Although there are always cheaper options with regards to gear, unfortunately as the saying goes, “you get what you pay for” — and you don’t want to have to depend on poorly-made cheap gear for the welfare and safety of your loved ones.

Buying Top Quality Gear for Dirt Cheap Prices

So how can you still get quality, dependable gear without breaking the bank? Well, there is a place where you can buy barely used, and in some cases brand spanking new, quality gear for often more than half off the price you would pay in a store. I’m sure you’ve all heard of it by now: Craigslist.

I know what you’re thinking, “Come on Erich, when I check I rarely find anything good, and when I do it’s usually been already taken.” Well for most people that’s true. But not for me. I’ve been able to purchase top quality sleeping bags, camping hammocks (Hennessy Hammocks), camping stoves, compound bows, radios, a 4-season tent and other gear for more than half off the list price. What’s my secret? It’s setting up Craigslist notifications.

How to Set Up Craigslist Notifications

The benefit of setting up notifications with Craigslist listings is that you can have them sent to your email, IM, or phone. This way you get an instant alert when a specific item you’re looking for becomes available, giving you a much greater chance of getting that long sought after piece of gear.

My favorite tool for getting instant notifications to my phone via sms (text message), my email, and instant messenger is a free utility called Notify.me. It’s very simple to use and best of all it costs nothing. Here’s a demo on how it can be used (substitute his search for Toyota Prius with your needed survival gear  ):

There are many other similar tools (most aren’t free) available online that provide similar services. However, this is the best tool I’ve found available. Happy hunting! And be sure to let me know if you’ve made out on some killer deals as a result of this.

Related posts:

1. The Weekly Tactical Touch-Point: Cheap Hennessy Hammock Edition
2. Bored Surfing the Web? Stock up on Free Stuff Instead

Given the right conditions, it could get bad enough that food becomes more valuable than gold or silver. In times like these, having a backup of seeds that can be planted as a “crisis garden” to supplement or support the needs of your family will be worth more than its weight in gold.

What Types of Seeds Should I Store?

The most important types of seed you’ll want to store are seeds that consistently put out the same type of plant/fruit generation after generation. In other words, if you were to plant the seeds of the parent then the fruit/vegetable that is produced by those seeds would maintain the characteristics of the parent plant.

For the beginning gardener this includes purchasing open-pollinated seeds instead of the typical hybrid seeds found in your garden center. As a general rule (there are exceptions), hybrid seeds are first-generation seeds and if you were to use the seeds produced by one of these plants they will be sterile or more likely fail to breed – not a good option if next year’s crop is dependent upon the seeds produced by this year’s. This also requires a yearly visit to the garden center — a dependency that’s great for the seed dealers but not so great for the survivalist.

Heirloom seeds are a type of open-pollinated seed that have been conserved by repeatedly growing them out again and again over the years. These are perfect for seed storage.

Where Can I Buy Them?

With all the seed sellers out there here are the companies where I recommend you purchase your open-pollinated and heirloom seeds. I’ve broken them down based upon the climate where the seeds are produced and tested. This will ensure the greatest success of germination and production in your area. (Be sure to order the open-pollinated or heirloom seeds as these companies also sell hybrids).

Short Season Climates (northern U.S. and Canada)

• Johnny’s Selected Seeds
• William Dam Seeds
• Veseys Seeds

Moderate Climates (middle-American states)

• Johnny’s Selected Seeds
• Harris Seeds

Maritime Climates (Cascadia)

• Territorial Seeds

Other Sellers
These companies I’m not sure where they are best grown but I’ve heard good reviews nonetheless (both deal exclusively in non-hybrid open-pollinated seeds):

• Bountiful Gardens
• Everlasting Seeds

How Do I Store Them?

Now that you’ve grown your open-pollinated seeds and have fruits and vegetables that are producing their own seeds, you’ll now want to be able to store those seeds for the next year. If seeds are stored properly, they can last for years (10+ or more).

