More RV Kitchen Hints and Hacks - RV Podcast Episode 372
RV Kitchen Hints and Hacks
Even more hints, hacks and tips for your RV kitchen.
Plus we also have a bleach-free way to sanitize your RV’s fresh water holding tank and a new RV with two, count ‘em, two bedrooms and bathrooms!
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Our very efficient and effective Coleman Mach RV Air Conditioner - a powerful yet efficient unit that we’ve been really loving.
The wheat straw plates that we have and love (Amazon link)
The GripStics bag closing tip (Amazon link)
Our Cuisinart battery-powered portable blender
Our favorite Magma nesting cookware
Of course we mentioned the Aeropress - you know we had to!
We keep our coffee beans in the Airscape container (Amazon link)
This instant-read thermometer is a must have for any kitchen (Amazon link)
We also have this touch-free thermometer (Amazon link)
How we pack our 2205 kitchen
The RV Inline Sanitizer gadget to help sanitizer your fresh water tank
Peggy used the Blu Technology bleach-free sanitizer product to sanitize our tanks
Tony’s review of the new-for-2027 Forest River Crusader 2SUITE fifth wheel - with two bedrooms and two bathrooms - wow! You can also see the full video review of the 2027 Forest River Crusader 2SUITE
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 372
Tony
We've driven hundreds of miles, but inside the Mini-Lite- ... we're right where we left you last week.
Peggy
Last week we did some cooking demonstrations for you. I wanted to show you more about our small kitchen, but we just ran out of time. So, here we are back in the kitchen to give you those tips and tricks, and hints and hacks that we didn't get to last week.
Tony
I've got an RV review of a two bedroom, two bath world premiere or world debut-
Peggy
Debut
Tony
... of a new fifth wheel.
Peggy
And I've got a gadget report for you.
Tony
Yep. Hey, you know what? We've got this week's podcast, along with the notes, tips, tricks, ideas, destinations, and so much more at our home on the web at stresslesscamping.com.
Peggy
We sincerely love you and your likes and your subscribes. Thank you so much for being here for episode 372. Stressless Camping.
Tony
Stressless Camping. I'm Tony.
Peggy
I'm Peggy.
Tony
Two RV industry veterans who travel part-time-
Peggy
In this Rockwood Mini-Lite
Tony
... looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips-
Peggy
Tricks
Tony
... and discounts. A while back, we introduced you to the Coleman Mach Everest VS18 RV air conditioner. At that time, it wasn't that warm outside, but that's changed.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
Um, I will tell you right now as we record this, it's on. So you probably can hear it, but maybe not. It's not on, like, super blast mode-
Peggy
Right
Tony
... but it is on, on. What we have found is that RV air conditioners typically seem to work for about 15 to 25 degrees if you're lucky. It has been, oh my gosh, hot and, oh my gosh, humid lately.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
And this thing has just been an absolute champion. So typically RV air conditioners are up to 15,000 BTU. That's a measure of cooling power. This one is 18,000 BTU, so it is more. The way it works is the compressor and fan can ramp up and down to accommodate various temperatures. There's a turbo mode and an eco mode, and it is remarkably efficient. It's remarkably quiet when it's not in turbo mode, and I am just really impressed with the job it's doing.
Tony
So there's your update. Now that it's hot and humid, and it truly is summertime- ... uh, this thing has been literally performing like a champ.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
So, uh, we'll put links back to that article where we introduced you to it. Maybe you're interested in hearing from the folks who originated this thing. We're very, very impressed.
Peggy
Indeed. Also, something I didn't say last week, but I just wanna throw it in really quickly now that we've gone 1,500 miles and I'm doing it almost every day. When you put your hitch in your truck, and you put a pin in there to hold that hitch, give it an extra tug and make sure it's actually locked in.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
We did not have a problem with this travel trailer-
Tony
No
Peggy
... thank goodness. We did have a problem with our water trailer that we use at home, which is significantly less of a problem than-
Tony
Yeah
Peggy
... if a travel trailer fell out of the truck. But now I am obsessed with checking every single day to make sure that pin is still locked in.
