Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Well, I managed to break the handle on my pressure canner the other day. The pressure canner is still functional (and safe) but next time I exert some significant elbow grease to unlock/lock the lid Im probably gonna tear the handle off. So…time for a new pressure canner it seems.

Unfortunately, the one I would like to get is about twice the cost of the one I just broke. However, it really is a case of getting what you pay for. The one I want doesn’t use a gasketed lid so theres no issue of storing a spare or checking for decay/damage. Also it’s a bit bigger and more heavily made. Oh…and the handles aren’t as fragile.

Why a pressure canner? The obvious reason is to allow me to can things for later (perhaps much later) consumption. Oh sure, it can also double as an autoclave for sterilizing things or as a vessel for distilling water but its main purpose for me is canning. How else would you preserve something you grew or killed without a freezer?

If you haven’t explored the notion of home canning, I recommend you at least pick up a book or two on the subject. The guys who crank out those ‘For Dummies’ books have one on canning and food preserving, and it’s a pretty decent book.

In addition to a pressure canner (which is the most expensive part of the whole proposition) you’ll need jars, lids, bands, tongs and a few small kitchen tools you probably already have. Assuming you don’t break or damage the jars and bands (which are reusable) the only real consumable are the lids which are a strict one-time use item. However, you can buy ‘em in bulk at a lot of internet sites and that drops their cost down considerably.

In terms of ease of use, well, these things have been used by rural grandmothers since FDR was introducing state sponsored wealth redistribution. How hard can it be? There are several good books on the subject and although it may appear intimidating it’s actually very simple…just tedious in some ways. Its very much like reloading…a lot of prep work, a set routine that needs to be followed, and then a finished product that can hurt you very badly if you mess up.

Obviously the main thing is to not do a poor job and wind up killing someone with a heaping helping of botulism at dinner. While that is certainly a possibility if you screw up, those sorts of mistakes are generally easily spotted. All the texts tell you what to look for to ensure that your jar of food has sealed properly and isn’t contaminated with some sort of biological nasty. I was extremely concerned about screwing things up but after the first couple batches I know what to look for and if I have anything less than %100 confidence in a particular jar it gets dumped.

What have I been canning lately? I picked up a recipe for a soup that the wife likes and seems to eat daily. (Getting the recipe is a story for another day and Im not permitted to share the recipe so don’t ask.) So..when I make up a gallon or two of the stuff half gets put away in the fridge for immediate use and the other half gets canned and put back on the shelf for later use. If she gets off work and is hungry and can’t wait for something to thaw, and doesn’t feel like cooking, she can grab a jar of the soup off the shelf, dump it into a bowl, nuke it and have dinner. No muss, no fuss.

The market for canning supplies is, as you may imagine, seasonal. Obviously the demand will be high during summer/fall when gardens are being harvested and all those cukes, tomatoes, beans and pie fillings are being put up. After that its pretty much a slump until next spring. (Although the market never really goes flat…theres always someone putting up canned venison or Christmas preserves or somesuch.) End of season sales sometimes occur giving the opportunity to stock up on lids or jars…keep an eye open.

As I was editing this (yeah, I do edit these things and I still manage to have the frequent grammatical train wreck…) a customer came in and mentioned that the local Goodwill store had canning jars. Hmmmm. I headed over there and, sure enough, they were unpacking several boxes of them. Some looked new, some looked used and only one or two seemed to have any indicators discommending usage (obviously you don’t want a cracked or chipped jar…esp. do not want chips on the mouth of the jar where the sealing takes place.) All looked like they could use a trip (or two) through the dishwasher (if the dead bugs in some of the jars were any indication.) Prices were $0.15 for the small and $0.29 for the large. So…I’m gonna have to head back there later when I have the truck and pick up a few dozen. On the way back I checked out the other ‘thrift’ store a few doors down from me. Large jars were a couple bucks each…so, as you can see, theres something of a bargain going on over there at the Goodwill.

And, I have been recently informed that for my birthday (which is today, actually) someone will be getting me the pressure canner I wanted as a gift. Serendipitous, that.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Someone commented asking why I was worked up about the Mountain House supply issue when I have been going to the LDS cannery. Valid question, I suppose. Quick answer: one has stuff that the other does not.

The LDS cannery is limited to dry goods. That means no meats. MH at least has chicken, beef and pork available. And, while I can appreciate the streamlining that would occur in my logistics if I were to become a vegetarian, that just ain’t gonna happen.

In case no one has ever been to one of these cannery facilities before (and I hadn’t ever been to one until this year) here’s a fast rundown of whats available: 3 different beans, nonfat milk, rice, sugar, wheat (hard and soft), apple slices, carrots, macaroni, oats (regular and quick), onions, potato flakes, spaghetti, refried beans, coca mix, flour, pancake mix and drink mix.  You can buy the stuff in either #10 cans, mylar pouches, or in bulk (25# sacks).

