Planning Ahead To Have The Things We Want
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Each morning we get up and make a pot of coffee. We enjoy the morning ritual of drinking a cup of coffee, together or alone, to get the day started. And in the future if the world, as we know it, has ‘collapsed’ that doesn’t mean we still don’t want that morning cup.
We’ve discussed storing enough coffee to last us through most hard times. But what if the electricity is out, short or long-term, and the electric coffee grinder and the electric coffee maker don’t work? What’s the backup plan?
We have a hand coffee grinder, just like our grandparents would have had (if they had a hand coffee grinder…). With very little effort you turn the knob and grind the coffee into the attached jar. Or, of course, you could instead just store coffee that’s already ground.
Then what? We have two options to make our coffee: 1) a percolator, and 2) a french press. Both are easy and work well. With the percolator, you fill it with water, and put the ground coffee in the bin at the top. Then heat it, over your preferred heat source, until you see it “percolating” through the clear top portion. With the french press you put the ground coffee into the press, add water that you’ve previously boiled, then put the lid on and let it steep. After about five minutes, press the handle to the bottom of the pot and the coffee is ready to serve.
This backup plan, including redundancies, is just an example of ‘making a plan’ that allows you to still function–on a semi-normal level–even when the SHTF. This concept should be applied to everything you’d like to continue to be able to do: cooking meals, drinking clean water, having a warm/cool house, having available power, keeping your family safe, etc.
The key is to make a plan, put the pieces into place to be able to execute it, then PRACTICE it. Remember, we don’t get to choose our disaster, when it will be, or where we will be when it happens. But for now, we still have time to plan and prepare.
(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)
The hand-cranked coffee grinder and French press are our daily solution. Granted, we only have one coffee drinker in the family, so the quantity isn’t huge, but I really prefer the quiet of the hand grinder rather than the shriek of the electric one. Anyway, this way we are already used to our solution and in fact will only have to figure out a different way to boil water if the power goes out, etc. We even take our grinder and French press when we go camping–it’s perfect!
With one coffee drinker the french press is perfect. Sarah keeps one at work for days when she is unable to bring coffee from home (or forgets).
I have never had a cup of percolator coffee that didn’t taste burned. I like French press coffee. This used to be my “go to” way of making coffee when camping. Now I use a single cup coffee filter cone. It is basically a manual drip maker, but you would have to store filters.
For the coffee, I’d recommend storing green coffee beans since they store almost indefinitely. You would have to learn to roast your own beans, but that’s just another skill set that may be useful after the SHTF.
Guess I’ve had better luck with a percolator and haven’t had the burned taste. But I also enjoy the french press coffee. It’s nice to have options and redundancies.
I’ve never even seen green coffee beans, that’s an interesting idea though. I wonder if they could be grown in a greenhouse up here in WA?
Possibly, but most people just buy them and store the green beans. I’ve never done this since I’ve weaned myself off of coffee. But I did a bunch of homework on how to roast my own coffee, for SHTF, I’d go with a stovetop popcorn popper. There’s several sites with instructions on how to do it.
This sounds really interesting–I’ll have to check into it. Thanks!
Hello Sir, I recently found your site and it is great inspiration to me and my family. I am a 10 year Army Veteran, and I am thankful for your posts and information on your website. My question is what brand is your coffee percolator? I have been trying to find a good percolator but I haven’t found one that works for very long.
Thank your for your time
Our percolator isn’t anything special. It’s a camping style one I picked up at the local hardware store. As far as longevity, I can’t attest to that. We’ve used it probably a dozen times and it’s worked fine.
I picked one up today from REI it was like $24, they really didn’t know what a percolator was lol. But I’m testing it out today and I will let you know how it goes. God Bless you and your family
Let me know how it works, I wouldn’t mind getting a nicer one. I’m a big REI fan, and overall appreciate their quality.