Dehydrating hamburger for storage and making better backcountry meals

I will never forget the first freeze dried meal I ate while on the trail more than a few years ago, it convinced me to head out, buy a dehydrator and begin packaging my own foods 

Yes, I know the quality of freeze-dried products have improved over the years and that some people swear by them. But for me, I cannot justify spending the huge amount of cash it would take to support me on a five- or six-day backpacking or canoe trip. And more to the point, I like the foods I prepare much better than anything I have found in the stores.

On my solo canoe trip, I added a few things to the menu that I have not tried before, dried hamburger and shrimp. I know people have been dehydrating hamburger for a very long time, but for some reason it has always given me a bit of the creeps. Maybe it has something to do with all the stories I wrote as a reporter about contaminated hamburger. The fact is if you write enough of those stories and do as much research as I have regarding public health issues, it gets into a part of your brain and it is hard to shake.

With a dehydrator and a little effort you can dry your hamburger
and other meats for use on the trail or in an emergency

But shake it I did, and I wish I had done so a long time ago, because drying hamburger is easy, safe and offers a huge number of options when it comes to meals on the trail. The same goes for shrimp which pick up a concentrated flavor that really perks up a campfire meal.

One of the points to drying foods such as hamburger is that of course to preserve it and in doing so it becomes much lighter. My last batch of ground beef went from 1-pound raw down to a cooked and dried weight of 4-ounces.

It is important to understand that it is the fats in meats that can go rancid and this is what you must try and eliminate or at least reduce to a very low level. So the mantra when drying hamburger is to get as lean a mix as possible and then remove as much of the fat as you can when cooking.

The last batch I dried was ground sirloin, which was listed as having a blend of 90 percent beef and 10 percent fat. This worked very well and dried up perfectly.

Step one is to cook the ground beef, breaking it up into smaller pieces as you go. I cook  it slowly at  medium to medium low heat stirring almost constantly. If there is an excess of fat being rendered off, I remove it as the beef cooks, but if the mix is lean, as the ground sirloin was, it should not be a problem. If there is any concern that there is too much fat left there is a simple way to remove it. Add water to the pan and let the meat simmer for a few minutes and then drain the cooked meat in a colander. This process will remove a considerable amount of fat and guarantee that the meat is cooked through.

Once the meat is cooked and I am satisfied I have removed as much of the fat as I can, I use a slotted spoon to scoop it out onto a paper towel lined platter to let it cool and if there is any fat left, it will be absorbed by the paper towels.

Now all that is left is to place it on the dehydrator trays, making sure to spread it out to allow good air circulation. Dry the meat at the setting suggested by the manufacturer of the dehydrator, in the case of my dehydrator, the setting is 160F. The length of time it will take to dry can range from four to 15 hours, depending upon the type of dehydrator, the humidity in the room where the dehydrator is located and the ambient temperature.

When the meat is dry, it will be incredibly hard and many have given dried hamburger the nick name of "gravel" or “rocks”, either of which fits perfectly. There should be no soft pieces at all, if there are let it continue drying.

Home made spaghetti sauce leather, dried hamburger and
pasta make a wonderful meal while in the backcountry.

I pack my dried hamburger in zipper closed bags and store it in the freezer, where it will remain fresh until I need it. This is the only way I store any dried meat for the long term, never on an open shelf. For use on the trail, I have small heavy plastic bags that will hold one meal worth of dried hamburger. I fill the bags, press out as much air as possible, roll down the top and then tape it shut with clear packing tape.

I use the meat in meals such as beef stroganoff using a store-bought noodle package or in homemade spaghetti sauce I also dry. In meals other than the spaghetti sauce, I put the hamburger in a pot with water, bringing it to a simmer, letting it cook for a bit before adding all the other ingredients. With the spaghetti sauce, I can add the water needed to re-hydrate the tomato sauce leather and then toss in the hamburger, letting it cook for a while.

