Can Storage Door Revisited

One of my favourite projects I've made has been my Tin Can Storage Door. 

I made this a couple of winters ago and we use it most days. 

It makes the small space I've got set aside for food storage so much more useful, it clearly displays all the tinned food, rotates stock and takes up very little room. 

I know I posted about this when I made it but I thought I'd do a little video of it in action.

Sorry I'm so full of cold in it! I sound quite bunged up! 

My little girl is super cute at the end though - what a little star!

Has anyone else made anything similar?

Let me know what you think and share the idea with friends so they can increase their food storage as well!

More Meat Canning

This is a post I should have written a few weeks ago, but I didn't get round to it.

I recently came into some very cheap beef (but still from a trustworthy source).

I had to process it fairly quick though as I had a fair amount to get through. 

I decide to eat some, freeze most of it and can some. 

I called Kirsty and she came round to help with the canning (and took some for some eating as well!). 

We tackled it in the usual way, although this time we were doing it at my house and it must be said that my kitchen is nowhere near as good as Kirstys for this type of thing.  In fact I learnt a very important canning lesson on that Monday night - don't start too late.

The meat took a while to prepare, then it took ages for my hob to get the canner boiling to sterilise the jars, then at about 10.30 at night I said to Kirsty to go home as everything was taking so long. The pressure canner took ages to vent the steam, then ages to get up to pressure. I then had to wait the hour and twenty minutes it said in the canning book for it to process and then another half hour for the pressure to reduce enough for me to remove the cans out of the canner. 

I managed to get to bed just after two! 

And for what?

Some jars of dog food by the look of it! 

I have to admit the meat looks less than appetising sat on the shelf  but I'm sure it will taste fine when added to a stew or something. Still interesting to can more meat, I wonder how much we would all have to do if we didn't have freezers as our main way of long term meat storage. 

Anyone else done raw pack meat canning? What does it taste like or shall that be another surprise I've got in store!?

Canning Night

All week I'd been excited about Friday night. 

I wasn't going out, I was going canning! 

A friend, Sarah, and me were going round to Kirsty's   house to try out her new pressure canner that she'd had for Christmas. 

We were going to be adventurous and try canning meat for the first time. We'd decided on a spaghetti sauce with mince beef in it, Kirsty had found a recipe we like the look of a few weeks before hand, so we all brought some ingredients with us and we set to it. 

Things went well, the only slight hitch we had was the fact that the electric hob wouldn't get the canner hot enough, so Kirsty had a brain wave and got her gas BBQ dragged inside. Propped up with a chair this was perfect to keep the cans at 11 pounds of pressure for the 60 minutes needed. We did leave a window open so we didn't die from poisonous gas as well! 

In the end we had ten jars, with only one that failed to seal properly. 

I can see this being a very addictive hobby! 

Anyone else been canning meat or does using a pressure canner put you off?

Pantry Storage Door

Made a door this week for a friends pantry. They wanted more easily organised storage and liked the idea of my can rotator door, but don't want to keep so many cans.

 We sketched up a design with a can rotator on one side and adjustable shelves on the other. Construction was to be simply ply and Planed softwood as the door is going to be painted when it's finished. A key part of these doors is that they have to open outwards and have a fairly substantial fame or lining to fix to to take the weight. Heavy duty hinges are also a must. 

Construction in progress

Rebating the sides so it'll open without binding on the frame. 

Fitted door from the outside

Door fitted and open

Filled with some food! 

The cans on the right hand side dispense like the door I made, so you always use the oldest one first. The shelves on the left are fully adjustable to accommodate whatever you want to. 

They're going to paint the outside in blackboard paint to give a great area for children to draw on and the ply on the inside will probably be left bare.

Who else wants me to make them one of these doors? A great way to increase your storage space and to be better organised. 

I like to encourage everyone to store a little more food. 

Can Rotator Door/Can Storage Door

 Sometimes when I make something I'm more than a little happy with it. 

This is one of those things. 

I decided that although we have little space to store food I was going to invent a way to store canned food so we could keep a bigger and better organised stock of food over the winter. A month or so ago I posted a picture of my can rotator prototype, well this is what it was a prototype for - My can rotator door.

 The doors to our understairs cupboard were pretty useless. They opened inwards, so you lost the best bit of storage, and they got in the way. I'd even taken one of them off so I could fit through the gap. 

Jam packed cupboard and useless doors

 We hadn't really been using the space under the stairs very efefficiently, I decided to give it a good clean out and realised that most of the stuff could go. This left me with a nice sized space to start to use for food storage. But I knew I needed a new door so I decide to combine the two. That way it would take up very little space and use an area of the cupboard that wouldn't usually be used.

Once cleaned out the cupboard had quite a bit of space

 I worked out that I could have six rows of cans across the width of the door. I decided that we use more than six types so I split it into two again, so I'd have six rows of ten and six rows of seven. This type of system also means that you always use the oldest cans first - no finding a can at the back of the cupboard dated pre war any more!

Once I had a few sketches drawn up I decided to start to make it in a few spare evenings.

Working out the spacings for the cans

Cutting the strips for the sides

Routing the groves to receive the ply

All the groves routed

The groves weren't too deep so as not to weaken the plywood

Starting to assemble it. All glue and pins

Setting the bottom ramps for the cans

Cutting the ramps ready to fix on

The front of the door is faced with MDF grooved to look like match board

Once painted this should blend in nicely

I painted blackboard strips so you could easily identify what cans were in what slot. A bit of masking tape made sure my lines were straight!

The door opens on a castor so the weight is spread a little bit better - not just on the hinges

When full the door it will hold 102 cans. The top section has 10 of each type.

The bottom section holds cans we don't use quite so frequently so only holds 7 of each type

I decided on a ply body and MDF front to keep the costs down and to save having lots of different materials involved and to buy. I used two sheets of 1/2" ply and one sheet of 3/8" MDF plus hinges and handle so the costs came in at around £70 but I wouldn't like to price the labour involved as it was surprising how long it took (although it always does when you make the first of something).

The door opens really nicely (there is a castor on the one side) and although you can feel it's carrying a lot of weight it's still easy to open and shut. The number of cans it holds feels about right for us and having the vision slots on the front means it's easy to see how many you need to buy to stock up. I'm really pleased with the two little blackboard painted strips as well as it makes it much easier to see what tin you are grabbing and it kind of makes it feel a little more complete.

I'm feeling a little more organised now with food storage, although I have a long way to go yet. 

Anyone else have something like this in their house? 

A Good Can Opener?

If there was an award for the most boring blog post then I'm sure that this would be up there, but I need your advice!

Lately I've been destroying can openers like there's no tomorrow, any plastic part gets crushed or cogs get stripped. I've been resorting to using the broken can openers one little bit at a time, rather than winding them round, like you would a can opener on a multi tool. Well it's that or going outside and rubbing it on a paving slab for a few minutes and popping the top off - which works surprisingly well, there's a good video on YouTube about it here. 

Two failed can openers, there have been two more lately as well.

The plastic parts seem to be what fails first. So the other day I brought an all metal one, but it isn't strong enough and the handle has already started to bend, that and it keeps slipping off the rim. I don't mind spending money on something that's going to last, and there seems to be plenty of choice out there, I don't want an electric one, just a good solid manual one.

So your recommendations will be greatly received and I'll buy the one most people think is any good, even if I have to import it from the States! 

Sorry this is such a boring post but there's little point of having canned food if you can't open it and I'm fed up of buying rubbish!