Tony
The hitch came out of the receiver, and the water trailer was sitting on the chains. So always-
Peggy
Yeah
Tony
... cross your chains, too.
Peggy
Right.
Tony
So that was, that was a adventure in towing.
Peggy
That's just a little extra bonus tip that doesn't have anything to do with kitchens.
Tony
Yeah. So I had mentioned the air conditioner a little bit ago. Another little trick that we do, because we have our solar and lithium system from ABC Upfitters, about two hours before we get to our destination, we come in and turn on the air conditioner, let the trailer get all nice and comfy and cool. And then when we arrive at our destination, it's comfortable in here.
Peggy
We can do that because the CombiMaster inverter in our ABC Upfit system runs all the kinds of power that you normally need shore power for, so we can turn the air conditioner on. We have a big enough battery and lots of solar, so it's constantly, as we're driving down the road, charging the battery. But also ABC put in a DC to DC charger, and I won't pretend I understand it all, but you basically-
Tony
I-
Peggy
... can charge the battery from the truck from an extra plug, not the seven pin, but an extra plug that comes out of the alternator of the truck.
Tony
Yeah, so it uses the truck's alternator to charge the battery, and it's, our configuration is about equivalent to 1,000 watts of solar. It's a 50 amp connector. In addition to the solar, you have the truck's alternator, and all of these are things you can configure or you can work with ABC Upfitters to configure in your own solar and lithium system.
Peggy
Mm-hmm.
Tony
So do you want something small? Do you want something simple? Do you want something ooh, la, la?
Peggy
Wanna run the air conditioner-
Tony
Yeah, wanna run the air conditioner
Peggy
... for hours at a time while you're driving?
Tony
So these are the kinds of things that they will work with you to accomplish, and if that's the kind of reliability and quality that you want in your solar and lithium system, give our friends at ABC Upfitters a call at 574-333-3225.
Peggy
That's 574-333-3225. Use the QR code. Uh, check it out on our website, and get cool.
Tony
Yeah. We've got ourselves something to drink.
Peggy
It's not made by Liquified-
Tony
No
Peggy
... just the cups are.
Tony
It's just the cups. And, uh, we're gonna go back in the kitchen at your request and, and talk a little bit more about small kitchen hints and hacks.
Peggy
Now, we are very fortunate, let's both step out of the picture for a moment.
Tony
Yeah, that'll make you more fortunate.
Peggy
We have a really big kitchen nowadays, but I'm gonna put a picture of the kitchen in the 1905 where we literally had two six-inch strips of-
Tony
Yeah
Peggy
... on either side of the sink, and then the stove was right next to it. So we, when we started RV-ing, we really learned to utilize small spaces. Now, we did have a dinette, so sometimes we would use the dinette table, and sometimes if we were gonna do something really elaborate, we would bring in a folding white plastic table, put it as an, a kind of an L-shaped kitchen, so in front of the sofa that was the hide-a-bed, and we would use that table for prep, and then we'd probably sit there and eat at it too before we took it out.
Peggy
We got creative. And we learned a lot about utilizing really small spaces.
Tony
Well, remember I also added a counter extension.
Peggy
We did add a counter extension. We also, uh, the sink was a, a pretty small sink.
Tony
It was.
Peggy
But it came with a, like a sink topper that doubled as a cutting board or just some extra space. So right now it seems like, "Oh, come on, Peggy, you can't tell me how to use a small kitchen, you don't have one." But we have had the luxury of having a big kitchen after we had a medium-sized kitchen after we had a very small kitchen space, so I got really good with these small space hacks.
Peggy
So we're gonna just go through some ideas, some hacks, some hints, and some of the tools and gadgets that make small kitchen life a little easier.
Tony
Ooh, gadgets. I love them.
