By Ranger W.
Sept 25 2012
Many sites proclaim the need for skills. While I totally agree, most stop at just recommending survival or homesteading skills. If you are like me you say “ok, I’ll order a few books, then what?” Here is a practical approach to improving/adding to your skill sets.
Most people living somewhere on the suburbanite spectrum have a few hobbies. Most married guys will lament constantly about not being able to further their hobby enough. Here is a common list of hobbies:
- Golf
- Racquetball
- Watching a favorite TV series
- Church choir
- Supporting a charitable cause
- Driving kids to sports practice
- Video games
- Watching football
- Pool/dart league
- Recreational vehicles (motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, boating)
Aside from the massive cost many people pour into their chosen hobby (i.e. the price of the newest Big Bernice Top Hyper Performance Steel Graphite MEGA Driver) there is also the massive investment of time. I would like to offer an alternative to the traditional hobbies listed above. This would allow you to use the little time you might have available on your Sunday afternoons to further your prepping skill base.
Homemade wine is great because generally there are very few start up costs associated with it. There are plenty of good YouTube videos to show you how to do it, and having a stockpile of alcohol in any form could be a great barter item should T-SHTF. Watch the video below and download this Kindle book for only $3.88! Next, check Amazon for a starter kit or order piece by piece to include: glass carboy (it’s the big glass jug used to ferment the juice), a gravity tester, some clear plastic tubing, an air lock, rubber carboy plug, and a packet of wine yeast. For way less than $100 you can get a pretty decent set up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opNrEpu-D34
Once you have your kit you will then need the juice concentrate and sugar. Based on the recipe you use (I used the one in the YouTube video) you need about 8-9 pounds of sugar and about 8-9 frozen juice concentrate containers. Ingredients are about $15 for 6 gallons of wine (equals about 15 bottles of wine). About two hours of preparation time and you can have your own 6 gallon jug of wine in the garage fermenting into wonderful, sweet, sparkling wine. It won’t be fancy and probably won’t win any Napa Valley awards but I promise you will feel pretty good once you start seeing the fermenting bubbles escaping from the top of your air lock.
Imagine the time and money you put into hobbies that would have no value after a SHTF situation. My recommendations is to spend time on something that will pay dividends in the future. In my next article I will cover the surprisingly easy and fun way for beginners to start loading ammunition.
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Once you get the hang of this “hobo” wine making method you can use the tons of free info on youtube and google for ways to start using real grapes or other sweet, sugary items for your brewing.
Air lock? Who needs an air lock…a nice sized ballon…or condom, for that matter, does well.
[…] W. is a frequent contributor to Prepper-Resources.com. Read some more of his works here and here. He attended Ranger school and graduated in class 10 of 20XX. He is veteran of combat […]