How the plan is worked out

Meals

The planner walks through every breakfast, lunch and dinner between your first and last meal aboard and skips the ones you eat ashore. For each one it picks from the meal library: only meals your stove can cook (no stove, one burner, two burners); meals that need the cooler only on days the cold side is safe, and on those days cooler meals come first so the fresh food is eaten while the ice holds; a meal not yet used before a repeat. With the Galley Pass you can swap any meal; a swap that needs a burner you do not have, or the cooler on a day your ice is planned to be gone, is shown with a warning.

The cold side

With a cooler, day 1 is loading day. A day is “cold side safe” when it falls within the number of days you say your ice keeps food cold, counted from loading or from an ice stop you ticked. With a fridge, every day counts (it must run the whole trip). With neither, every meal is one that keeps without cold. Keep cold food at 40 °F or colder, and a thermometer in the cooler tells you when it is not.

Water

1 gallon a person a day for drinking and sanitation, doubled when you tick very hot weather, for every day of the trip, plus the cooking water each meal lists. Drinking water already in the boat's tank is taken off, and the rest is rounded up to whole jugs.

Stove fuel

Each hot meal has a burner time: a base plus a little per person, times the burners it uses. Our own estimate, shown on each meal. The total burner-minutes, at the full rating you enter (Btu per hour), give the heat the plan needs. One fuel unit holds its weight of fuel times the fuel's heat of combustion: about 21,600 Btu per pound for propane and 21,300 for butane. Treat the result as an estimate: a stove loses some heat to the air (so the real need is higher) and most cooking is below full flame (so it is lower). That is why the card also says what share of one cylinder the plan uses, and leaves a spare to you.

Fuel	Fuel in one	Heat in one
16.4 oz propane cylinder	1.03 lb	about 22,100 Btu
8 oz (227 g) butane canister	0.50 lb	about 10,700 Btu
20 lb propane tank	20 lb	about 432,000 Btu

Shopping list and packs

Amounts per person are typical servings (our assumption), times the crew, times 0.85 for light appetites or 1.25 for hearty ones. The list adds the same item across meals and rounds up to whole packs in common US grocery sizes. Your store's sizes may differ: the “need” amount is always shown next to the pack count.

Refrigerate opened cans

Canned food, cartons of broth and jars of salsa, jelly, sauce and dressing keep on the shelf until they are opened. After that, what is left must be refrigerated. So an opened one is kept for a later meal only when the cold side is safe on every day from opening to that meal. Otherwise the list buys a fresh one for the meal and marks how much is left over: throw that out. Single-serve cups and packets waste less. The meal library uses peanut butter, eggs, milk, wheat and fish: check labels for allergies aboard.

Trash

Federal rules forbid putting garbage over the side in U.S. navigable waters, and on the Great Lakes the rule covers their connecting and tributary waters too. Pack a trash bag per day and bring it all back to the dock.

Sources

1. Ready.gov (U.S. Department of Homeland Security), "Water": "Store at least one gallon of water per person per day for several days, for drinking and sanitation" and "In very hot temperatures, water needs can double." www.ready.gov
2. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, "Danger Zone (40 °F - 140 °F)": perishable food left out more than 2 hours (1 hour above 90 °F) should be thrown away. www.fsis.usda.gov
3. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, "Keep Food Safe! Food Safety Basics": keep cold food at 40 °F or colder. www.fsis.usda.gov
4. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, "Shelf-Stable Food Safety": "Once the container is opened, however, bacteria can enter and begin growing in the food. Any unused portions must then be refrigerated in clean containers." www.govinfo.gov
5. 33 CFR 151.66(a): "no person on board any ship may discharge garbage into the navigable waters of the United States." 33 CFR 151.59(d): on the Great Lakes, "the discharge of all garbage into the Great Lakes or their connecting or tributary waters is prohibited" except as 151.66 allows. www.ecfr.gov
6. NIST Chemistry WebBook, propane: enthalpy of combustion of the gas -2219.2 kJ/mol (Pittam and Pilcher, 1972). With a molar mass of 44.10 g/mol that is about 21,600 Btu per pound (higher heating value). webbook.nist.gov
7. NIST Chemistry WebBook, butane: enthalpy of combustion of the gas -2877.5 kJ/mol (Pittam and Pilcher, 1972). With a molar mass of 58.12 g/mol that is about 21,300 Btu per pound (higher heating value). webbook.nist.gov

Galley Count is a planning aid, not food-safety, medical or navigation advice. When in doubt, throw it out, and follow your local rules.