Peggy
Gadgets.
Tony
Okay, so-
Peggy
A couple of months ago after we did our western half of our Route 66 trip, we, I came in here and cleaned everything out of the kitchen, every dish, every can of food, every everything, and I did two videos about that cleaning, and I showed you, like, every fork that we own and stuff like that. So I'm not gonna go that deep into things again today, but I'm gonna kind of point out some of the highlights of our organization and pantry and things like that.
Peggy
So one of the really great tricks, and this has worked for, like, all of our RVs, universal, I found, we found these containers at Costco. There are s- various sizes. Some of them are this narrow, some of them are about one and a half times the width. Some are this long and some are one and a half times this length. So there are various sizes and they do various jobs. So we have different sizes doing different things.
Peggy
We have one that's for our plates, forks and, or, I mean, sorry, plates and bowls. And we have wheat straw plates. They are-
Tony
By the way, that, uh, what Peggy has there-
Peggy
Oh
Tony
... is our battery-powered blender.
Peggy
Well, I'll get to that.
Tony
Oh, okay.
Peggy
They are in two sizes of plates. They're made of wheat straw. They are scratch-resistant. They are microwave safe. They are dishwasher safe, 'cause we take them in a, a couple times a year and run everything through the dishwasher. But the one thing about melamine, which I love, but it's not microwave safe, so our vintage melamine does not get to live here. We carry four of everything, four plates, four bowls, four cups, because if we want to invite somebody over for a quick meal or something, we have enough to serve them.
Peggy
Usually, if we invite someone over, we ask them to bring their own service. That way we don't have to do as many dishes, and everybody gets to eat off the surface they like. Some people are fine eating off paper plates. I don't like it. I don't like the texture. I don't like the waste. So we don't even have paper products in the camper. Anyway, so then we have another one that has our coffee cups and our tumblers for mixed drinks or whatever.
Peggy
That's in its own container. We've got a container that just has our, like, measuring cups and mixing bowls, one that has our cutting mats. And then we have, the bottom one is, like, our leftover containers, and I've talked about these a lot, but my favorite brand of these is Flat Stacks. There are all kinds of brands. I cannot find Flat Stacks on Amazon, but I find them at almost every RV show that I go to. They're color coordinated, so you know which lid goes with which bowl.
Peggy
They're silicone and they're expandable. So these are great for a big amount of leftovers, and then when you eat some of them, a small amount of leftovers. They seal. They're refrigerator and freezer safe. They're microwave safe. They're not oven safe because actually the, the shape of it is held together by a, a hard plastic, and so you can't put them in the oven, but you can use them in the microwave. And we have really entirely too many, but I love them so much.
Peggy
To make everything in each shelf a little bit easier to see, we installed these puck lights. We also have way too many Grip Sticks, and these are terrific for re-closing a bag of something that you've opened, chips or hash browns or whatever. They slide on the top of the bag. These also, there's all kinds of brands of them. I like the Grip Sticks the best, but you, you know, you can get what you can get.
Peggy
And then also, Grip Sticks makes a silicone storage bag. Now, the design of these that I found on Amazon are different now, so you probably won't see exactly this. These have these two latches. They come open, they're a silicone bag. They stand on their own if you're pouring soup in there or something, and then they seal and then they roll up for storage, and they've got these little tabbies that hook onto these little bumps so that they store rolled up.
Peggy
Now, I'm not gonna do it 'cause I didn't get all the air out, so I'll do that later. So I've talked about these several times. I really, really like all those like storage containers, uh, you know, solutions for leftovers. Now, Tony wanted me to talk about this, and I was going to. This is the Cuisinart battery operated blender. It's got a little blade that goes into the cup. It goes on here, you turn it on, bzzt, it blends up things.
Peggy
It blends beautifully. We've used it fairly extensively for coffee beans when our other coffee grinder would pas- pasoot, pasit, die. Stop working.
