Post by ogeezer on Nov 8, 2006 11:44:29 GMT -6
TIDBITS OF INFORMATION - from Ogeezer's database
Canning Ring Egg Sizer - When making egg sandwiches for English muffins, biscuits or small round buns, cook eggs inside metal canning rings placed in your skillet.
Tarp Grommet Connectors - Rigid plastic nuts, washers, and bolts will make quick connections when making a large fly from several smaller tarps. If weight is at a premium, using twist ties will suffice.
Instant Pillow - large freezer-type zip lock plastic bag filled with trapped air.
Fire Starter Matches - Cut corrugated cardboard to length of strike anywhere kitchen matches. Insert match into corrugations, about every other hole. Dip this assembly in paraffin. Store in watertight pouch or container. Cut off what needed to start a fire.
Match Safes - watertight prescription bottles or screw-on spice bottles.
Wet Weather Fire Tender - Slivers of scrap lumber, heated in oven to dry wood fibers make for very dry tinder. Store in watertight plastic containers for your next trip. Lint from dryer screen makes lightweight firemaking tinder.
Burr Shedder - Rub boot laces with candle paraffin before setting out on trail.
Insect Repelling Candles - Most Citronella candles are too bulky for backpackers but if you drill a narrow hole near the wick of an ordinary campers candle, fill it with citronella and cover it with melted wax, you have the perfect insect repeller.
Evergreen & Pine Cone Sap Remover - Baking soda instead of soap.
Blister Preventer - Smear soap on inside of your sock at heel and underneath the toes.
Camp Washing Machine - Five gallon bucket and toilet plunger, detergent and water.
Reduce Handsewn Labor - Before handsewing tough material like denim or canvas, stick needle into a bar of soap. This lubricates it, making task less difficult.
The best cure for dry rot is petroleum spread onto material. Another remedy is a strong salty solution.
A solution of salt added into water when washing clothes keeps colors from running.
Salt sprinkled into cream speeds whipping.
Warm salpieer gargle is first treatment when colds and mouth sores are coming on.
Adding salt to washer rinse cycle will *****d clothes from freezing on the line in winter.
Applying a paste made from lemon and salt to items and leaving them to dry in sun will remove rust.
Hone straightback razor blades and surgical knives with an aluminum rod.
Cinder blocks, due to their porosity and crushability, don't have great strength but are well suited for projects where superior strength is not required. To increase building strength, add reinforcing rods and concrete to cavities of multiple stacked blocks.
Any kind of meat, poultry or game can be made into sausage. The better the meat quality, the higher the sausage quality.
Sausage making hints: Too little fat results in hard and dry sausage. Too much fat causes sausage to shrink when cooked. A 50:50 mix of lean meat and fatty meat makes for the best sausage. --- Air bubbles in sausage makings should be avoided; prick them with a needle to prevent meat spoilage. --- Mixing sausage stuffing with a little water or wine allows for easy casing stuffing. --- The manual operated handcrank meat grinders are still the best for making sausage meat. --- Artifical sausage casings are hard to work with. The best sausage casings are those that come from the small intestine of hogs or sheep. The best source of casings are from butchers who make sausage.
To case sausage in bundles of 4-inch diameters are larger, sew a piece of folded muslin along the edge and at one end. Turn muslin bag inside out. Before stuffing, dampen bag with water. Bundle sausage is the best way to make and keep sausage for patties.
To make cultured buttermilk, allow one quart of lowfat milk to reach room temperature. Then add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of previously cultured buttermilk, and cover with cheesecloth of muslin to keep insects out. Let it stand overnight in a 80-85 degree location or until it reaches the desired acid-taste level. Then refigerate.
Make cream cheese by combining 2 cups heavy cream with 2 tablespoon buttermilk. Suspend mixture in clean cloth over a bowl for 24 hours or until it thickens. For drier cheese, suspend bag longer term. Season with salt and herbs to suit taste. Shape or pour into cheese mold and refrigerate.
The best cooking firewoods providing even, steady, long lasting heat are Ash, Elm and Oak. The best flavoring firewoods are Apple, Cherry, Hickory, Mesquite and Pecan. The worst firewoods which taint foods with resins and cause cresote in chimneys are any softwoods.
