Canning Stock Route 2020

[Cuppa]

Still gotta plan food. We've always taken frozen, cryo packed stuff but this trip may see us 3 weeks in the bush. May look into dry food??

With a fridge, freezer & non perishables we can last for 6 weeks between re-supplying. The hardest is fuit & veg, & if unable to top up along the way we find a mix of frozen veg, (corn & green beans & spinach are better on space than a lot of the other veg/stirfry packs etc). Frozen veg is not as good as fresh (except for corn) but is good enough to keep you going when the fresh stuff runs out along with canned fruit & veg. When heading out from home some dried pasta sauce etc (in the dehydrator at home) help. & make a meal with pasta & whatever you have thrown in easy to make. Let me know if you are interested in how to 'powder' the dried sauce. There's a trick which makes it easier & more effective. We keep the powder in the freezer. Do the same with homus because it works very well, reconstitutes so you would never know it had been dried. (We buy the kilo buckets of Yummis Hommus - it's good) from the supermarket Of the canned veg I reckon mushrooms are about the best. A good supply of powdered potato (Deb), rice, pasta & flour.

Another bread alternative which is good & can be made in a frypan is a mix of flour & Yoghurt. (Let me know if you want the recipe). Easy & quick. We carry one of those Easiyo insulated Yoghurt makers & the powdered yoghurt (greek style) - make a kilo at a time just by boiling the billy. The insulated container is a little bulky, but we find it worth it for the extra variety we can have in our diet (especially as I'm gluten free).

Wrap fresh veg in foil - keeps longer & better in the fridge.

If you can manage the space it's good to cook larger quantities of the fresh veg which doesn't last as long, & put the extra into the freezer for later - so carry a supply of freezer bags - or even a few of those disposable containers. They are lightweight & easier to faff around with than bags.

Our freezer isn't huge, 35 litres, (& fridge is 60litres). When getting meat cryovaced, ask for it in meal size portions & packed as flat as possible. It helps & is surprising how much can be fitted in. We have a vaccuum sealer thingo at home, but have found that meat cryovaced on the commercial machines by butchers to be better. We generally pay $50c or $1 extra for each cryovaced bag. Adds up in cost, but it is cheaper than buying meat from tiny community stores a long way from anywhere. You'll probably get a bit of fresh fruit & veg at Kunuwarritji (Well 33), but the cost will be high. Don't plan to buy other stuff there - it will be 3 times the prices you are used to.

Consider supermarket frozen fish too. Eg. Flathead fillets. If you can get a kilo pack with each fillet in it's own cryovaced pack (have only found these a couple of times) it makes it easier to find space as individual fillets from the kilo bag's contents can be squeezed into 'spare spaces'.

When driving or camped in the sun we run the freezer at minus 14, & put it onto minus 10 overnight. Have had no food wastage doing this.

Tinned fish (tuna etc) is good. Wraps keep better than bread.

MrsTea often makes savoury rice balls after we've had a rice meal where she has cooked extra rice. Rice + egg, cheese & Jalapeno chilli (I think) when we have the camp oven out. They can be eaten cold & are good for a couple of days in the fridge, so are a reasonable lunch option. ......... as are cold sausages.

We avoid meat with bones for cryovacing - can pierce the plastic. Sausages are best pre-frozen before cryovacing if you don't want the contents squeezed out of the skins.

Just my jumble of thoughts - hope something in there helps.

[the evil twin]

Slightly off topic but curious why do you freeze cryovac meat?

IMHO the whole idea of cryovac is so you don't have to freeze it so:-
- the food packs better,
- takes less energy to store (fridge not freezer),
- tastes better (freezing bursts the cells) cause it retains the moisture
- when stored at 3 degrees, shelf life of 10 weeks if prof vac'd and 2 weeks if repacked and home vac'd (you lose 8 weeks due to the bacteria increase in the rehandling after purchase)

[10G]

Thanks Cuppa, there's lots of good thoughts there.

