How to Make Homemade Baking Powder

How to Make Homemade Baking Powder

How to Make Homemade Baking Powder
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Here is a recipe for homemade baking powder, which is an essential ingredient in many baking recipes.

I add it because it can be cheaper to make it in bulk on your own (depending on if you can get cheap cream of tartar – a byproduct of wine making), and because many commercial baking powder products contain aluminum sulfate.

Homemade baking powder also keeps aluminum out of your food.

Ingredients:

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon corn starch (optional – used to reduce caking, which what the sulfate does)

Procedure:

  • Mix the baking soda and cream of tartar together until well combined.
  • Use immediately

If you want to store it, add a teaspoon of corn starch to the mixture, and stir.
This will absorb any moisture from the air, store in an air-tight container.

A lot of people may wonder why go through all the trouble to make something you can easily go to the store and buy and it is hard to explain to them.

Partly the reason is because most of the time homemade is more healthy, but that’s not the real reason.

Sometimes, homemade is cheaper – but that is not it either.

Homemade may be the only thing available in a disaster, and that is a great reason to know how to do it.

But its the same reason some people climb mountains – because it is there, and because I can.

How to Make Dehydrated Toothpaste Dots

How to Make Dehydrated Toothpaste Dots

 

How to Make Dehydrated Toothpaste Dots
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Here is a quick tip for backpacking or camping where space and weight is a premium – make Dehydrated Toothpaste Dots.

To make a chewable single use dry toothpaste “mint” lay out foil sheet or parchment and make rows of toothpaste spots.

Allow to dry for 2-4 days.

Sprinkle baking soda on top to keep from sticking.

Repackage in small bags.

I stopped making these Dehydrated Toothpaste Dots when the boy began thinking they were candy.  But they are good for trips and traveling – once you have a can of shaving cream explode, or some shampoo leak into your luggage you begin to think about new ways to pack your stuff.

There really isn’t much more to say about this project other than you should be careful where you let them dry at – you don’t want to leave them in your bathroom because of the bacteria, and you don’t want the to sit out too long because they get really hard and nasty.

If this is not something you want to try, but you still have the issue of packing something light and easy for tooth brushing in the outdoors, you may want to just get a small container of baking soda – but I will warn you – this tastes better.

To use

Pop one Dehydrated Toothpaste Dots in your mouth, chew, then add a small amount of water in your mouth and start brushing.

Recipe Waffle Iron Chicken

52 Unique Techniques for Stocking Food for Prepper
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While messing around on youtube I found the neatest youtube channel from a guy named meatmangary.

He had a couple of cool videos that I took and modified to try something new.

Basically the Meat Man cooked a cheeseburger using his waffle iron – since I had played with my waffle iron to make hashbrowns. I wanted to try this, however, since Gary had already done the cheeseburger I wanted to try something new.

What came to my mind was Chicken and Waffles…

This is my attempt at Waffle Iron Chicken

Would cooking ground chicken on the waffle iron and eating with syrup and waffle taste as good as it sounds.

Simple answer – yes…

What is important is to well oil the waffle iron, be patient and let it cook through before opening, and to make sure you don’t over-cook the chicken.

My wife liked this recipe and told me it’s something to make again – besides that – it is easy and doesn’t need a lot of cleanup.

This is an awesome recipe.  I loved it, it was simple, and it was cool.  Of course what I think cool is not what most would think was cool.

Chicken and Waffles…..

How to Make Homemade Desiccant Out of Sheetrock

How to Make Homemade Desiccant Out of Sheetrock

 

How to Make Homemade Desiccant Out of Sheetrock
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Moisture is one of the largest threats to long term storage, and over the years a variety of commercial products have been created to absorb moisture in gun safes and other storage areas.

I came across a unique DIY Sheetrock desiccant discovered during WWII as the Department of Energy at Oak Ridge experimented with devices to help with civil defense.

An Engineer by the name of Cresson Kearny designed a homemade device used to measure radioactive fallout. This device used materials easily scavenged, and it included a homemade drying agent made by heating common gypsum wallboard (Sheetrock).

Do NOT use calcium chloride, use gypsum Sheetrock only.

 

Instructions:

Obtain a piece of 3/8 inch thick gypsum wallboard approximately 12 inches by 6 inches

Cut off the paper and glue, (easiest done by wetting the paper)

Break the white gypsum into small pieces no larger than ½ inch

Heat the gypsum in an oven at its highest temperature (which should be above 400 degrees F) for one hour.

Heat the gypsum no more than two pieces deep in a pan.

Alternatively you can heat the pieces over a fire for 20 minutes or more in a pan or can heated to a dull red.

Anhydrite absorbs water from the air very rapidly, so quickly store in an airtight container while it is still hot. A Mason jar is ideal.

This works great for me as I have hundreds of pounds of Sheetrock desiccant available as I am still tearing down the trailer.