Tony
Pasoot.
Peggy
So- pasoot. So it does grind coffee beans. You can put a couple ice cubes in there and grind up, you know, ice cubes with what you're doing. A great little blender. We use this quite a bit because we make a lot of protein smoothies, and that brings me to Tupperware canisters. We have all the different flavors of protein that we, uh, can make into a smoothie, zip, zap, zoop. Uh, I wanted to point this out. This is not just, not just pretty decoration, but it's, it's, uh, like a silicone so it's very sticky.
Peggy
It stays right there on the counter, but it's a jar opener. So thank you, Cathy, for that gift. We use it, you know, when we have a sticky jar. Utilizing the drawers, we, you know, it's, they're drawers. So we have our utilities. I talked about this spatula last week and how much we like it. Super, super thin. It's fine to use because we use all stainless steel pans, and it will get under an egg and flip an egg very nicely. And then we have utensils for four, and towels and hot pads and things like that.
Peggy
I will say that almost all this stuff we've had in every RV. So yes, we have a lot of storage space here, but somehow I made all this stuff fit in the in the smaller trailers. So don't think just because I have a big trailer I have more stuff than you. I might, but-
Tony
Peggy is very good at packing stuff in a trailer. In any space, she is the queen of tons of stuff in a small space.
Peggy
I'm not gonna, I don't wanna take all this out 'cause it's noisy and, and all that, but so we have, we're lucky to have this under sink storage. So we've got our Magma nesting pans. Behind that we keep the Omnia oven. We have s- and this was wet, and that's why it's not stacked up properly. I let it dry. On the bottom shelf it's narrower, but we do have room for a sink bucket to do our dishes in if we need to.
Peggy
But we, I remember I told you last week, sometimes we just use the pan we've cooked in, and then I've got a basket with cleaning products. And then back up to the top shelf, right here in this empty space we keep a teapot and our coffee basket, which I'll show you in a second, and then behind that we have this basket, and it contains three essentials, our heat diffuser, which we obviously is very well used.
Tony
It's old.
Peggy
It's old. Uh, that you put on the stove top if you want the heat to be low but you can't get the flame down low enough, this will diffuse the heat out so it's lower and more even heat. There's our teapot. We've gone through-
Tony
Shortened down.
Peggy
Yeah. We've gone through several versions of how to heat water. For a while we'd just use an old percolator that I had lost the insides, the guts, so we'd just use that, but it got old and kind of started to rust out, so teapot. Back to this basket, the second thing we have is a toaster, stove top toaster, and you just unfold it, you make four little stands, you don't put it on the diffuser, and you put your bread on here and it toasts up the center and then you flip it over and toast the other side.
Peggy
So the heat all comes from here and toasts this side of your bread. Super cool if you wanna have some toast.
Tony
No electricity required.
Peggy
No electricity required. This does require electricity. We have a mini waffle maker-
Tony
Thank you, Stacy
Peggy
... because, thank you, Stacy, that's right, because these protein powders that we make, make smoothies with I also make waffles with quite often.
Tony
It's one of the few electrical appliances we have.
Peggy
It is one of the very few. What we do not have is electric coffee maker- Because we don't want one, because we really, really love the AeroPress. Now, this basket fits perfectly in here right next to the teapot. We have these, which Abby told us about.
Tony
Abby from RVMiles.
Peggy
From RVMiles. Airscape. These hold our coffee beans, and they're, they've got like an airscaping uh, thing that, that pushes out the air, so whatever you put in here, we always have coffee beans, stays fresh, and then another topper to make it pretty. This is actually the house one, the copper one. We have one that's red for the camper, but when we left for three months, we're not gonna leave beans at home, so we brought a whole bunch of beans.
