Weber and Charcoal
Dr. John Woods 03.30.17
The storm has passed. It was a scary, shaky night. By dawn all the power is out. Cell towers are silent. A few neighbors are zoning around their yards wondering where to start the clean-up. A few generators are heard running. You don’t have one.
Your on-going prepping plan is still under construction. Some of the chapters are completed, others continue to be amended, while a few more concepts are merely penciled in somewhere in the binder notebook. Pre-planning has not been a total loss.
Sitting with the family an assessment process begins. You discover the city water is still running and a few quick prayers are said. There is no electricity so both the refrigerator and the deep freeze are dead. The family is cautioned not to open them too often. Plans are made for how to cook and what.
There are plenty of canned goods in the pantry, and for a while some frozen food can be slipped out of the freezer and the deep freeze. There were extra bags of ice put up weeks ago so that will help. Attitudes are positive and enough prep plans were in place to survive just such a bug-in for a while.
Staring out the back window, you are reminded of a piece of gear that will help save the day. It’s a Weber charcoal cooker. The big one. In the garage are a dozen twenty pound bags of the best, Kingsford charcoal briquettes. The wife is not complaining now about you buying a bag every time it went on sale at the hardware supply store.
A simple, easy to use charcoal cooker can be a SHTF lifesaver. You may be bugged in or have already departed for your back up bug out location. Either way, every prepper should have a good charcoal cooker on hand, as well as a starter bucket that uses newspaper to funnel a blazing inferno of glowing charcoal.
Of course, the hot flame cooker can be used in a wide variety of cooking manners. Simply cooking something over the coals is easy enough. Roasts can be control cooked, slow roasted, or sear cooked. Kebobs are easy enough with anything from sausage, hot dogs, Spam, or whatever. Cooking pots and pans can be set off to the side to heat canned vegetables or melt sauces.
Whatever you do in terms of prep planning. Buy a charcoal cooker and keep a large stock of charcoal on hand. It never spoils.
