden shed, so it looks like this one will probably live in the truck as part of my GHB. It's 18" or so long, so it's handy enough just to keep it there.
Plus, gratuitous thread bump.

 

IIRC , I go this for $1.00 on closeout. Was open package and discontinued item at the store. Got the Bear Grills knife at the same time for the same price. MGR just wanted the open boxed items gone.

I like full tang/ 1 piece blades. Balance is decent. Center of gravity is right at the 'C' of the Camillus.

the saw on the back is aggressive. I like it. Used it for fishing a couple times. Split a couple logs for a fire, sawed a few branches off. Cut a few fish in half, quartered, made steaks with it. Still as sharp as it was out of the packaging.



Came with this small multitool knife also. Have not used it yet.



http://www.camillusknives.com/product_list/1056771.0.0.0.0/Carnivore_Machetes

 

On this one of the cons is the handle. All the others in this line have a handle with screws in it. Seemingly so the handle could be removed. The vibrations in the handle are why I like removable handles. So I can make or put something more suited to my hand style.

 

Sweet. Hopefully that's an indicator of how mine will hold up. I lopped a couple of branches with it on Sunday, then cleaned it up and oiled it, and the edge didn't seem affected at all. I also like the full tang design; I'd never use a heavy-duty chopping device that didn't have one.
Mine does have the removable handle, but I like how it fits my hand so I'll be keeping it. It's going to get some grip tape, though.