Tampilkan postingan dengan label storage. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label storage. Tampilkan semua postingan

Selasa, 26 April 2016

Farm Fresh Eggs Storage and Cleaning

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Do you have to wash your fresh eggs? Do they need to be refrigerated? These are some of the questions I get most often concerning the handling of eggs from our suburban coop. The fact is that the nature God-given coating that is on an egg provides an amazing amount of protection and the less we do to mess that up the better we are!

There is a big difference between the eggs you pull right out from under one of your backyard chickens and one that you purchase at the store, a BIG difference. The chickens that you raise, feed, and take care of are no doubt (well if you take good care of them) healthier than those found crammed in some giant factory farm cage somewhere. The eggs from the factory farms are immediately washed and then packed and refrigerated to prevent bacteria from growing in those eggs. This process takes the natural protection away from the eggs and exposes all of the tiny pores of the shell to outside contaminants which makes refrigeration a must. However, with your farm fresh eggs this does not need to be the case.




When you collect your own eggs they can be cleaned and put into the fridge and stored for several weeks this way with no problem but it is largely not necessary. The coating provided by the chicken is the best defense from bacterial growth in the first place. Washing that coating off is the equivalent to pulling of the eggs protective respirator in a disease infested world. It wont survive long without the protection given naturally by good old mama hen.

We generally collect our eggs mid-morning and then bring them in and place them in a dish or cartoon near the sink. We do not wash them right away or refrigerate them. They just sit right there until needed by one of the SSLMoms awesome recipes or for one of our famous breakfast egg sandwiches. Once we are ready to use an egg we simply rinse it off with warm water (dont want to accidentally drop poopy eggs shells in breakfast do you?) and throw it in the skillet or mixer. We have left the eggs at room temperature like this for over two weeks at times (although I would probably not let them sit much longer than that).

If we start to get a stockpile of eggs that we cannot eat fast enough then we may wash off a batch and put them in saved egg cartoons for friends or family. We try not to give away eggs with chicken mess still on them:)

The bottom line here is that the natural way the chicken eggs was made by our creator allows for us to store them without worry of bacterial infection at room temperature without the invention of the refrigerator. How do you think people use to store them for the thousands of years before the refrigerator?

There are also other ways for long term storage at room temperature that I will not get into here today but may talk more about on a later discussion.





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Sabtu, 16 April 2016

DIY Food Storage Pantry Save Time Save Money Buy Bulk and Be Prepared

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We are using some extra space under the stairs to store our bulk food and pantry items. Since we have been growing more and more of our own food we needed a good place to store it all! The SSL Family Mom has also been cooking and baking almost everything from scratch which means that we have a lot more baking supplies on hand. This space will give us a climate controlled area in our home using some extra space that was just piled with junk. After a few trips to Goodwill the space was cleared out and ready for some shelves.

This will be the first in a series of videos and articles about how we are storing food here in our suburban home. The first step I am tackling today is to get the shelves put in a lay out the space to handle the size items that we will most likely be storing. In the future I will continue to work on this area and enclose it with drywall, run electric for lights and outlets, paint the shelves, seal the concrete floor, and add a small dehumidifier to keep the moisture down.

The ideal conditions for dry food storage is a humidity level below 15% and temps from 40-70 degrees Fahrenheit (4-21c). The basement here in Michigan is always at about 65 degrees so we are in good shape there but the humidity is much higher in the summertime. This will be the biggest challenge and that is why I want to seal this area off from the rest of the basement and use a dehumidifier to keep the moisture levels down. That will come as a later addition as I said but for now back to getting these shelves setup!

I am using all 2X4 construction for the shelf framing for a couple of reasons. This is the cheapest and most readily available type of lumber for us here and also because a 2X4 can hold quite a bit of weight if installed correctly. I probably could have used smaller lumber but in the end these shelves will be able to hold anything I can imagine putting on them. The shelves themselves are made from cheap OSB (oriented Stranded Board) for similar reasons. It is cheap and easily available here and will serve as a good solid shelf for many years. OSB does not do well in high moisture environments but since we are going for climate control here we should be ok.

I am using a 16 inch deep shelf which will hold about 4 quart size mason jars as well as most of the other items that we will be storing here. The bottom shelf is the tallest to hold emergency storage buckets (either 5 or 6 gallon). The next shelf can hold any large size canning jars for juices or pickles. The next two shelves are sized for quart size jars and the top for smaller jam jars and canned goods. With this design I should be able to fit 30-60 days worth of food for our family of five.




 
Tools used in the construction of the shelves
Chalk line -  http://amzn.to/1BmGB0V
Speed Square - http://amzn.to/1ATc9KJ
Craftsman Jigsaw - http://amzn.to/1AlUo4X
A better hammer!! - http://amzn.to/1BmHgPY
Porter Cable Nailer - http://amzn.to/1AlV2PV

All of these and more items used by the SSL Family are available in the
Simple Suburban General Store
 
 
 
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