As I said I also have been drying shrimp, which is easier than the hamburger as there is nothing to cook. Using cooked, frozen cocktail shrimp, I thaw them under cool running water for five minutes, pat the shrimp dry and then toss them into the dehydrator. If the shrimp have the tails on, they must be removed, but last time my wife bought me a bag of the small salad shrimp and all I had to do was thaw and dry them.

I re-hydrate shrimp by placing them in a pot with water to cover and let them sit, the longer the better. My son tried out the last batch I made with an alfredo broccoli pasta mix and he really liked it. The shrimp end up with a concentrated flavor that is very good.

By drying these items, I save money, create a wide variety of meals without a lot of additives and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I truly made the meal I am eating from start to finish.

For more information on dehydrating foods, one of the best sites I have found with authoritative information is the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Here you will find instructions on how to dry vegetables, fruit leathers and more.

Another good place is at any of the dehydrator manufacture website. Often there are instruction manuals that can be downloaded showing how to dry foods. The NESCO website, maker of the American Harvester dehydrator I use has a great "How To" section that offers instructions on drying everything from crafts to cooked meat and tomatoes. It is a great resource and honestly the dehydrators they make are easy to use and very reliable.

So take the time to try your hand at drying your own meals. As I said, not only will you save money and avoid all the additives you find in packaged foods, but when you make a meal with ingredients you prepared you will know you truly cooked the meal from start to finish. 

Backpacking stoves: Keep them running hot

Backpacking stoves are built to take the rigors of the trail, but they need to be maintained to keep them running right.

When it comes to canister stoves, just make sure they are clean
and there are no missing o-rings.

With canister stoves, the job is quick and easy, as there is not much that can go wrong. Other than checking to make sure the burner head is clean and that all the o-rings are in place, there is not much to do. If you find an o-ring or seal missing, contact the manufacture and get a replacement.

Actually, this goes for any stove, whether it uses gas cartridges or liquid fuel. You need to check out any location that has an o-ring or seal and if there is damage replace them.

The first step in maintaining a liquid fuel stove is to have the proper instructions in hand when you begin the process. Coleman, MSR and Primus offer instruction manuals online that can be downloaded and printed out. On the MSR and Coleman sites pick the model of stove and there are links on the page to instruction manuals. I have listed below the links to the instructions for the two stoves I use. And luckily, if parts are needed, REI has repair kits for MSR stoves in stock.

The first step is to discard any old fuel in the stove as it will "go bad" and gum up the works. When you discard the fuel make sure to do it in a safe manner, remember you are dealing with gasoline and it is highly flammable.

When it comes to liquid fuel stoves, there are quite a few on the market, but they all work basically the same. The fuel is pressurized, fed through the fuel line where it vaporizes and then it is sent to the burner. To build that

pressure, air is pumped into the tank and this is where the pump cup comes in along with most of the failures.

Most stoves come with pump cup oil, but any mineral based oil can be used. If putting a few drops of oil into the pump does not solve the issue, then disassemble the pump so you can check out the cup. If it is damaged, replace it.  All the stoves on the market offer repair kits and it pays to have one on hand.

If the cup is intact, many times cleaning and oiling it will allow you to reshape it. You may be able to flatten out the cup then reform it into the proper shape.

Next comes cleaning the fuel line and at the same time the generator. The generator on these stoves allows the fuel to “swirl” through the fuel line and when it hits the heated portion, the fuel vaporizes. Each stove is a bit different in what the generator looks like, but they all work basically the same.

On the MSR and Primus stoves it can be cleaned, while on Coleman stoves it is a separate assembly that needs to be replaced. One suggestion made by MSR is on component stoves, those with separate fuel bottles, is to detach the fuel line from the burner and then run some fuel though the line to flush out any dirt.

Just a little work will help to keep your stove burning hot.

One area that needs to be cleaned on stoves like the Whisperlite is the priming cup and on Primus stoves, it is called the priming pad. It is the area on the bot- tom where you place fuel to burn and preheat the stove. A lot of carbon can build up and it needs to be cleaned. It can be wiped away with a cloth with a bit of oil on it and a lot of paper towels.