Canned fruits and vegetables kept at 80 degrees will in one year of shelf life lose 25% of its Vitamin-=C, 20% of its Thiamine, and 10% of its Vitamin-A. Rotation of emergency or hard times canned foods is a must of good nutrition; it also prevents health risks associated with contents spoilage or ruptured cans.
Freezing food destroys Vitamins E, B6, and will decrease Vitamin-C potency by 50% in 6-months at a temperature of 15 degrees.
Salt curing tends to leach out vitamins and nutrients from food during the preservation process.
Vitamins A, C, and E are typically lost during drying/dehydration if not properily blanched beforehand. Use of solar food dryers will decrease potency of Vitamin A, B-complex, and E.
An 8-foot by 10-foot rootcellar will store about 60-bushels of produce; enough to supply an family of four until the following harvest season.
A typical modern-day rootcellar is constucted of cinder blocks and sealed with an exterior application of water-based sealant, having a floor space covered with coarse gravel, concrete covered steel plated roof, soil-banked along three sides plus atop roof for insulating purposes, a screened and capped air vent for ventilation, and a narrow, tight-fitting access door with a northern exposure. --- The rootcellar must maintain a constant beneath ground temperature averaging 65-72 degrees, and have a humidity of 80-90% to be absolutely effective. Placement of water containing trays in rootceller enhance humidity. Placing cellar under shade of trees helps maintain tempeature during warm summer months.
Rehydrate fruits by soaking items in a water bath.
Rehydrate veggies by bringing water to a boil, reuding heat, and simmering items until tender.
Duck and goose eggs are larger than chicken eggs and have a more powerful taste. If you don't like rural cackleberries, you won't like eggs of rural-raised ducks or geese.
Female rabbits with a litter of bunnies should be fed high-protein feed while nursing, and as soon as the young are born to keep her from killing the youngsters.
A mature sow has the capacity to raise 2-3 litters of 8-12 piglets per year. That's a lot of pork. Keeping one or two sows plus a boar allows you to sell off shoats (weaned pigs).
If buying a shoat for port production, pick a healthy looking animal that seems to be full of vigor, which is 6-8 weeks old, weighing about 30-40 pounds. If it has been confined most of its life when you get it, give it an iron-vitamin shot to combat possilbe anemia found with most confied animals. If it's a male, castrate it as soon as fall sets in to avoid infections caused by summer heat.
To gain one pound of body weight, a shoat must consume about three pounds of feed. Since the best butchering weight of a hog is 600-700 pounds, that means roughly a ton of feed must be provided for each animal during its lifetime, typically lasting 10-14 months. Corn is a traditional hog feed but oats, barley and rye are equally good. Plenty of water is essential with all types of feed to prevent development of gastric problems. It's easiest to raise a single hog in a wood pen with wood slat floor lifted slightly above the earth or it a small enclosure. Feral hogs are hogs which go wild after escaping from enclosures while rooting for food or rolling in a hog wallow (mudhole). If you must keep hogs in a pen, burying the fencing material into the earth at least 12" will help prevent hog escape. One acre of high quality pasture with clover, grass and alfalfa will support six foraging hogs, and help you reduce the amount of grain feed provided, but don't forget to have plenty of water available, and a mud bog away from fences is a good idea too.
School cafeteria and restaurant food discards are good supplements for hogs, providing inedible items and chicken bones which can splinter when devoured are removed. But often modern health regulations cause such items to be wastefully routed to landfills. Mom & Pop grocery stores, local truckfarmers, small cafes serving homecooked meals or buffets, and leftovers from your dinner table are excellent sources of supplemental hog foods.
A lot of concern is being aimed at the Avian Flu condition showing up in homestead raised poultry. The biggest part of this can be avoided by not permitting fowl to roam freely in the outdoor environment. Keeping fowl penned in airy, covered confines greatly decreases chance of cross-contamination from wild bird flocks. Where space permits and not during highly suspect migration times for waterfowl and large birds, turn chickens who's wings have been clipped to prevent escape out into a fenced pasture upon occassion. Avoid overcrowding by maintaining only just enough fowl to sustain your egg and chicken meat needs.
All gathered eggs should be cleaned with water water. Cold water is easily absorbed through the shell into the egg.
After 2-3 years, hen egg production will wain due to decrease in internal calcium levels. To extend hen life, add calcium supplements to feed; to decrease costs, mix pulverized egg shells into the feed. When the hen can no longer provide egg production, isolate her. Don't feed for 24-hours before dispatching (killing chicken) and either fry, bake or make chicken-and-dumplings.