The three big killers when it comes to seed storage are temperature, moisture, and oxygen with the most important being temperature and moisture. For the ideal temperature, store them in an area that is 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below (refrigerator or freezer) and to combat moisture, the best process is to dry them to 8 percent moisture or less by drying them at 100 degrees F for six hours.

You can do this by drying your seeds in the sun, with a food dehydrator, or by using a conventional oven (never use a microwave oven):

• Sun Drying: Spread the seed out in the sunlight and try to obtain 100 degree temperature for 6 hours. Longer times are expected if the temperature is less.
• Food dehydrator: Set the dehydrator to 100 degrees F. Dry for six hours.
• Conventional oven:Keep the oven door open several inches, and make sure the seed is not heated to more than 100 degrees for 6 hours.

Seed Moisture Tests:

Here are 2 methods that are a easy way to tell if the seeds have been dried to a proper moisture level of around 8 percent or less:

1. Longer seeds should snap smartly and cleanly in half when bent.
2. Wheat, beans, peas, corn and other large seeds should shatter and turn to powder when hit with the head of a hammer.

Once your seeds are dry, you’ll want to place them in an airtight moisture-proof storage containers. Be sure to mark the containers with the seed names and date of packaging, then store them in a cool dark place (again a refrigerator or freezer are ideal for this purpose).

All-In One Solutions

If you would rather have an all-in-one solution that takes the guess-work out of choosing what types of vegetables and fruit seed to buy, dries and stores them to last for years and packs them in a container that can be stored for years then I would check out the following resources:

• Survival Seed Bank: They also provide a book that describes in detail how to plant your seeds, cultivate them as well as how to gather and store your seeds for the next growing season.
• Heirloom Organics: These guys provide multiple “seed packs” based on the size of your family and needs.

Resources

•  http://www.icrisat.org/Journal/volume5/Groundnut/gn4.pdf

 – A great study on moisture, temperature and o2 effects.

• http://www.savingourseed.org/pdf/SeedProcessingandStorageVer_1pt3.pdf – In depth look into the process of saving your own seeds.
• Garden Web Seed Saving Forums – This forum/thread has some good dialogue on the process behind saving your own seeds.

Related posts:

1. Identity Survival: The Importance of Emergency Documents
2. WD-40: The Ultimate Survival Spray
3. Testing out the Survival Stove

Storing your important information online need not be risky. Today I’ll be going into detail on how you can create secure digital copies of your important documents and where to store them online.

The Benefits of Online Storage

With the onset of the internet, people began to see the huge potential for commerce and information sharing that “cyberspace” offered. This resulted in the creation of large businesses dependent upon the internet for their livelihood.

To prevent against data loss in the event that their data center is destroyed (by natural disaster or otherwise), large companies like Google or Microsoft will build multiple data centers far away, in different ‘threat zones’. This provides a seamless disaster-recovery option to protect the integrity of data so crucial to their business.

By piggy-backing on these large businesses’ multiple data centers, you can have a cost-free storage option with practically no risk of losing your data. This of course is assuming the internet still exists (If it gets so bad that the internet dissapears, then you have a lot bigger problems than worrying about the loss of your drivers license or a medical card).

The Problem of Security

Now I know what you’re thinking. What about security? Couldn’t anyone just steal the file online and use it for their nefarious purposes? Sure, if it’s not secured. In the next section I’ll be detailing how you can create and secure your digital documents.

How to Create and Secure a Digital Emergency Document File

What You’ll Need

• a computer
• a scanner
• Bullzip (a free pdf creation program that you can download here)
• 7-Zip (a free compression/archiving program that you can download here)

Step 1: Scan Your Important Documents Into Your Computer

The first thing you’ll want to do is gather together your documents, passports, SS card etc and scan them in to your computer. Your scanning software should allow you to save them as individual images to be used in the next step.

Step 2: Convert Your Scan into a PDF File

To convert your scans into a pdf file, you’ll need to have a pdf conversion program like Bullzip. The benefit of Bullzip is that it acts as a print server — basically allowing you to open any document, webpage, or scanned image (as in our case) and “print” it into a pdf file.

