← Field Notes Food Storage No. 39

Beans need 90 minutes of boiling

Have you budgeted that propane?

Everyone stores food. Almost nobody budgets the fuel to cook it.

The problem, concretely: if your storage is bulk dry staples and your cooking plan is a propane burner, you need to know how many hours of burner time your propane supply actually represents.

Techniques that cut fuel dramatically:

Soak first. Soaking beans overnight cuts cook time substantially. Free.

Thermal cooking. Bring to a boil for a few minutes, then transfer the sealed pot into an insulated container — a purpose-made thermal cooker, or a cooler packed with towels. It continues cooking on stored heat for hours with zero additional fuel. For beans and grains this is a genuine game-changer.

Pressure cooking. Cuts times by roughly two-thirds.

Solar cooking. Free fuel, works better than people expect for slow-cooked dishes. Weather-dependent, so it's a supplement.

Lids on everything. An uncovered pot wastes a large fraction of your heat to the air.

More on Food Storage