Eating raw or partially cooked and poached cacleberries carries a risk of salmonela-poisoning.
Contrary to popular belief, the purple martin consumes a variety of flying insects other than the mosquitoes. Providing and encouraging purple martin nesting around the homestead will naturally decrease annoying flying insects, mosquitoes and flies.
Cabbage worms can be killed with a dusting of 1/2 cup salt in 1 cup of flower.
A soapy water solution sprayed on infected plants will kill aphids. After the aphids have been decimated (1-2 hours), rinse plants with water to remove soapy residue that deters photosynthesis. --- Soapy water sprayed on bees will kill them too. Spraying wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets with soapy water only makes them angry.
Wheat bran dust will kill wettened Colorado potato beetle.
Mineral oil eyedropped onto tip of corn ears will kill the corn earworm.
Fish Oil or soapy water will kill the codling moth.
Slaked lime mixed with wood ashes will repel flea beetles. An application of Rotenone will kill them.
Garlic extract repels the Mexican bean beetle.
Stale beer traps will attract and drown slugs and snails.
The best time to clear (cut down) trees (timber) for a building site is in the winter when wood fibers are the driest. --- Leaving 3-feet of trunk sticking out of grounds makes later stump removal easier. Stumps are removed best in Spring.
Driveways should be at least 10-feet wide. All curves should have an inside radius of 30-feet (for standard cars / pickups) and 45-feet for larger trucks.A turnaround at end of drive should have a minimum area of 30 x 40 feet. --- Slope gradients on roadbeds should not exceed 1-foot rise per 10-feet of linear run. --- Gutters, ditches and culverts minimize soil erosion and frost heaving.
Steep slopes or high water table will increase cost of a concrete slab foundation. --- A pole or beam foundation work good on steep slope but are not suitable in soft earth locations. --- A concrete pier and pad foundation is inexpensive to build and work nicely on sloping ground but don't provide anchoring strength on earthquake and sedementary flood plains.
Lumber where knots fall out of seasoned wood indicates wood came from harvested dead trees and will not last as long as seasoned lumber harvested from living trees and whose knots remain intact.
Best timber used to build log cabins include such evergreens as: fir, cedar, larch, pine, and spruce.
Chinking mortar is made using a mix of one part sand + three parts Portland cement + a handful of clay or lime for stickiness. Some oldtimers say use green maure for stickiness but I refrain from that since many infectious microorganisms and toxic metals/chemicals from feeds may be present.
Composting Layering ingredients: 1-2" of sawdust --- 4-6" of leaves --- 6-8" of spoiled hay --- 4-6" of pine needles --- 3-6" of dried grass clippings --- 3-4" dried seaweed (rich in potassium and trace elements)
Peppermint plants or their oil will repel mice.
Pennyroyal plants or their oil will repel fleas.
Make permanent blank ink by mixing 8 oz homey with 1 egg yolk and 1/4 oz gum arabic. Add enough lamp lack to make a stiff paste. Store in a jar. Mixing a little past with just enough water will make a fluid suitable for drawing or printing.
Collecting soot of a burning styrofoam cup/container beneath a cool stainless steel surface, and mixing it with mineral/baby oil makes a suitable ink for writing or tattoos - this is how convicts in Texas prisons make the ink for illegal (unauthorized) tattoos.
Make rich Prussian blue ink by dissolving laundry bluing in water to the desired intensity.
Meat cured in salt stores well but tends to be tough and dry. Adding sugar to salted meat tends to make it moist and tender. The best salt for salting meat is pickling salt because of its fine fowdery texture. Table salt containing idodine tends to discolor meat and fish. If pickling salt is unavailable, use canning salt, kosher salt or dairy salt.
To reduce heat loss from around windows, install insulated storm shutters.
Evergreen trees on north side of a house help block winter winds.
Deciduous trees provide good shade for houses against a hot summer sun. In winter after the trees lose their leaves, sunshine can reach the house, warming them.
Putting Glaubers salt into metal containers and placed in the sunshine front windoows will collect heat which will radiate into the home after the sun goes down. 2.5 pounds of Glauber's Salt can store as much heat as 16.5 gallons of water or 690 pounds of rocks heated about 12 degrees Fahrenheit.