Open your scanned image and print it as you would any other document. When the print form pops up select “Bullzip PDF Printer” as your printer and print.

Select 'Bullzip PDF Printer' as your printer and print

A new form will pop up. On this form you’ll want to select PDF as your format, indicate the filename/destination and click “Save”:

Select PDF as your format, indicate the filename/destination and click 'Save'

Step 3: Merge the Remaining Documents into one File

For this step you’ll repeat what you did in the last step but this time instead of saving the scanned document into a new PDF, you”ll merge it with the previous one you made in step 2.

To do this, follow step 2 again but this time when the Bullzip form comes up, select the “Merge” tab. Under the Append PDF section look up the PDF file you made in Step 2 (this will be the file you’ll merge into) then click “Save”:

Under the Append PDF section look up the PDF file you made in Step 2 (this will be the file you'll merge into) then click 'Save'

This will create a new pdf file with the two images merged. Continue steps 2 and 3 with the remaining scanned images until you are left with one PDF that contains all the images.

Step 4: Securing Your PDF

The final step is to encrypt your pdf file. To do this I would recommend using an archiving software like WinZIP or, what I’ll use in this example, 7-Zip.

After installing 7-Zip, right click your merged PDF file and select ’7-Zip’ -> ‘Add to Archive’:

select '7-Zip' -> 'Add to Archive'.

When the ‘Add to Archive’ form pops up, set your Archive format to “Zip”, enter a password, and select “AES-256″ as your encryption method:

Click “OK” to create your .zip file and delete the original pdf. You now have a secure, password protected file that can be opened with 7-zip or any other standard archiving software (WinZIP etc) provided you supply the proper password.

As a side note, AES-256 is a very secure encryption cipher that has been approved by the U.S. Government for Top Secret documents — more than enough for your personal documents.

Uploading Your Emergency Document to the Web

Now that your document has been encrypted, you are safe to transfer your .zip file to the web.

Here’s where I stress the importance of redundancy. The more locations/servers you have the file located on the less likely you would be to lose it. Here are the servers I recommend :

• Google Docs – This is one of my favorite places to create and store documents.
• Gmail – I would recommend creating a draft email and attaching the file to it. This way it won’t accidentally get deleted or buried in your mailbox.
• Hotmail (same advice as GMail)
• AOL mail (same advice as GMail)
• Windows SkyDrive – Allows up to 25 GB of data!

As mentioned above, the benefit of storing your important documents on large company storage is that you take advantage of their disaster recovery data centers.

Other Helpful Tips

Another benefit of using Bullzip is that you can always add or delete pages from your PDF file. To add, just use your Emergency Document PDF as the source file used in Step 3 above.

To remove unwanted pages from your document, just open your latest PDF file in Acrobat Reader, select Print (selecting Bullzip as your printer) and in the Page Range section specify what pages you want to print. Bullzip will then create an updated PDF file using only those pages you specify.

Related posts:

1. Identity Survival: The Importance of Emergency Documents

Katrina is a perfect example. Many families who were otherwise prepared failed to follow this advice and ran into a host of issues.

When the waters receded, some residents tried to return to their homes. The national guard and police, who were guarding against looting, prevented people from entering their homes unless they could provide proper identification and proof of ownership.

There were also difficulties in getting families back together after becoming separated following the disaster. Children were often put in a secure location and would only be released to parents/guardians if they could prove their identities.

Even trying to file insurance claims were frustrating since most did not have their policy numbers available.

Having access to your important documents is absolutely essential if you were required to rebuild your life following a disaster.

What Documents Should You Have Backups Of?

Here’s a list of documents that you should have a copy of for each family member (where applicable):

• drivers license (front and back)
• passports
• insurance cards
• social security cards
• credit cards (front and back)
• proof of ownership or lease of your residence
• vehicle, boats etc. proof of ownership (copy of title, bill of sale etc)
• bank account numbers and other financial information
• legal documents and wills
• a recent family photo with names
• phone and address information for in and out-of-state emergency contacts
• birth, death, marriage, divorce certificates
• important business documents
• photos of valuables for documentation of insurance claims
• medical records (immunization etc.)

