[pct-l] cheese powder

[CHUCK CHELIN]

Good morning, Bill,

I initially bought powdered cheddar, powdered “cheese blend”, and powdered
butter from Walton Feed in Idaho.  http://waltonfeed.com/category/22  They
are a supplier to Mormon Church members who wish to maintain a significant
cache of durable food for emergencies, but the nature of their products
lends themselves to light-weight hikers as well.

The powdered cheddar cheese is probably the best, but the way I usually mix
the powder in and with other foods I frankly can’t tell much difference
among the three, including the butter.  The cheese blend has – I believe – a
higher percentage of whey, and in that respect is more like the cheese
powder that is packed with common, boxed Mac’N Cheese meals that are so
popular with hikers.

Currently, to save the shipping expense, I buy the powdered cheese blend
equivalent locally at WinCo Foods  http://www.wincofoods.com/ who are
popular discount foods distributors in the West.  I don’t know where you
live, but I expect many bulk and/or discount food retailers also will have
the same product.  WinCo has the cheese in bulk bins with lots of other
similar commodities, including dehydrated re-fried beans.  I had been
dehydrating my own canned re-fried beans but the product from WinCo seems
every bit as good as my own, it’s about the same price, but less trouble.

I pack ¼ cup of the bulk powders in the small snack-size Ziploc sacks for a
meal.  That’s about the right size for me to mix in other foods as a sauce,
or re-hydrate in the Ziploc as a spread or chip-dip.  I actually like to mix
the cheese and bean powders together on the trail and rehydrate them at the
same time.  I pour water in the Ziploc, close the sack, and kneed it for a
few minutes before eating.

Oil is quite good to reconstitute the cheese and butter – and it adds needed
Calories -- but it doesn’t seem to work well on the beans; I have to use
water in them.

Enjoy,

Steel-Eye

Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye
http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09

On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 7:16 AM, William A. Chavez
<wctrekker at dslextreme.com>wrote:

> Hi Chuck,
>
> Did you say where you got the cheese powder?  I missed it?
>
> Bill
>