Making Your Own Sauerkraut – Part 2, by E.P.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)

My grandmother used open ceramic crocks to make sauerkraut. The problem is that they, like the Gartopf style ceramic crocks, are quite expensive compared to glass jars, so I bought several used crocks to try. It is hard to seal open crocks adequately to provide the anaerobic environment necessary to make sauerkraut without having to regularly skim off the spoilage that forms at the top of the crock. I tried using a piece of lexan sealed to the top of the crock with silicone glue, drilling a hole in the lexan to insert a wine-style airlock (similar to what I use for glass jars). That helped, but I found out that some of the used crocks I purchased were not fired properly and leaked liquid from the sides and bottom of the crock. If you decide to use a ceramic crock to make sauerkraut, then first test it to make sure that it doesn’t leak!

Use a funnel with a wide base so that spillage is minimal when filling the jars with a small ladle. As you fill each jar you need to periodically push the cabbage down with a tamper. The one shown below is a piece of 2-inch diameter poplar dowel that is 26 inches long. I added two handles to the top of the pounder but I don’t think they are really needed, unlike the heavy 4 x 4 pounder, where the handles are a necessity because of the weight and size of the 4 x 4. At this point, you are just pushing the cabbage down into the jar to remove the air pockets, not trying to mash the cabbage.Continue reading“Making Your Own Sauerkraut – Part 2, by E.P.”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in this column, in the Odds ‘n Sods Column, and in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

I have now mostly recovered from my sprained ankle, so I’m back to light duty around the ranch. This past week, I did a little work on remodeling the workshop. I also set up stock tank heaters for the winter. And I drained and rolled up hoses to keep them away from the predation of our snow plow blade. (I’ve accidentally severed two hoses, over the years, so now I keep them coiled up far away from where I plow!)

I also burned all of our slash piles.

Now, on to Lily’s news:Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” – Hebrews 4:12 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday — October 28, 2022

Today is coincidentally the birthday of three gun designers:

  • Eliphalet Remington (pictured, October 28, 1793 – August 12, 1861). He designed the early-generation Remington rifles and founded what is now known as the Remington Arms Company.
  • Wilhelm Bubits (born October 28, 1954), an Austrian handgun designer and creator of the Caracal Pistol and Steyr Mannlicher M and S Model pistols.
  • Horace Smith (October 28, 1808 – January 15, 1893). He was an American gunsmith, inventor, and businessman. He and his business partner Daniel B. Wesson formed two companies named Smith & Wesson, the first of which was financed in part by Oliver Winchester and was eventually reorganized into the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.

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I have set sale prices on all of our shootable replica black powder revolvers at Elk Creek Company. Note that no FFL is required to order, and that cartridge conversion cylinders are available for many of these models. This sale will end on Tuesday, November 8th, so order soon!

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 103 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  5. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  6. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three-day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $750,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 103 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Making Your Own Sauerkraut – Part 1, by E.P.

I have been making sauerkraut for many years. My grandmother (my mother’s mother) was German, and used to make it many years ago. Unfortunately, she never taught me how to do it, so I had to learn how to do it on my own. Fortunately, I found a really excellent book, Making Sauerkraut and Pickled Vegetables at Home, by Klaus Kaufmann and Annelies Schoneck. This book not only explains how to do it, providing many different recipes but also explains the science behind the fermentation process. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in making sauerkraut.

The basic steps are as follows:
1. Shred the cabbage.
2. Add salt to the shredded cabbage and mash it. This bruises the cabbage, and the salt brings the juice out of the shredded cabbage.
3. Add caraway seeds (for traditional German sauerkraut) or other spices and herbs to flavor the sauerkraut.
4. Put the shredded cabbage mix into a container that can be set up to prevent oxygen from entering the mix, but will allow carbon dioxide gas to escape.
5. Cover the shredded cabbage so that the pieces of cabbage can’t float to the top of the brine. This is done usually with a large leaf to cover the cabbage and a weight or other mechanism to prevent the leaf covering the cabbage to float to the top of the brine.
6. Install an air locking device on top of the container to allow gas to escape the mash as it ferments but will not allow oxygen to enter the container.
7. Let the sealed container set at room temperature (70’s) for a couple days to start the first phase of the fermentation.
8. Move the sealed container to a cooler environment (60’s) for the second phase to allow the bacteria that form the lactic acid ferment the cabbage properly.Continue reading“Making Your Own Sauerkraut – Part 1, by E.P.”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at the global credit market turmoil that started in England. (See the Economy & Finance section.)