Where You Should Store These Backups?

Having more than one backup for these important documents is essential. For example, if you choose to put your emergency docs only in your bug-out bag, it may be that a disaster prevents you from getting to that bag.

Here are some options for you:

In Your Bug-Out Bag

Besides food, water and gear, your bug-out bags (72 hour kits) should also contain these important documents. I prefer to put them in Ziplock brand (they’re more durable) freezer bags. This keeps them completely waterproof and prevents damage.

With Trusted Friends/Family

Another option where you can store your emergency documents is with a trusted friend or relative who lives outside of your area. This provides another failsafe in case your area is completely destroyed. You obviously don’t want these documents to fall in the wrong hands so it’s of primary importance that you can trust that individual and that they take the necessary precautions.

Safe-Deposit Box

For around $15-$20 a year you can store copies of your important documents in a safe deposit box. Again, I would recommend keeping them in a bank outside your immediate area. If your a customer of a national bank this gives you many options.

Keeping Electronic Copies

This is one of my favorite methods. Basically you create digital copies of your important documents and then upload them to a remote server (like Gmail, Google Docs, or Hotmail). By keeping a copy on various remote servers you benefit from the fact that your document is safe from disaster. Many large companies like Google and Microsoft have disaster-recovery servers that if one server location were to be completely destroyed another would take its place without any data loss.

As a graduate of computer science I am well aware of the importance and vulnerabilities of digital security. But transferring digital files across the net and keeping digital copies need not be risky. In my next article, I’ll be sharing with you how you can securely keep copies of these documents on the web. Read it here.

Related posts:

1. How to Create Secure Digital Copies of Your Emergency Documents
2. The Importance of Having a Survival Seed Bank
3. Emergency Preparedness Supplies – 70% Off!

Efforts to prevent looters from entering neighborhoods after Chile's disaster include barricades like this one in Concepcion

In the wake of the earthquake, hundreds of Chilean survivors are forming organized neighborhood watch groups, arming themselves and barricading streets to protect their homes from looters.

The groups have taken over the role of security since the police were overwhelmed by looting and soldiers were not able to restore order quick enough after the disaster.

What this Means

Looting seems to be a common theme in natural disasters. When the grid goes down for a period of time and the first responders become overextended, 1) the less savory people of society see it as a free for all and go on a looting spree, and 2) when people become desperate enough due to lack of food and supplies they often resort to looting as well.

This is especially problematic in an extended grid-down situation.

To reduce inventory and the associated carrying costs, modern grocery stores receive their inventory “just in time” for the next day’s demand. When that supply line gets held up for whatever reason, those who are dependent upon the goods in that store go without.

These Just in Time (JIT) supply strategies allow for no extended stock of food and supplies — which is why we see the shelves become empty prior to impending storms. The longer the supply is gone the more desperate people become.

How Does it Effect You?

A neighbor guards his block from looters in Lota, Chile, on Wednesday. (Aliosha Marquez / AP)

Think again, it happened in Louisiana after the Katrina disaster and if another major disaster comes — economic or otherwise — it will happen again.

There are a number of lessons to be learned from this:

1. You must be prepared: Food (and water) storage is absolutely essential. A minimum of 3 months but ideally one year’s worth or more. For more info on how to get started with food storage be sure to read my Food Storage Basics article series.
2. Get to know your neighbors: Similar to these Chileans, banding together provides safety and security and besides, you can’t expect to man a 24/7 watch all by yourself.

   Get to know your neighbors now, before disaster strikes. If possible, come up with neighborhood disaster plans and discuss the possibility of how the neighborhood would respond to looters.

3. Arm yourself: When the law is not around and the lawless run amok, you are the last line of defense for your family.

   Just having firearms is not enough. Be sure to get the proper training. There are numerous civilian training schools around the country that teach personal defense with a firearm.

