YEAH ... I'm about to try out my own pemmican. I did some searching here on old threads and came across Benjamin's pemmican recipe - so that will be on my list. I don't expect miracles - just need to get some pemmican that's good enough that my kids could eat it in an emergency.

My interest in pemmican was re-kindled after I read a recent book about Custer's Last Stand. It's a very good book ... The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick. Somewhere in the narrative was a short story about a white woman who was captured on the Plains, got sick and was saved by eating some Indian pemmican.

It occurred to me that the stuff might be a "lifesaver" for people who have gastrintestinal disorders during an emergency e.g. after an earthquake. Of course, this is optimistic thinking since it assumes that anyone would actually eat my pemmican anyway :-) So I figured I better get going and start making some of the stuff, and testing it out on my kids.

Pete2

An easier way to obtain pemmican is to purchase Tanka bars - whose ingredients are buffalo meat and dried cranberries. They are well packaged and I have consumed several that were well beyond their expiration date - still quite nutritious. I stash one or two in my various kits and keep them handy for emergencies. They are a nice contrast to the usual energy bars.

The drawback is that they are quite expensive, although REI gives a discount on an order of more than 12 bars.

http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.ph...=true#Post24329

Benjammin 02/12/04

In my case, it is rendered, filtered beef tallow, dried thin sliced meat, a little salt, a little pepper, dried huckleberries, and almonds. All the dried ingredients are ground coarse and mixed into melted tallow, which is then allowed to cool and harden. I've also used sunflower and sesame seeds at times. It packs as many calories as possible in the smallest space available and lasts longer than anything not hermetically sealed and sterilized that I've ever come across.
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Anonymous Unregistered 02/12/04

Check out this site for all the recipes you'll need to start experimenting with pemmican
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/pemmican.html
Ed

Today I took the meat out and tied it up.Its kind of loose after the de-boning.

As it cures it gets sort of hard,so the meat will be tightly packed together,each piece,so it will slice better.

I'll show that when I cut the strings off.

Really looks nice, putting it back in refer.

Got Campbells tomato and Mushroom soups for .68/can,and store brand canned greenbeans and cream corn for .33/can.Last canned corns sale was .50/can.

Got ketchup for .48 each,and hotdogs for dogs for .48/each.Small tomato paste for .18/can.

Checking my records this is sales price in 2008! So loaded up.Last can sale lasted us a year.

Got vegetable oil at 5 cents/ounce,boy has priced dropped nicely on oil,its buy time.

This was at Winco,any canned sales out your way?

I'll update this as I go along today.

Bacon pork after 13 day soak in cure.It has formed the pellicle,fancy for dried a bit and surface sticky so smoke sticks better




I will smoke in this electric smoker,from Lowes,less than a hundred bucks.You can cook roasts,sausages,ribs,chicken on this thing,set temp and good to go.Not a high temp grill,gets up to around 350F or so.




Now I pack the Amaze-n-smoker (smoke generator) with hickory sawdust.Just pack it,light one end and forget it,should do the full 15 hours of cold smoke planned today,no added heat.Ambient temp 45F today.
The smoker is about 50 bucks online.Makes smoking foolproof.




Meat loaded on 2 trays.....away we go!




8 hrs in,taking on some color




12 hours in,going to do 2 more hrs.Ambient temp 35F.



Had to add a little more dust to smoker

I have been giving some consideration to making bacon and sausage. lots of good stuff on youtube, although many of them tell you to do it one way and another says specifically not to do it that way.

Bob,the absolute last word on smoking can be found here at the smokingmeatforum.

They make it very easy with simple rules and foolproof recipes,and great product reviews.All you need to know and it really is simple simple,then you progress to whatever level you like up to absolute pro should that be your goal.They will have you up and running fast.

You can smoke from bargain basement prices up to infinity,whatever fits you,another nice thing that site does.Im on the bargain end and at that level alone you can make awesome products.

Im also on the simple end of recipes,they also go from newbie to pro.

NO relation to site,just a fine resource

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/

15 hrs,done. Into the refer overnight,will cut up in morning






Now we wrap tightly in cling wrap and into freezer,in my case about 3 hrs.We want the meat semi frozen and tightly packed.It will be just barely bendable when we run it through the meat slicer to get tight bacon strips,not loose pieces.

All set,took 3.5 hrs in my 0 degree F freezer to get firm




The rough cuts/ends




The good looking cuts










Some bacon ends cooked in toaster oven.Nice sweet maple bacon




All packed up and ready for freezer.Not vacuum packing,just cellophane and into big Ziploc freezer bags,we eat it so quickly no need to use the expensive vacuum bags.