Precious Metals:

Goldman on what oil and gold have to offer: this commodity is ‘welcome opportunity’.

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Hedge funds are still bearish; gold investors want more proof the Fed will slow its rate hikes.

Economy & Finance:

A consulting client asked me for my opinion on when the Federal Reserve will pivot from the current tight credit environment back to loose credit. I told her that the FOMC would likely wait until the US was in a deep recession or in the throes of a credit market freeze or collapse. When could that be? They probably won’t get desperate about a recession until at least the spring of 2023.  But a credit freeze — much like the one that England recently suffered — could happen at any time. In the interim, we can expect more Dollar strength on the Forex, and short selling of precious metals by institutional investors and speculative traders.

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UK scraps tax cut for wealthy that sparked market turmoil.

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Video from Neil McCoy-Ward: And So It Begins… JWR’s Comments: Yes, there something fishy about Rishi. Take note that Rishi Sunak is a proponent of both a British CBDC and government-administered digital identification.

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From the Perpetual Cheering Section at CNBC: Stay the course? Bear market reminders for long-term investors.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — October 27, 2022

October 27th 1858 was the birthday of President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. (He died January 6, 1919.)

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Today’s feature article is a guest post by our friend Brandon Smith. We recommend both his Alt-Market.us website and his The Wild Bunch Dispatch subscription e-newsletter.

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We’re in need of more articles for Round 103 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $750,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 103 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Red States Have To Build Alternative Economies, by Brandon Smith

Economic centralization is the ultimate form of organized conspiratorial power, because it allows a small group of people to dictate the terms of trade for a society and therefore dictate the terms of each person’s individual survival.

For example, the Federal Reserve as a banking entity has free rein to assert policy controls that can disrupt the very fabric of the US economy and the buying power of our currency. They can (and do) arbitrarily create trillions of dollars from thin air causing inflation, or arbitrarily raise interest rates and crash stock markets. And according to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, they answer to no one, including the US government.

I have started to see a new narrative being spread within mainstream media platforms as well as alternative media platforms suggesting that the Fed is necessary because it is working to “counter” the agenda of Joe Biden and the Democrats. Some people claim the central bank is “protecting” America from the schemes of the UN and European interests.

This is perhaps the most moronic theory I’ve ever heard, but it makes sense that the central bank and its puppets would be trying to plant the notion that the Fed is some kind of “hero” secretly fighting a war on our behalf. The money elites associated with the Fed have inflated perhaps the largest financial bubble in the history of the world over the past 14 years. They did this with bailouts, they did this with QE, they did this with covid pandemic checks and loans, and now the bubble is popping. They know it is popping, because they WANT it to pop.Continue reading“Red States Have To Build Alternative Economies, by Brandon Smith”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today, we look at grocery supply chain issues in Europe.

Empty Supermarket Shelves in Germany

As western Europe begins a winter with scant fuel: Empty shelves as German supermarkets resist price hikes. An excerpt:

“With German inflation running at a record 10 percent, supermarket giants are pushing back against what they see as unreasonable price increases by some of the world’s best-known brands.

Food multinationals argue that their manufacturing costs have risen on the back of soaring energy and transport costs, in part because of the war in Ukraine.

But retailers in Europe’s top economy say they are protecting customers’ purchasing power at a difficult time, and that price hikes of up to 30 percent in some cases are overblown.”

Supermarket Shelves Picked Bare in England

The London Times reports: Supermarket shelves picked bare as bargain hunters shop around.

And here is a related news piece: British Grocery Stores Are Stocking Empty Shelves with Cardboard Cutouts of Food.

JWR’s Comment: Ay, ay, ay… Tesco no tengo. Que lastima!