Canning Ring Egg Sizer - When making egg sandwiches for English muffins, biscuits or small round buns, cook eggs inside metal canning rings placed in your skillet.
Tarp Grommet Connectors - Rigid plastic nuts, washers, and bolts will make quick connections when making a large fly from several smaller tarps. If weight is at a premium, using twist ties will suffice.
Instant Pillow - large freezer-type zip lock plastic bag filled with trapped air.
Fire Starter Matches - Cut corrugated cardboard to length of strike anywhere kitchen matches. Insert match into corrugations, about every other hole. Dip this assembly in paraffin. Store in watertight pouch or container. Cut off what needed to start a fire.
Match Safes - watertight prescription bottles or screw-on spice bottles.
Wet Weather Fire Tender - Slivers of scrap lumber, heated in oven to dry wood fibers make for very dry tinder. Store in watertight plastic containers for your next trip. Lint from dryer screen makes lightweight firemaking tinder.
Burr Shedder - Rub boot laces with candle paraffin before setting out on trail.
Insect Repelling Candles - Most Citronella candles are too bulky for backpackers but if you drill a narrow hole near the wick of an ordinary campers candle, fill it with citronella and cover it with melted wax, you have the perfect insect repeller.
Evergreen & Pine Cone Sap Remover - Baking soda instead of soap.
Blister Preventer - Smear soap on inside of your sock at heel and underneath the toes.
Camp Washing Machine - Five gallon bucket and toilet plunger, detergent and water.
Reduce Handsewn Labor - Before handsewing tough material like denim or canvas, stick needle into a bar of soap. This lubricates it, making task less difficult.
The best cure for dry rot is petroleum spread onto material. Another remedy is a strong salty solution.
A solution of salt added into water when washing clothes keeps colors from running.
Salt sprinkled into cream speeds whipping.
Warm salpieer gargle is first treatment when colds and mouth sores are coming on.
Adding salt to washer rinse cycle will *****d clothes from freezing on the line in winter.
Applying a paste made from lemon and salt to items and leaving them to dry in sun will remove rust.
Hone straightback razor blades and surgical knives with an aluminum rod.
Cinder blocks, due to their porosity and crushability, don't have great strength but are well suited for projects where superior strength is not required. To increase building strength, add reinforcing rods and concrete to cavities of multiple stacked blocks.
Any kind of meat, poultry or game can be made into sausage. The better the meat quality, the higher the sausage quality.
Sausage making hints: Too little fat results in hard and dry sausage. Too much fat causes sausage to shrink when cooked. A 50:50 mix of lean meat and fatty meat makes for the best sausage. --- Air bubbles in sausage makings should be avoided; prick them with a needle to prevent meat spoilage. --- Mixing sausage stuffing with a little water or wine allows for easy casing stuffing. --- The manual operated handcrank meat grinders are still the best for making sausage meat. --- Artifical sausage casings are hard to work with. The best sausage casings are those that come from the small intestine of hogs or sheep. The best source of casings are from butchers who make sausage.
To case sausage in bundles of 4-inch diameters are larger, sew a piece of folded muslin along the edge and at one end. Turn muslin bag inside out. Before stuffing, dampen bag with water. Bundle sausage is the best way to make and keep sausage for patties.
To make cultured buttermilk, allow one quart of lowfat milk to reach room temperature. Then add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of previously cultured buttermilk, and cover with cheesecloth of muslin to keep insects out. Let it stand overnight in a 80-85 degree location or until it reaches the desired acid-taste level. Then refigerate.
Make cream cheese by combining 2 cups heavy cream with 2 tablespoon buttermilk. Suspend mixture in clean cloth over a bowl for 24 hours or until it thickens. For drier cheese, suspend bag longer term. Season with salt and herbs to suit taste. Shape or pour into cheese mold and refrigerate.
The best cooking firewoods providing even, steady, long lasting heat are Ash, Elm and Oak. The best flavoring firewoods are Apple, Cherry, Hickory, Mesquite and Pecan. The worst firewoods which taint foods with resins and cause cresote in chimneys are any softwoods.
Canned fruits and vegetables kept at 80 degrees will in one year of shelf life lose 25% of its Vitamin-=C, 20% of its Thiamine, and 10% of its Vitamin-A. Rotation of emergency or hard times canned foods is a must of good nutrition; it also prevents health risks associated with contents spoilage or ruptured cans.