[10G]

My two cents is don't take frozen stuff.

I don't remote travel/camp much these days but IMHO the best bet is cryovac and refridgerate (no need to freeze cryovac meat etc).
We also used to take a selection of the precooked meals like these https://www.snowys.com.au/camping-food

The advantage of them is that if doing longer travel legs at afternoon smoko we would boil extra water, put the hot water in a thermal cooker with the meals and when we pulled up Dinner was piping hot ready to eat so we could chillax.

If we were camped or stopping early then we would do a cryovac cookup.

Thanks ET. Ummm, what's TLA stand for?

[Cuppa]

Slightly off topic but curious why do you freeze cryovac meat?

IMHO the whole idea of cryovac is so you don't have to freeze it so:-
- the food packs better,
- takes less energy to store (fridge not freezer),
- tastes better (freezing bursts the cells) cause it retains the moisture
- when stored at 3 degrees, shelf life of 10 weeks if prof vac'd and 2 weeks if repacked and home vac'd (you lose 8 weeks due to the bacteria increase in the rehandling after purchase)

We heard of 5 or 6 week old cryovaced meat being green when removed from it's packaging. We have the freezer & sufficient solar/battery to run it, so we 'play it safe'. Agree it's probably overkill but results have been tasty enough & no bad smells or green slime.

[the evil twin]

Thanks ET. Ummm, what's TLA stand for?

FYI

T.L.A. is the T.L.A. for Three Letter Acronym when you CBF typing the words, SFA difference with predictive text but easy to end up WTF tho eh...

YVW

GTH

[10G]

fyi

t.l.a. Is the t.l.a. For three letter acronym when you cbf typing the words, sfa difference with predictive text but easy to end up wtf tho eh...

Yvw

gth

yvw gth = nfi

[10G]

OK, so now I'm moving onto water. I can carry 80L of water, but must plan for refilling along the way.

I have a 3 x 10L jerries and 1 x 50L bladder. I also have 1 x 10L bucket.

We can get water from several wells, but I need (some may say you don't need to, but I will) filter this water so I can't just pour from bucket to bladder or jerry.

I'm thinking of getting an inline water filter and a small 12v pump of some type. This is where my knowledge is lacking. How big or small a pump do I need? Will a 5L/min pump blow apart my inline filter? Will 5L a minute be too slow??

Anyone here have any experience with pumps???

I'm also happy to use a hand pump thing instead of a 12v pump.

[stevemc181]

OK, so now I'm moving onto water. I can carry 80L of water, but must plan for refilling along the way.

I have a 3 x 10L jerries and 1 x 50L bladder. I also have 1 x 10L bucket.

We can get water from several wells, but I need (some may say you don't need to, but I will) filter this water so I can't just pour from bucket to bladder or jerry.

I'm thinking of getting an inline water filter and a small 12v pump of some type. This is where my knowledge is lacking. How big or small a pump do I need? Will a 5L/min pump blow apart my inline filter? Will 5L a minute be too slow??

Anyone here have any experience with pumps???

I'm also happy to use a hand pump thing instead of a 12v pump.

I use a Shurflo 11.4lpm pump and a B.E.S.T type water filter, it does the job. I filter the water going in to the tank and the water coming out of it. There are several good wells along the way, with great quality water. Well 23,33,46, Georgia Bore and a few others I can't remember offhand generally produce good water. Stay sensible with your drinking water use, and you can just use well water for showering. You want to save as much weight as possible, and water is one of the things that soon adds up to being overweight, best to carry only what you really need, with a contingency plan for a few days extra.

We took 70 litres last time for two of us, but I'd reduce that by half if doing the CSR again to save weight.