Peggy
The AeroPress, we have videos, we have... We talk about these a lot. I won't go through the process of doing it, but this is how we make our coffee twice a day when we're in camp, because we have to have our afternoon coffee as well as our morning coffee. And so I'll put some links for AeroPress. Super easy to use, no electricity required. It makes coffee as good as, I guess, a French press, but you don't have the cleanup problem that you have with a French press, because all of your grounds end up in this little space here.
Peggy
You take this lid off, and you just pop, and all the grounds fall in the trash. Up here, it's very disorganized right now because we had so many things that we had to bring with us, and so I just randomly wherever there was space, but you can see these individual containers that have sort of different things, our baking stuff and our canned goods and our spices. Uh, we do have the spice rack also that I'll put a picture of.
Peggy
It's kind of buried back there right now. But this is a tremendous amount of space, and we love that we have the ability to bring all the food that we needed that we wanted to eat for the next three months. Something also very, very handy is this over-the-counter or over-the-cabinet, it's really designed to go like over a cabinet door, but it fits, depending on where you wanna use it, you can put it over your actual cabinet and close the door.
Peggy
We happen to have this nice open cubby, and it's got a pretty deep ledge there, and this fits right over the top. We're super lucky. It doesn't get in the way of opening this cabinet door. It fits really well. Now, here's a something to remind you, don't leave this hanging when you're driving because it will unroll, and you'll have a whole roll of paper towels folded up on your countertop. So we just take it and pop it up there with the bread and crackers.
Peggy
Let me pop really quick back over into this drawer because I wanna point out that we do carry two different heat temperature things. Things, I think that's what I called it last week too. This is a probe that you stick inside your cooked food or cooking food to... You turn it on, and it tells you what the temperature inside the food is. You don't wanna eat undercooked meat especially, right? And so it also has a little handy guide that tells you the recommended internal temperature for well-done beef and rare beef and pork and, and ham and poultry.
Peggy
So you don't even have to memorize those things if you don't have a safe serve certificate that made you memorize them. So this go, you know, sticks in the food. It also has a magnet, so it stays very handy when you need it, and it turns itself off. You can't turn it off actually, which is weird. I always try to turn it off, but it turns itself off. The other thing that we have is like a heat gun, infrared, and this we can use, we can point at... Like if I didn't know if the fire was on under this toaster, I could point at it.
Peggy
Right now it's 75 degrees. That beep is not the camera turning off.
Tony
Ah.
Peggy
Which fooled us last week. So this tells us what the temperature of different things is. This doesn't touch food, which makes it really, really handy because if we're unsure of our, the hubs on our tires, we can also grab this and measure the temperature of the tires because it doesn't touch anything, so we're not like contaminating our food thing with a tire thing. So we only need one. But this is just super handy to have. We always have it available when we need it.
Peggy
The other thing that I wanna point out is people, people ask, I see like every day, "Where do you keep your trash? Where do you keep your trash can?" We use a very small trash can. It holds perfectly... I mean, you can buy bags for it, but it holds a shopping bag. So we use our used shopping bags for trash. It fits nicely into this corner, but if you're really working up in this corner and you keep kicking it- ... it fits beautifully under the refrigerator. Unfortunately-
Tony
By my shoes and the chips
Peggy
... unfortunately, that means it gets a little bit hidden by the refrigerator, so, you know, if you push it all the way against the wall. Right now because it's so hot outside, we're not using the furnace, so we actually can put it in front of those furnace vents that are in the way. It's, it's really mobile. It could fit over here under the counter. It could fit anywhere. You don't need a giant trash can. Well, we don't need a giant trash can. We try to minimize our waste anyway, and there's just two of us, so, you know, we can get by two or three days putting our coffee grounds and potato chip bags in this trash.
Peggy
And then the last thing I wanna say is love your oven. Look at the picture I'm posting right now of the prime rib that we cooked for Christmas in- Our, not this oven, we didn't have this trailer, but the exact oven, the 21-inch oven, not 17-inch oven. Those are very, very flat, and really all you can bake is maybe a pizza or cookies, and they're never, they never seem to cook evenly. Everybody complains about them, and you have to turn and da, da, da. We don't have any problems like that with this oven.