Freezing food destroys Vitamins E, B6, and will decrease Vitamin-C potency by 50% in 6-months at a temperature of 15 degrees.
Salt curing tends to leach out vitamins and nutrients from food during the preservation process.
Vitamins A, C, and E are typically lost during drying/dehydration if not properily blanched beforehand. Use of solar food dryers will decrease potency of Vitamin A, B-complex, and E.
An 8-foot by 10-foot rootcellar will store about 60-bushels of produce; enough to supply an family of four until the following harvest season.
A typical modern-day rootcellar is constucted of cinder blocks and sealed with an exterior application of water-based sealant, having a floor space covered with coarse gravel, concrete covered steel plated roof, soil-banked along three sides plus atop roof for insulating purposes, a screened and capped air vent for ventilation, and a narrow, tight-fitting access door with a northern exposure. --- The rootcellar must maintain a constant beneath ground temperature averaging 65-72 degrees, and have a humidity of 80-90% to be absolutely effective. Placement of water containing trays in rootceller enhance humidity. Placing cellar under shade of trees helps maintain tempeature during warm summer months.
Rehydrate fruits by soaking items in a water bath.
Rehydrate veggies by bringing water to a boil, reuding heat, and simmering items until tender.
Duck and goose eggs are larger than chicken eggs and have a more powerful taste. If you don't like rural cackleberries, you won't like eggs of rural-raised ducks or geese.
Female rabbits with a litter of bunnies should be fed high-protein feed while nursing, and as soon as the young are born to keep her from killing the youngsters.
A mature sow has the capacity to raise 2-3 litters of 8-12 piglets per year. That's a lot of pork. Keeping one or two sows plus a boar allows you to sell off shoats (weaned pigs).
If buying a shoat for port production, pick a healthy looking animal that seems to be full of vigor, which is 6-8 weeks old, weighing about 30-40 pounds. If it has been confined most of its life when you get it, give it an iron-vitamin shot to combat possilbe anemia found with most confied animals. If it's a male, castrate it as soon as fall sets in to avoid infections caused by summer heat.
To gain one pound of body weight, a shoat must consume about three pounds of feed. Since the best butchering weight of a hog is 600-700 pounds, that means roughly a ton of feed must be provided for each animal during its lifetime, typically lasting 10-14 months. Corn is a traditional hog feed but oats, barley and rye are equally good. Plenty of water is essential with all types of feed to prevent development of gastric problems. It's easiest to raise a single hog in a wood pen with wood slat floor lifted slightly above the earth or it a small enclosure. Feral hogs are hogs which go wild after escaping from enclosures while rooting for food or rolling in a hog wallow (mudhole). If you must keep hogs in a pen, burying the fencing material into the earth at least 12" will help prevent hog escape. One acre of high quality pasture with clover, grass and alfalfa will support six foraging hogs, and help you reduce the amount of grain feed provided, but don't forget to have plenty of water available, and a mud bog away from fences is a good idea too.
School cafeteria and restaurant food discards are good supplements for hogs, providing inedible items and chicken bones which can splinter when devoured are removed. But often modern health regulations cause such items to be wastefully routed to landfills. Mom & Pop grocery stores, local truckfarmers, small cafes serving homecooked meals or buffets, and leftovers from your dinner table are excellent sources of supplemental hog foods.
A lot of concern is being aimed at the Avian Flu condition showing up in homestead raised poultry. The biggest part of this can be avoided by not permitting fowl to roam freely in the outdoor environment. Keeping fowl penned in airy, covered confines greatly decreases chance of cross-contamination from wild bird flocks. Where space permits and not during highly suspect migration times for waterfowl and large birds, turn chickens who's wings have been clipped to prevent escape out into a fenced pasture upon occassion. Avoid overcrowding by maintaining only just enough fowl to sustain your egg and chicken meat needs.
All gathered eggs should be cleaned with water water. Cold water is easily absorbed through the shell into the egg.
After 2-3 years, hen egg production will wain due to decrease in internal calcium levels. To extend hen life, add calcium supplements to feed; to decrease costs, mix pulverized egg shells into the feed. When the hen can no longer provide egg production, isolate her. Don't feed for 24-hours before dispatching (killing chicken) and either fry, bake or make chicken-and-dumplings.