4. Beef up the security of your residence: Having a secure home is a good idea even without a mob of looters running around. Now’s the time to increase the security of your residence before the zombies come a’knocking.

Resources

This is by far THE best book out there for building a secure home. 700 pages of hard-core information (no fluff):

The Secure Home (by Joel Skousen)

• Chilean survivors arm selves against looters
• Chile earthquake: Why do people loot? – A look into the psychological reasons people loot.

Related posts:

1. The Tactical Intelligence News Brief: California on the Verge of System Failure
2. The Tactical Intelligence News Brief – October 6, 2009
3. Welcome to Tactical Intelligence .Net!

Here’s the main functions for using WD-40:

• LUBRICATES: WD-40′s lubricating ingredients are widely dispersed and hold firmly to all moving parts.
• CLEANS: WD-40 gets under dirt, grime and grease to clean. It also dissolves adhesives, allowing easy removal of labels, tape, stickers, and excess bonding material.
• PROTECTS: WD-40 protects metal surfaces with corrosion-resistant ingredients to shield against moisture and other corrosive elements.
• PENETRATES: WD-40 loosens rust-to-metal bonds and frees stuck, frozen or rusted metal parts.
• DISPLACES MOISTURE: Because WD-40 displaces moisture, it quickly dries out electrical systems to eliminate moisture-induced short circuits.

For a complete list (over 2000) of its uses check out this link from WD-40′s website: List of 2000+ Uses of WD-40

Related posts:

1. How to Put Together the Ultimate Survival Kit
2. The Ultimate Survival Firearm
]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/wd-40-the-ultimate-survival-spray.htm/feed 0 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/rocket-stove.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/rocket-stove.htm#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:42:40 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=859 Related posts:
1. 5% Off the StoveTec Rocket Stove
2. Off-Grid Cooking Part 2: Fixed Cooking Options
3. How to Make a Survival Stove (Car Heater)
]]> If your interested in an economical but highly effective form of cooking off-grid (or in a grid-down situation), the rocket stove is a perfect choice. Just recently I purchased a rocket stove built by a company called StoveTec.

Invented by Dr. Larry Winiarski, the rocket stove is a highly-efficient cooking stove that requires very little wood to cook an entire meal.

Due to its design that allows for complete combustion, with just a few twigs and sticks you can maintain a hot burning fire that’s super clean and produces practically no smoke.

Since I wanted to test it out myself, I decided to put together a video review of the stove. My results? I was able to boil 72 oz of water in 15 minutes outside in 29 degrees with just a few sticks! I was pretty impressed…check it out:

If you’re interested in purchasing a rocket stove for yourself, I worked out a deal with the manufacturer so that readers of this site will get a 5% discount. To qualify for this discount, enter the promo code tact-intel-summ10 during the checkout process. You can order here: StoveTec Rocket Stove

If you do end up ordering one, I’d love to hear your experience with it. So feel free to leave a comment!

Related posts:

1. 5% Off the StoveTec Rocket Stove
2. Off-Grid Cooking Part 2: Fixed Cooking Options
3. How to Make a Survival Stove (Car Heater)
]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/rocket-stove.htm/feed 10 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/off-grid-cooking-part-2-fixed-cooking-options.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/off-grid-cooking-part-2-fixed-cooking-options.htm#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:38:48 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=729 Related posts:
1. Off-Grid Cooking Part 1: Portable Stoves
2. Video Review of the Rocket Stove
3. Preparing Your Home for Winter
]]> In part 2 of this article I’ll be dealing with the primary fixed off-grid cooking options available. If you’ve missed part one, be sure to check it out. In it, I had covered the main types of portable off-grid cooking stoves that you should be aware of when looking to equip your 72-hour kit (bug-out bag).

If the grid were to go down tomorrow and you had no access to gas or electricity, would you still be able to heat and cook your food? Do you have a backup plan available that can last you ay least 3 months? If not, then this article will give you a first step in opening your mind to the options available to you.