Peggy
We turn it on, we bake. Now, granted, I'm not doing something that is so dependent on exactly the right temperature and the even heat and stuff like that, but we did a prime rib, and I bake my, my fake bread, my milk bread in here, and we do casseroles. We bake in this thing all the time. It's a perfectly good oven. We don't know any reason not to use it. Now, also, a lot of people say to put in, like, an un- unglazed stone, like a pizza stone.
Peggy
I've never bothered to do that. Frankly, I'm a little bit afraid that a pizza stone will break in half. But the fact is, if it's there, it's still gonna do its job, because the stone just absorbs the heat and kind of radiates it out more evenly, kind of like this heat diffuser does. Those are the things I wanted to add last week that we didn't get to, and I hope that they help you, uh, with some ideas at least. Uh, you know, obviously not everyone organizes the same way.
Peggy
I'll look f- I'll put a link to the time that Tina Armeni and I walked each other through our 2205S to show how differently we organize things. You don't have to do things the way I do them. I just thought maybe some tips, some hacks, some hints about, uh, you know, gadgets and methods for storage and use of your tiny little RV kitchen might be helpful to you. I hope it was. Let's bring Tony back in.
Speaker 3
Hey, everyone. It's Matt and Will, the founders of Liquified, the best RV toilet tank treatment in the industry. Now, Will, everybody's heard of our RV toilet tank treatment, but a lot of people here at the Quartzsite RV show isn't super familiar with our gray tank treatment. Tell us more about it.
Speaker 4
Yeah, guys. A lot of times we find that gray tanks can smell worse than black tanks.
Speaker 3
Mm.
Speaker 4
Reason being is little bits of food particles get in there. It grows mold, can grow mildew, all kinds of stuff going on in there. That's why we l- we launched our gray tank treatment. This is a different fragrance designed for your kitchen sinks or your showers and, and bathroom sinks as well. It's designed to break down the food particles, kill the mold in the tanks, and get rid of that mildew smell.
Speaker 3
Especially not having a gray tank flush-
Speaker 4
Yes
Speaker 3
... like you do a black tank flush. If anything, it's actually more important to pour Liquified down your gray tank than your black tank, but obviously it's super important to do both. So make sure you guys check us out online. Go to liquifiedrv.com.
Tony
Today's RV review is something special, the world debut of the 2027 Forest River Crusader 2-Suite. And as the name implies, this has two full bedroom suites upstairs and downstairs, both with RV king-sized beds, and surprise, surprise, there are even two complete bathrooms in here, plus a loft for the little ones. And the back bedroom even has a projector. This is the world debut of this trailer and we have the full video review on our YouTube channel, full audio review at rvtravel.com, and for tips, tricks, ideas, destinations, and our weekly RV and travel podcast, check us out at our home on the web at stresslesscamping.com.
Tony
Thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe, tell a friend, and most of all, stressless camping.
Peggy
We received from Blue Technologies their bleach-free tank sanitizing packets. So we are going to test that today with our fresh water tank. We're gonna sanitize our fresh water tank. She sent me two sets, I guess. Each set has two little packets in it, and their instructions, which are microscopic but I did read them, and they assume that you're using the Blue Technology filtration system, and they say to put these packets into the sort of canister of the filtration system.
Peggy
Well, we don't have their filtrate- their filter system, but we do happen to have the Clear2O, and this canister usually holds the sediment filter. And so I'm gonna just use this. I'm gonna go ahead and put the product in here and then put this in line with the fill system. Do not want that to be in the wrong place. You always want your gaskets, of course, to stay in the correct location. So I'm gonna go ahead and put all four of these packets ...
Peggy
It doesn't really say how much to use per ... Well, it says each packet gets four gallons of water, but I'm not sure if that means to prepare it or what. So we told her how big our tank was, and she said this is how much we should use. Now, I realize I need scissors to open this, so hold please. Did you miss me? I had another little project inside. Took me a minute. Not that you can tell. All right.