Eating raw or partially cooked and poached cacleberries carries a risk of salmonela-poisoning.
Contrary to popular belief, the purple martin consumes a variety of flying insects other than the mosquitoes. Providing and encouraging purple martin nesting around the homestead will naturally decrease annoying flying insects, mosquitoes and flies.
Cabbage worms can be killed with a dusting of 1/2 cup salt in 1 cup of flower.
A soapy water solution sprayed on infected plants will kill aphids. After the aphids have been decimated (1-2 hours), rinse plants with water to remove soapy residue that deters photosynthesis. --- Soapy water sprayed on bees will kill them too. Spraying wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets with soapy water only makes them angry.
Wheat bran dust will kill wettened Colorado potato beetle.
Mineral oil eyedropped onto tip of corn ears will kill the corn earworm.
Fish Oil or soapy water will kill the codling moth.
Slaked lime mixed with wood ashes will repel flea beetles. An application of Rotenone will kill them.
Garlic extract repels the Mexican bean beetle.
Stale beer traps will attract and drown slugs and snails.
The best time to clear (cut down) trees (timber) for a building site is in the winter when wood fibers are the driest. --- Leaving 3-feet of trunk sticking out of grounds makes later stump removal easier. Stumps are removed best in Spring.
Driveways should be at least 10-feet wide. All curves should have an inside radius of 30-feet (for standard cars / pickups) and 45-feet for larger trucks.A turnaround at end of drive should have a minimum area of 30 x 40 feet. --- Slope gradients on roadbeds should not exceed 1-foot rise per 10-feet of linear run. --- Gutters, ditches and culverts minimize soil erosion and frost heaving.
Steep slopes or high water table will increase cost of a concrete slab foundation. --- A pole or beam foundation work good on steep slope but are not suitable in soft earth locations. --- A concrete pier and pad foundation is inexpensive to build and work nicely on sloping ground but don't provide anchoring strength on earthquake and sedementary flood plains.
Lumber where knots fall out of seasoned wood indicates wood came from harvested dead trees and will not last as long as seasoned lumber harvested from living trees and whose knots remain intact.
Best timber used to build log cabins include such evergreens as: fir, cedar, larch, pine, and spruce.
Chinking mortar is made using a mix of one part sand + three parts Portland cement + a handful of clay or lime for stickiness. Some oldtimers say use green maure for stickiness but I refrain from that since many infectious microorganisms and toxic metals/chemicals from feeds may be present.
Composting Layering ingredients: 1-2" of sawdust --- 4-6" of leaves --- 6-8" of spoiled hay --- 4-6" of pine needles --- 3-6" of dried grass clippings --- 3-4" dried seaweed (rich in potassium and trace elements)
Peppermint plants or their oil will repel mice.
Pennyroyal plants or their oil will repel fleas.
Make permanent blank ink by mixing 8 oz homey with 1 egg yolk and 1/4 oz gum arabic. Add enough lamp lack to make a stiff paste. Store in a jar. Mixing a little past with just enough water will make a fluid suitable for drawing or printing.
Collecting soot of a burning styrofoam cup/container beneath a cool stainless steel surface, and mixing it with mineral/baby oil makes a suitable ink for writing or tattoos - this is how convicts in Texas prisons make the ink for illegal (unauthorized) tattoos.
Make rich Prussian blue ink by dissolving laundry bluing in water to the desired intensity.
Meat cured in salt stores well but tends to be tough and dry. Adding sugar to salted meat tends to make it moist and tender. The best salt for salting meat is pickling salt because of its fine fowdery texture. Table salt containing idodine tends to discolor meat and fish. If pickling salt is unavailable, use canning salt, kosher salt or dairy salt.
To reduce heat loss from around windows, install insulated storm shutters.
Evergreen trees on north side of a house help block winter winds.
Deciduous trees provide good shade for houses against a hot summer sun. In winter after the trees lose their leaves, sunshine can reach the house, warming them.
Putting Glaubers salt into metal containers and placed in the sunshine front windoows will collect heat which will radiate into the home after the sun goes down. 2.5 pounds of Glauber's Salt can store as much heat as 16.5 gallons of water or 690 pounds of rocks heated about 12 degrees Fahrenheit.