[Cuppa]

There are many ways to stay safe with water. We used to do what Steve does - filtering on the way in & out when we had our bus. Less room in the patrol called for a different method. Now we just filter on the way out. We use 1 micron solid block carbon filter impregnated with silver. The silver bit helps prevent any build up of nasties during periods on non use. Lots of filters out there to prevent bad tastes etc, but only those that specifically state that they are good for blocking the nasties like E.Coli, Giardia & Cryptospiridium (Sp?) will do so. Essentially you need an 'absolute' rating of 1 micron or less to do this I think. Many filters look good in the advertising, but when you look more closely they wont protect you against those 'bugs' which are what are the biggest risk from unknown water sources.

The B.E.S.T filters are certainly well thought of, but are quite expensive compared to others. I think (but could be wrong) that they contain granulated carbon. With granulated carbon the lower micron figures cannot be guaranteed because of the air gaps between the granules. This is where a solid carbon block is better. I used to use the standard 10" filter housings with appropriate filters. The advantage of these is that you can get replacement filters at just about any hardware store. The more expensive filters require you to use there replacements which generally cost more & are not easily obtained in out of the way places.

In the interests of saving space I changed to inline filters designed for chilled water outlets in the Patrol. They are a 'disposable' filter, but have been lasting us well. I change them if the water tastes bad (not yet happened) or after 12 months depending upon use. Last time I changed one was because it had sat unused for 7 months in a hot tropical climate. I had a couple of spares & thought it best to change even though the water was tasting ok. Having suffered the effects of 'bad water' in the past, it's not something I want to repeat. These are the filters I use. (Suitable micron size with silver in this size filter are not easy to find). https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12-x2-5-...F/121121928734 A cheaper similar filter , same size but no silver, is one that we've used when knowing we will be using our water daily for a while (& therefore don't need the 'storage capability' of the silver. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Inline-F...e/263274679052 this is 0.5 micron. Generally they come with click on hose fittings, so easy to change. I have found the plastic fittings have a limited life on corrugations, but have had no breakages since I switched to brass fittings. Plastic are OK, but ask for a few spares to carry.

Pumps. Shurflo are good. We had a 10lpm 'Whisper King' in our bus. I made a few mistakes with the Patrol. Started off with a 17Lpm pump. Ridiculous & used far too much battery power. Then bought another Shurflo like we had in the bus - now carry it as a spare. At the time we were using garden hose trigger guns as taps, & found the pressure on the pumps we had tried was simply too high, making the simple task of putting water into a saucepan difficult due to the 'splashback'. So we changed again, this time to a 3.5lpm pump, a 'mid priced ebay cheapie'. Didn't help with the splashback much (they all seem to run at 35psi or thereabouts), but we have fixed that issue with a change to normal taps. The advantage of the 3.5lpm pump though is that we waste less water. It still pumps through the filter just fine, & gives plenty of flow for a shower if we want, but we just tend to use less water, which we consider to be quite an advantage. I've carried the shurflo as a spare, only because I thought the ebay cheapie may not last, but it has now given 3 years service without a hiccup. All would manage the job of filling a bladder from a bucket. Higher flow rate will just be a bit quicker. For filling only a submersible pump may be the easiest to use solution & one like this would be quick.

Finally, back to water. We do carry a small quantity of liquid pool chlorine to use in our tanks if we have any doubt about the quality of the water (& never use cloudy water). It is really cheap to buy & we only carry 250mls, which is enough for a year or two. It does become less effective over time, but as it ages we simply add a bit more when using it. Most pool chlorine is around 12% strength. At that strength the recommended quantity for drinking water is 4mls per 100 litres. Alternatively you can use household bleach (no fragrance) which is about 1/3rd to 1/2 the strength of pool chlorine (same stuff) by icreasing the quantity. We have lived for several decades on tank water & really dislike the taste of chlorine in our water. Thankfully the carbon filters do a great job of totally removing the taste.

EDIT: B.E.S.T filters do have a 1 micron membrane at each end of the filter & thus claim that they protect from E.Coli, Giardia & Cryptospiridium. However many other 'caravan filters' are only 5 micron & don't.