Not a bad selection, but you can see how it could get a bit boring and perhaps a bit difficult to work with in terms of variety.

Now, supplementing the stuff from the cannery with some freeze dried ground beef, some canned tomatoes and a few spices and you can whip up a Bolognese sauce for spaghetti, a cacciatore, or a half dozen other dishes. So, yeah, the LDS cannery offers a good selection of staple goods…I just want a broader selection to expand my menu planning. Some facilities will allow non-members to use them, some will not. (The one I went to was not open to non-members.) However, they may allow a member to bring a guest…which is how I’ve been going. If you can find a buddy or acquaintance who is a church member and get them to bring you along as a guest, I highly recommend it.

You might want to keep in mind that as things get more interesting in the world, access to the LDS facilities may get tightened up so that resources are always available for members….so the sooner you get there the better, most likely.

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Speaking of putting things into storage, I did a casual inventory of a few things the other day and surprised myself in that I was short in a couple areas (and long in a few others, which didn’t surprise me). Most glaring was that I had about a bit less .22LR ammo than I thought. Fortunately, I had enough in the ‘shootable’ ammo category to transfer to the ‘storage’ category and get me back up to where I want to be. (Normally, we buy two bricks of .22 ammo every time we hit WallyWorld. That ammo gets put on the shelf with the ammo we normally use for plinking and whatnot. When it starts to pile up [since we don’t get out shooting as much as we’d like] into a quantity exceeding 5k rounds, 5k gets pulled and moved into storage and whatever is left over is allowed to accrue until it hits 5k rounds again. In this manner a good deal of .22 gets socked away.)

Other than the .22 ammo everything was pretty much as I expected although one or two food items were a bit lower than what Id like them to be. Easily fixed with a quick trip to the store, though.

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I’ve been reading a book lately Im going to go ahead and recommend. “Island In The Sea Of Time” by S.M. Stirling (ISBN 0-451-45675-0). Stirling is the geek who wrote the ‘Dies The Fire’ trilogy that started off well and ended absurdly. Succinctly, Stirlings books involve modern society getting thrown back into a Middle Ages (or earlier) level of technology, for whatever reason. Invariably, the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism…the nerds with the plywood shields and swords playing King Arthur) wind up becoming the saviors of the world by virture of their ‘swordsmanship’. Its easy to get the impression that the author got his ass kicked a lot in high school and decided to write a book where the SCA geeks become the heroes. Anyway, the premise of ‘Island’ is that for the typical ‘reason that is never explained’ the island of Nantucket, with buildings, occupants and everything else, vanishes from the twentieth century and winds up in 1250 BC. Its an interesting story about modern society forced to adapt to having no resuplly, limited fuel, no outside food sources, etc. as well as having to deal with hostiles (within and without) and form a local government. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. And, true to the authors penchant for SCA geekiness, theres a bit of that. But as people like myself lament in these sorts of books ‘why the hell don’t these people fashion simple blackpowder firearms???’, in this case they do exactly that which, to me, shows a certain amount of real-life logic.

Anyway, it’s a good read and I recommend it. If nothing else its an excellent form of entertainment to second guess the story and ask yourself how you would cope with the lack of [ammo/electrical power/flush toilets/propane/toilet paper/etc].

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I sold a customer a PTR-91 a few weeks ago and he ordered a couple of the OEM surplus HK G3 .22 conversion kits that have been on the market lately. He brought it by today for me to look at and get some pictures of. The kit comes in a fitted wooden case and consists of a barrel sleeve and insert, bolt assembly, 2 20-rd mags (weighted to feel like full .308 mags) and a cleaning kit. As it turns out HK did at one point offer an HK91 conversion kit in addition to the G3 conversion kit. Whats the difference? The HK91 kit was meant for semiauto guns and has a ‘tail’ on the bolt assembly that is not present on the G3 (fullauto) .22 conversion. As a result if you pull the bolt handle all the way to the rear with the G3 conversion in a semiauto gun, the hammer will hang up and you’ll have to disassemble the gun. Not a big deal, simply pull the bolt back far enough to chamber a round and let it go.

Lets talk math. The kit is approx. $500. That, my friends, is a lot of money. However that’s also what you would expect to pay for 1000 rounds of quality .308 ammo these days. So for the cost of 1000 rounds of .308 you can have a kit to shoot ammo that costs $12/1000.

Put another way:
$500 = 1000 rounds of .308, next 1000 rounds is $500
$512 = kit and 1000 rounds of .22, next 1000 rounds is $12

Whats the purpose since recoil and ballistics will be different than when using .308? First of all, familiarity. You can practice snap shoot drills – bringing the rifle up, quickly getting a sight picture, flipping the safety off and taking a shot – for about 1/20^th the cost of doing it in .308. Its an excellent way to practice trigger control and sight pictures and get the immediate feedback that is only possible with life-fire.

Still gotta get the Ruger built up as an AR trainer, though.