I’m actually in the same boat as many of you. When it comes to long-term cooking, unfortunately I’m completely dependent upon the grid (dependency…I hate that feeling). This article is actually a result of the research that I’ve done in figuring out a way to still be able to cook meals for my family if the grid were to go down.

Gas & Liquid Fuel Stoves

Unless you have an alcohol still, gas and liquid fuel stoves for long term or indefinite use are obviously not the best option. But for those who can either store large amounts of fuel for the long term or better yet can make it themselves, than these types of stoves are a viable option. Here are some of the choices available:

• Propane Stoves: Propane stoves come in many shapes and sizes — everything from a standard home stove to an outdoor grill. While it provides clean reliable burning the downside is you’ll need to forget about trying to make it yourself. The only option is to store a bunch away. Better check your local zoning laws.
• Multi-fuel Camp Stoves: Although this was covered in the previous article, they are still good options for fixed and long-term cooking. Some of the double-burner camp stoves that are available — while too cumbersome for bugging-out — are perfect for long-term use. And since many will run off of grain alcohol, they are perfect if you can make your own fuel.
• Marine Diesel Stove/Oven: Typically used on larger boats (as well as RVs) for cooking, marine ovens/stoves are a valid option for the home as well. If you have the ability to store diesel fuel, than these types of stoves/ovens might be a good choice. Be prepared to pay a hefty price though.

Keep in mind with all fuel-based stoves (wood also) that you need to be wary of carbon monoxide poisoning. Make sure you have plenty of ventilation and are following all of the manufacturers recommendations.

Solar Cooking


For those who live in an area with plenty of sunlight, harnessing the power of the sun can be a readily available and effective method of cooking. Solar cookers can cook stews, bake breads, and even fry eggs.

If you want to build your own simple-to-make solar cookers check out this great resource: http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/

Wood Stoves

When it comes to cooking food, wood has been the fuel of choice for millenia. Fortunately, due to modern technology, cooking via wood has come a long way since the basic three-stone fire.

Wood Burning Cook Stove

Modern cook stoves serve as dual purpose heating and cooking stoves. They are constructed much like wood heating stoves but are specially designed to focus the heat at particular surface areas for cooking. Some of the higher-end stoves also have ovens for baking and some even have the ability to heat water for your hot-water needs. The newer ones are definitely pricey but I’ve seen many of the older ones selling for under $500 on craigslist in my area.

For more information or if your interested in purchasing one of your own, check out these links:

• Lehman’s
• Antique Stoves.com

Rocket Stove

For those a bit strapped on cash at the moment but still want an effective form of cooking off-grid, the rocket stove is a perfect choice. Invented by Dr. Larry Winiarski, the rocket stove is a highly-efficient cooking stove that requires very little wood to cook an entire meal. Due to its design that allows for complete combustion, with just a few twigs and sticks you can maintain a hot burning fire that’s super clean and produces practically no smoke.

There are a number of resources online that teach you how to make your own rocket stove for under $20. If you don’t have the time (like me) or paitence you can purchase your own from the Aprovecho center (Winiarski is director of it) through Stovetec.net. Here’s a video demonstrating the StoveTec stove (this is the one I just recently ordered):

Here’s a videos on how to make the stove yourself:

Additional Resources

Here are some additional resources into off-grid cooking options that you can easily build yourself:

• Capturing HEAT. Five Earth-Friendly Cooking Technologies and How to Build Them
• Design Principles for Wood Burning Cookstoves

Related posts:

1. Off-Grid Cooking Part 1: Portable Stoves
2. Video Review of the Rocket Stove
3. Preparing Your Home for Winter
]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/off-grid-cooking-part-2-fixed-cooking-options.htm/feed 2 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/off-grid-cooking-part-1-portable-stoves.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/off-grid-cooking-part-1-portable-stoves.htm#comments Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:16:14 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=721 Related posts:
1. Off-Grid Cooking Part 2: Fixed Cooking Options
2. Video Review of the Rocket Stove
3. 5% Off the StoveTec Rocket Stove
]]> Having the ability to cook your food if you’re forced to travel off-grid or if the grid itself (electricity, gas etc) goes down should be an essential part of your preparations. In this two-part article, I’ll be discussing both portable and fixed off-grid survival cooking options, their pros and cons, and hopefully be able to leave you with a better idea of what would be best for your situation.