Peggy
So I'm gonna cut these four packets open. I'm gonna put them in this canister, and then I'm gonna put this in line with the tank fill hose, and that way it will bring all the sanitizing into the fresh tank. Now, on our website you might find an article about an in-line sanitizer. I'm basically making up my own because we could not find our in-line sanitizer, which is one of the reasons this project took so long. This is liquid.
Peggy
See if I can get a money shot here of it pouring, but I don't wanna spill too much of it, so... See? Just a clear liquid, maybe slightly more viscous than water. Now that all that is in there, I'm gonna go hook this up to the water system and move the camera. So we have a splitter here, so this is gonna be very convenient. We still have our water hooked up to the trailer, but it's turned off. I'm gonna go ahead and hook the sanitizing solution in line, and then I'll put the hose 'cause that way we'll sanitize the hose too.
Peggy
Why wouldn't we? These little short extensions are, like, good because they're extensions and they bend without breaking, but they also are hard to get a hold of 'cause all you can grab is this stuff on the outside. Trial and error. Okay, plan B because, let me tell you, this is designed to put one of those little filters, charcoal filter in here, and the connection is way up in there.
Peggy
I cannot reach a hose way up in there. So we're gonna get the funnel that we bought specifically for this job, and we're gonna do it that way. Okay, new plan or old plan or whatever. This is gonna be interesting. I'm gonna get the solution that I put in this canister down in the tank, I hope. If I at least get it in the funnel, I'll rinse it down with the hose. It's really not very much. Each one was, I think, less than an ounce.
Peggy
So, darling, you're gonna turn the water on for me, low at first so I can rinse the funnel out.
Speaker 5
Okay.
Peggy
And then we'll fill the tank. Okay, I got the tank nice and rinsed, so now we're gonna just go ahead and fill the fresh tank. By the way, I did make sure that the low point drain was closed. Okay, so I started chatting with a neighbor, and I didn't tell you when the tank was full, but that would've been kind of boring anyway. The tank took maybe 20 minutes to fill, and then I'm waiting 15 minutes until the...
Peggy
Well, that's what the instructions say, wait 15 minutes, and then dump the tank. Now, I don't wanna dump 54 gallons of water onto the ground anywhere ever, so what we're gonna do is run the water through our plumbing system. That way we will run the faucets and sanitize all the, all the plumbing and faucets in the trailer, and then we'll, I guess, sanitize the gray water tanks as well. Not that they need it, but we'll fill the gray water tanks up, and we'll dump with the sewer line from there, and that way we're not just dumping water onto the ground.
Peggy
So I'm going to do that inside. I guess that's where I'll take you next. All righty, here we are inside. The fresh water tank is full of water with Sanitation Blue Technology in it, and it says to dump all that water out on the ground. I don't wanna do that, so what we're gonna do is pump all that water using the water pump from the fresh tank through the plumbing system into the gray tanks, which will by, be sanitized for no real reason at all.
Peggy
And then we will be able to dump the gray tanks, and everything will go in the sewer and not into, onto the ground. Now, I'm guessing, assuming, understanding that if it's safe to put it down on, on the ground, then it's safe to put it in the sewer or septic system. I think that that is a safe bet. So let's see what happens when we... In some of the instructions it says, "Run it until there's foam." That's if you're just running it through the city water, so I'm just kinda curious if we get any kind of foaming action here.
Peggy
I am using the kitchen sink mostly. I'll run the other faucets too because I want to run it through the, all the plumbing system. But frankly, this gray tank for the kitchen is the one that takes us forever to fill up, so I figure... Oh, look, I see foamy. See if I can... You can't really see it in the faucet, but can see it in the sink, this kinda foamy. So I'm gonna go turn on the bathroom sink, the shower faucet, flush through the toilet, get the whole system sanitized, and get all the water out of the fresh tank and into the waste tank so that we can easily dump it.