To keep carbon build up down, use denatured alcohol for priming instead of white gas. Alcohol burns clean and can be stored in a small squirt bottle to make filling the priming area easy.

Finally, if at any time you find you have fuel leaking anywhere on the pump assembly, send it in for repair or get a repair kit. There are check valves in the pumps that allow air into the fuel tank to build pressure and at the same time keep the fuel in.

I have had a check valve fail and it is rather surprising to pump up the stove and then have a pressurized stream of fuel come back out of the pump.  

So take the time to make sure you stove is running at its peak, you will be happy you did when you sit down to cook a meal on the trail.

Alcohol Stoves: Clean, environmentally friendly and ultimately simple

There are all types of back- packing and camping stoves, but there is one class of burners that do not get a lot of attention and they are alcohol stoves.

The vast majority of stoves on the market run on either gas cartridges filled with butane/propane blends or on liquid fuel, better known as Coleman Fuel. These are the workhorse stoves on the market. They are hot, boil water fast and can be used in almost any condition. But they can be expensive and both burn non-renewable fuels.

The Trangia burner is the tried and true alcohol stove that generates a lot of

heat in a simple package.  Lawrence DiVizio

On the other hand there is the low tech alcohol stove.

Alcohol burners have been around since the time when someone realized it would burn.

Recently there has been a rebirth of these stoves with a few new ones on the market, but the tried and true unit is the Trangia stove madein Sweden. These are a ported stoves meaning that once the alcohol heats up, small holes in a raised portion of the stove begin to burn like a gas burner. They are offered in complete cook kits with stove and windscreen and all the way to a small ultra lightweight survival stove. They are fantastic products. There is also the Vargo Stove which is made of titanium, super light weight and easy to use. both of these stoves are available at REI .

The benefit of alcohol stoves is the very fact that they are so simple. There are no moving parts, nothing to replace and extremely safe.

For those who are handy and like to make things, there are a wide variety of homemade alcohol stoves out there. You can make (and my son and I have) stoves from beverage cans which is really rather neat when you do it. At the website Zen Stoves you will find descriptions of stoves you can make, discus- sions on the different types of alcohol that can be used and even drawings on how to make the stoves.

Now to the drawbacks and advantages to using alcohol fueled stoves.

The down side to alcohol is that it does not generate the heat a white gas or canister stove does so the boil time is a lot longer. It can take 10 minutes to   boil one-half quart of water, though my Trangia burner will do it in six. So ounce-per-ounce you get a lot less cook time than you do with a fuel like Cole- man fuel. These are not stoves for people who want to cook quickly, it can take some time. Another concern with alcohol is that it is hard to see when it is burning. So care must be taken when using an alcohol stove.

On the plus side, the fuel is made from renewable resources and alcohol will not explode, so it is very safe. Denatured alcohol also burns extremely clean and does not leave soot on you cook pots. That is why I use alcohol as the priming fuel with my MSR Whisperlite.

Alcohol is also easy to find. I bought my last can of it at the Meijer Store in Allen Park, Mich.  Unlike some fuels, if you spill alcohol it just evaporates and that’s it. And since it does not explode under normal conditions, it is much safer to carry and can be shipped via ground delivery in the United States. It cannot be taken on an aircraft.

Finally the stoves are totally silent, which is a real blessing at times.

The fuel I burn is denatured alcohol, so called because a compound has been added so it cannot be used as a beverage. Another source is the gas line antifreeze HEET in the yellow bottle., which is methyl alcohol. I use this when I can find it on sale or clearance in the spring and again, it must be the HEET in the yellow bottle.

You can also burn alcohol from the drug store, which I do not recommend because it can give off odd fumes and can burn dirty. But if you are stuck and need fuel it will work. I have done this but not if I can help it. Even high proof  booze will work, but  why waste it in a stove?

So if you are considering an alternative fuel stove, take a look at the alcohol stoves on the market and if you want, the plans to build your own.