The Need for Portable Stoves

An integral part of every preppers bug-out bag (or 3rd tier survival kit) is the ability to cook while on the go. Of course building a campfire is a definite option (since you should have fire making implements with you in your kit anyways) but as I’ve stressed before, redundancy is key and having another way to cook food is ideal. This is where a small portable camp stove comes in handy.

So when, besides camping, would you ever need this type of stove? Well, many different scenarios come to mind, but they all involve one basic condition — you’re away from your home base and do not have access to your fixed-stove options. This could be a forced retreat of your home due to a natural disaster or civil unrest. It may also be as simple as being stranded in your car for a few days until help arrives. Either way, having the option to cook food while on the go or if stranded miles away from home should be on every preppers priority list.

Main Types of Portable Stoves

The three main types of portable stoves are gas/liquid fuel stoves, solid fuel stoves, and wood burning stoves. Even though wood is a solid fuel, for ease of discussion I’ll put it in its own category.

Gas/Liquid Fuel Stoves

While there are many different types of gas/liquid fuel stoves available on the market, the ones I would recommend are the variety that are compact and can burn multiple types of fuel.

The stove that I love is the Primus Omni-Fuel (The MSR Dragonfly is also a good option). Not only does it run on standard disposable LP (liquified petroleum -> aka propane) gas cartridges that you’ll find at most camping/outdoor stores, but if you use the optional fuel bottle it can run on almost any other type of fuel: aviation fuel, white gas, normal unleaded gasoline, diesel, alchohol, and kerosene. This is a definite bonus since disposable LP cartridges aren’t as easy to come by when on the go like the other options.

The benefits to this type of stove is the ease of use, adjustable heat, lightweight design, ability to function in extreme environments, and multitude of available fuels.

Keep in mind, while the stove itself is light, the additional fuel canisters you may want to pack can add up and take up space. Since there are moving parts, they can also get damaged out in the field. And worst of all, when your fuel supply does run out, that $150 stove of yours is about as useful as a poke in the eye. For this reason it’s not the best long-term solution, but for bugging out a short time it’s great.

Solid Fuel Stoves

Similar to gas/liquid fuel stoves, solid fuel stoves come in many different varieties. The two most common are the alcohol gel (Sterno) stove and the hexamine tablet types (ESBIT stove).

The great benefit of these types of stoves is that the fuel and stove are both very lightweight and cheap. They’re also easy to pack in that they hardly take up any space and since there are no moving parts, they can take a beating and still function.

The downsides are that the heat output is difficult to regulate and they don’t burn as hot as gas/liquid type stoves. Also similar to the gas/liquid stoves when the fuel is out that’s it, hexamine tablets are pretty hard to come by in nature.

Wood Burning Hiking Stoves

Portable wood-burning hiking stoves may be the oldest form of portable cooking stove around. And just like gas, liquid, and solid fuel stoves wood burning hiking stoves come in many different varieties — from the simplest hobo stoves to the more cutting-edge Kelly Kettle.

One stove that I haven’t had the opportunity to test out yet but that I’ve heard great things about is the the Bush Buddy. It’s a more state-of-the-art type of hobo stove that is able to preheat the air coming into the combustion chamber through a double-walled set up. This creates an effective bellow-like system that burns the wood much more efficiently. Here’s a great video review to give you a better idea:


Homemade portable wood stoves — most often referred to as “hobo stoves” — have been commonplace cooking devices for hobos, homeless, and backpackers for years. They are easily fashioned from old tin cans and are surprisingly quite effective for cooking and heating. There are a great number of sites online with various versions of the basic hobo stove that you can learn from.

There are obvious benefits to this type of stove. One of the main ones being that the fuel is free and (depending on the area) widely available. Also, the homemade varieties range from costing nothing to under $10.