Peggy
The next step after that it says to fill the tank again and empty it again, just to rinse out everything so that, you know... I mean, I'm sure this is perfectly safe, but maybe it doesn't taste good. Maybe you don't want it in your tank for drinking later. Now, interesting, I didn't think about this. I left the kitchen one on. I'm turning the bathroom one on. Pressure's still okay, but I might go turn off the bathroom so that I can run the bathroom, or t- turn off the kitchen so I can run the bathroom sink, the shower, and a little bit through the toilet, just to make sure that I'm sanitizing the entire system.
Peggy
All right, so we were getting ready for a drive day when I did the sanitizing, and it was hot outside, and frankly how many times do you need to see me put the hose in the tank, right? So w- I'm just gonna wrap up the video now that it's a day or two later. Quick recap, I put the sanitizing solution in the tank with the funnel, filled the tank. I let it sit for 15 minutes as the instructions said. I did pump water through all the faucets in the camper so that I'd be sanitizing those as well, and let that whole thing sit for 15 minutes.
Peggy
They want you to dump it out on the ground, and I didn't wanna do that, so I went ahead and pumped the water through the faucets again, mostly in through the kitchen because that's where we have a lot of gray tank space that we can never fill up. So I emptied the fresh tank into the gray tanks essentially, and dumped those in the sewer dump, and then filled the tank back up again and ran it out again to rinse the, to rinse the sanitizer out of the tank.
Peggy
And then filled it up again so that we would have water for our boondocking part of our trip, which is where we are now. Unfortunately, I don't have water testing facility here, so I can't tell you that the tank really needed sanitizing or the tank really got sanitizing. All I know is I feel safe now using the water that's in that tank. I would even drink it, and I know some of you are screaming at me that I should never drink tank water, but I do.
Peggy
We filter the water going into the tank. If we're gonna drink it, we usually filter it again using a, a countertop pitcher of some sort with a carbon filter. So I double filter it, so I'm not concerned. Right now you'll probably see that we do have the hydration jug here. This is water that we got from Hot Springs, Arkansas. They have fountains where you can just fill up your drinking vessels, and we did because it's a thing to do. And so we are drinking Hot Springs water right now, not because I'm afraid of the tank, but because we have Hot Springs water.
Peggy
So that is our gadget of the week, the Blue Technologies tank sanitation process. I feel a lot better about using our tanks now, and I will use this product again because it's very, very simple to use. It's not bleach, and it is stress less camping.
Tony
Hey, I'm back everybody.
Peggy
Yay.
Tony
Woo.
Peggy
All right. Well, I hope that those things helped you. We are gonna move on to question of the week. I don't remember the last question of the week.
Tony
I don't think we did-
Peggy
Well, we didn't do one last week.
Tony
No.
Peggy
And it's been a while, so hopefully that was good. This week I'm just gonna ask, do you have any additional or extra or better hints, hacks, tips, tricks for using a small kitchen? Please let us know in our fun and friendly Stress Less Campers Facebook group.
Tony
We sincerely appreciate your being here. We appreciate your likes and shares. Don't forget, on our website at stresslesscamping.com you can sign up for our spam free once a week email newsletter. Our cabinets are not spam free.
Peggy
Cabinets are not spam free.
Tony
But our newsletter is.
Peggy
Thank you so much for being here. We truly appreciate you subscribing and liking and sharing and telling your friends and telling your neighbors and just being here and just being you.
Tony
Yeah. Thank you so much. And most of all stress less camping.
Peggy
Stress less camping.
Speaker 6
We hope you learned a lot, and had some fun, and got some tips for your next stress less camping adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure, and we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.
Peggy
Last week we did some ki- ka- Last week-
Tony
Yeah, uh, it came out and the travel, uh, the travel, uh, the pin came out, the receiver came out of the... A while back.