Mixing Your Own Lidocaine

Reader M.M. wrote:

“This is just informational. I’m not giving any medical advice. But this might be interesting for folks.

As I understand it, 1% lidocaine has a limited shelf life. It is basically lidocaine powder mixed with 0.9% normal saline. 1% is the typical concentration we use for procedures and surgeries.  Thus, 1 g of powder in 100 cc of saline.
I believe the powder does not have similar shelflife limitations. I personally stock a fair amount of the powder, which I purchased over-the-counter online without a prescription. Mine came in a mylar bag hermetically sealed. It was fairly inexpensive and I bought 250 grams.
Honestly, I don’t recall exactly where I purchased it, but a quick search shows numerous vendors.
One can always make 0.9% normal saline up on the fly, with salt and sterile water by weight, and make the solution. Keep in mind that if you screw up the dilution, it can cause serious heart arrhythmias and potentially death.  That is, not recommended except for as a last resort.
Again, this is informational and academic only. I’m not providing medical advice. Thought you might find it interesting.  Something that could be potentially useful in the event that modern medicine is not available to you.”

Google’s Election Campaign Tampering

Google Caught Manipulating Search, Buries GOP Campaign Sites in 83% of Top Senate Races.

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — October 26, 2022

Edward Wilson Very (born October 26, 1847, died March 1, 1910) was an American naval officer who adopted and popularized a single-shot breech-loading flare pistol that fired flares that bear his name.

This is also the birthday of Henry Deringer (October 26, 1786 – February 28, 1868) was an American gunsmith. He is best known for inventing and giving his name to the very compact Deringer pistol.

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Today, with permission, we are reposting an article by Arkadiusz Sieron. It was originally published by Sunshine Profits.

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We are in need of entries for Round 103 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

More than $750,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running the contest. Round 103 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

While Inflation Refuses to Go Away, Gold Refuses to Go Up, by Arkadiusz Sieroń

The recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) report shows that inflation remains high. It implies a hawkish Fed and bearish gold.

To paraphrase a famous Pink Floyd song, I wish you weren’t here, inflation! The CPI increased 0.4% in September, after rising 0.1% in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The move was slightly higher than expected and occurred despite a 2.1% decline in the energy index. What’s really bad, especially for the poorest households, is that food prices continued to rise. The food index rose 0.8% for the month, the same as August, and was up 11.2% from a year ago.

Without plunging gas prices, inflation would be even higher. Indeed, the core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.6% last month, as it did in August. Increases in the prices of services (medical care, transportation, shelter) were the largest contributors to the increase in the core CPI monthly rate.

On an annual basis, the overall CPI increased 8.2% for the 12 months ending September, as the chart below shows. It’s a smaller number than the 8.3% rise in August but higher than expected (the market consensus was 8.1%). And the annual rate is still hovering near the highest levels since the early 1980s. The core CPI rose 6.6%, which means an acceleration from August, when it increased 6.3%. The rise was also above expectations. Although it seems that the overall index has peaked, at least for a while, the core CPI is once again on the rise, which doesn’t bode well for the inflationary outlook. Inflation simply refuses to go away.Continue reading“While Inflation Refuses to Go Away, Gold Refuses to Go Up, by Arkadiusz Sieroń”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly column is a collection of short snippets: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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F.J. suggested this documentary film review, over at American Thinker: A Story of Jewish Partisan Resistance During World War II.

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Reader Pam B. suggested this news story from Tennessee: Man finds hidden TWRA camera on his property.

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Blog reader L.C. wrote:

“We read your posts daily,. My wife and I, and I have a comment to make about your articles on the Cartels today.  We live in Central Texas and are now old and retired but a few weeks ago we were having dinner with our Christian friends and the lack of labor here came up. They have a dairy and are having an impossible time getting any labor to milk and work around the farm.  Some of their last hires came from Central America and were moved via Cartels.  Not only did they pay to get here, but have to pay a portion of their salary on a continual basis or their family members back home will suffer.  An interesting twist came up, they were told that they were not getting paid enough and that they had to leave their good job at the dairy and get another job that paid more so they could pay the Cartels more.  I thought that you would find this interesting.”

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”