The flip side to wood burning stoves is the more skill required to light it. This is especially apparent during wet weather. If you find lighting campfires difficult under optimal conditions, you may want to stay away from these types of stoves until your skill level improves. Keep in mind however that most wood stoves can double as Esbit-type stoves. Taking along some extra Esbit tablets as backup is always a good idea under any conditions.

Conclusion

I hope after reading this you have a better idea of the various portable stoves that are available and which ones might best suit your needs. In the next article I’ll be covering some of the best available options for fixed off-grid cooking options. Stay tuned…

Related posts:

1. Off-Grid Cooking Part 2: Fixed Cooking Options
2. Video Review of the Rocket Stove
3. 5% Off the StoveTec Rocket Stove
]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/off-grid-cooking-part-1-portable-stoves.htm/feed 4 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/5-creative-ways-to-teach-preparedness-to-your-child.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/5-creative-ways-to-teach-preparedness-to-your-child.htm#comments Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:59:51 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=581 Related posts:
1. Emergency Preparedness Supplies – 70% Off!
2. How Learning Primitive Skills Could One Day Save Your Tail
]]> For this post, Tactical Intelligence is honored to have Lisa from The Survival Mom share some creative ways you can use to teach preparedness to your child. I’ve linked to her articles in the past, and if you haven’t had the chance to check out her site, do so!

Ask any survival-minded adult why they’re into preparedness, and they’ll likely offer at least a half-dozen reasons. Ask a child why there’s a closet filled with cans of tuna and buckets of wheat, and there’s no telling what answer they’ll give. Depending on what they’ve been taught, it may be a constant reminder of a foreboding future, full of threats and uncertainty. On the other hand, stored food, stockpiled ammo, and 55 gallon water containers may be accepted as a natural part of life.

Children fear what they don’t understand. When a difficult concept such as preparedness is presented in a creative way, at their level, it helps them feel reassured and satisfied. Here are five creative ways to teach this concept to your children in ways that will reinforce important concepts and include a lot of fun along the way.

• When you explain your preparedness efforts, use examples from children’s literature that children of all ages can relate to. The story of Joseph from the Bible is an excellent example of preparing for difficult times and then being able to provide for others in need. The Little House on the Prairie book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder follows a pioneer family through good times and bad. Each book is a great source of information about practical skills from hand-stitching to making homemade butter to smoking wild game as well as great examples of self-sufficiency. If your children are very young, Little House picture books are available at the library and in bookstores.
• Children naturally love learning about animals and there’s no better source for examples of preparedness than the animals they’re already familiar with. Bears, squirrels and other forest animals get ready for the winter. Geese begin a long trek south when they sense that cold weather is near. Did you know that prairie dogs purposely mound up the earth around the entrances to their homes so rain doesn’t flood their burrows? My own children love The Burgess Book of Animals, which uses entertaining stories to teach facts about dozens of animals.
• Keep an eye on current events. Don’t focus on details that might terrify your kids, but if the Weather Channel is reporting on an approaching hurricane, for example, talk about the steps families in those areas should be taking. Younger children might not be able to
• Teach practical skills. Kids should know how to cook, clean, and scrub the kitchen floor! Learning how to mend ripped jeans or doing laundry isn’t child abuse. They’re real life skills that teach independence and instill a healthy work ethic. Older children can be taught target shooting, how to put up a tent and how to start a campfire. I’m all in favor of lots of play time, but children also need to learn skills and knowledge that are truly worth learning.
• Participate in activities that teach or reinforce preparedness. Scout programs and 4-H are ideal for children to learn some terrific practical skills and socialize with other like-minded kids. You just can’t beat that combination.

Everyone loves learning something new, especially when there’s fun involved. Keep your lessons about preparedness casual, creative, and fun. Your kids will discover the future isn’t something to be feared and will figure that everyone in the neighborhood must also have boxes of freeze-dried food under every bed!

Related posts:

1. Emergency Preparedness Supplies – 70% Off!
2. How Learning Primitive Skills Could One Day Save Your Tail
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