Preserving food


lifeinthewoods

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Hi there,

first time poster - loving the game, only explored mystery lake so far, current game i am 10 days in, have scavenged the main bases in the map (apart from preppers cache as I have not found that yet!)

problem i have is i used up my food after being housebound with food poisoning for two days, now living on meat and fish hunted at CO. my wish would be that there could be an option in harvesting to preserve the meat to make jerky - would be great to make food last longer then rather than at the moment the fresh stuff will degrade too quickly to build up a supply to go explore again..

coupled with this would be great to forage fro nuts and berries - trial and error in figuring what berries are poisonous or not - gives a chance of long term survival and sustainable living

as it stands, im looking forward to bedding into the CO with daily fishing and snaring

keep up the good work!

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I just wanted to mention seeing as you are relatively new to the game is that (apparently) food will last a lot longer outside.

So if you are looking to preserve meat for a long time you can cook it, then store it usually on a corpse out in the snow. Then it should last for a really really long time. Though I haven't tested the length of time myself.

It's great that now there are reusable snares and fishing so it's obvious the devs are looking to create more and more self-sustainability without bullets which could lead to your foraging idea. I was looking forward to trying out fishing since the update. I finally got around to it and my line snapped almost immediately. Talk about an anti-climax.

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An interesting question to this would be how it affects preserving food in a cabinet in a fishing hut? There's no isolation and it should be the same as in preserving food on a corpse outside. I haven't tested this yet but will now.

But exactly what tools and materials is needed to make jerky? And how realistic would it be that exactly those tools and materials would exist in this "gameworld" ?

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I just wanted to mention seeing as you are relatively new to the game is that (apparently) food will last a lot longer outside.

So if you are looking to preserve meat for a long time you can cook it, then store it usually on a corpse out in the snow. Then it should last for a really really long time. Though I haven't tested the length of time myself.

Yes, you can use outside corpses that are lying flat (not sitting) or backpack that are lying (not standing) to store food for a good time. This works for both cooked and raw, but cooked will last longer than raw in any container. That is, when you put both a cooked and a raw piece of meat/ fish in a container, the cooked version will always last longer.

Smoking meat and fish to preserve it so it lasts longer than cooked meat/ fish would be a good addition though. I'd use it mainly for making long lasting emergency stashes and as travel food.

I was looking forward to trying out fishing since the update. I finally got around to it and my line snapped almost immediately. Talk about an anti-climax.

Same here, had a 76% fishing tackle and it broke after 1,5 hours of fishing after only catching 1 fish. Quite a disappointment. Hopefully this was just bad luck.

An interesting question to this would be how it affects preserving food in a cabinet in a fishing hut? There's no isolation and it should be the same as in preserving food on a corpse outside. I haven't tested this yet but will now.

The cabinets in the fishing huts have the same degradation rates as the ones inside (unless this has been changed by the resent updates).

But exactly what tools and materials is needed to make jerky? And how realistic would it be that exactly those tools and materials would exist in this "gameworld" ?

Smoking meat/ fish can be as simple as lighting a smoking fire while hanging small strips of meat on lines near the fire. The heat dries the meat and the smoke adds flavor and helps kill germs. It also gives the meat/ fish a protective coating to help against bacterial infection later. If you use thin enough strips and let them dry enough, you get jerky.

This process could be improved with a smoker. A simple smoker is simply an enclosed small space where you can light a smoldering fire that produces a lot of smoke and hang or lay (using grills) the meat/ fish above the fire. This will concentrate the heat and smoke giving better results than smoking over an open fire but you have to be more careful to not let the temperature get to high. If the smoke gets to hot, it will cook the meat instead of drying it. Would still be more preservable than regular cooked meat I think (because of the smoke) but not nearly as good as properly smoked meat.

You can also smoke meat on a barbecue but that's really more cooking with a smoke flavor rather than actually preserving the meat.

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Smoking meat/ fish can be as simple as lighting a smoking fire while hanging small strips of meat on lines near the fire. The heat dries the meat and the smoke adds flavor and helps kill germs. It also gives the meat/ fish a protective coating to help against bacterial infection later. If you use thin enough strips and let them dry enough, you get jerky.

This process could be improved with a smoker. A simple smoker is simply an enclosed small space where you can light a smoldering fire that produces a lot of smoke and hang or lay (using grills) the meat/ fish above the fire. This will concentrate the heat and smoke giving better results than smoking over an open fire but you have to be more careful to not let the temperature get to high. If the smoke gets to hot, it will cook the meat instead of drying it. Would still be more preservable than regular cooked meat I think (because of the smoke) but not nearly as good as properly smoked meat.

You can also smoke meat on a barbecue but that's really more cooking with a smoke flavor rather than actually preserving the meat.

Very good description, I was going to reference a clip from Neil Olivers Viking documentary which sort of went into detail on it if I recall, however I can't find the episodes on youtube anymore, lol. My brain is a bit foggy on the matter, but if I recall, using salt was a helpful tool when smoking the meat to help with preservation, drawing out the moisture in the meat, as well as defending better against bacterial growth.

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thanks for the tip about storage in corpses, i'll give that a go.. as said in above post, jerky would be good for travel food, not an expert but the drying/smoking of it could be an option with little tools needed so long as have a fire..

incidentally ive had no issue with fishing as yet, perhaps you were just unlucky.. ive fished for 2-3 hours at a time and no breakage, watch it break next time i try!

happy survivin'

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@Incariuz: yes salt would indeed improve the process either making the meat even more durable or shortening the drying process while getting the same result. It does get you very salty meat though as the smoke also has a salty flavor and of course you'd need to find salt first... But I think salt would make a good addition to the game anyway.

Come to think of it, fish is preserved mostly by freezing it using ice cubes/ crushed ice. That could be used in TLD as well.

@lifeinthewoods: I hope you're tackle won't break now :) It's probably just that I've been very unlucky with this as others have also mentioned fishing tackles lasting pretty long.

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  • 4 weeks later...

In my current game I have found that the meat in the cabinet next to the bunk beds to the right at the Camp Office degraded at the same speed as the meat I had stored in the corpse outside. They both degraded at about 13% per week. Not sure if this is a bug...

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In my current game I have found that the meat in the cabinet next to the bunk beds to the right at the Camp Office degraded at the same speed as the meat I had stored in the corpse outside. They both degraded at about 13% per week. Not sure if this is a bug...

It's not. I saw one of the devs mention somewhere that in one of the most recent patches the lower food degradation rate for frozen corpses was "fixed", so there is no longer any reason to store meat on frozen corpses.

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Didn't know that about the outside containers. I cycle through my meat locker and so far haven't gone much below 85% in the meat.

The real issue aside from freezing it would be salt. And I guess they're not going to get into that in this game. In real life it would be the No. 1 issue for anyone trying to prepare meat and hides.

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