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Kitchen Gear "Yea, they speak against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" Ps 78:19
I love good food. Who doesn't? Making good food on the trail can be huge undertaking. It can also be very satisfying too. Kind of the ultimate victory in the face of nature, not only will I survive but I will eat well too! How you go about eating well all depends on what you consider good food. I am constantly amazed by how great mac n' cheese tastes in the backcountry. add some pepperoni to it and gets gourmet REAL fast! What food I love and how to make it are in the food section so I'm just gonna cover gear here. All the different stoves and pots and utensils that are available can really make your head spin. One of the biggest questions I've seen asked on the internet is, "What stove should I get?" Stoves I was raised on the:
I can remember us kids having to take turns pumping this stove until our fingers hurt to keep it going. You would pump until you couldn't pump any more then turn the knob and light it. It would always belch flames a foot high until it warmed up and then it would run and run and run. these are great stoves but not a favorite of mine because they are so heavy and they take a lot of fuel. When I began hiking I bought the obvious choice among today's hikers...
I was so proud the day I opened up my Whisperlight for the first time. I filled the tank just full and read the directions very carefully and thoroughly so I would make no mistakes. I pumped the tank up and primed the stove and lit it and it take off like champ. this was the only time in the whole time I owned this stove that it would be this easy. This stove was nothing but a nightmare! constantly having to pump it to keep the pressure up and then it would be too hot, so I'd turn it down. Then the pressure would drop so fast the thing would go out. What a monumental pain in the ass! I kept this stove for a few years after I stopped using. I couldn't part with it. "This is the great Whisperlight!" Only after I switched to the Mini Trangia was I able to kill the sacred cow that is the Whisperlight and sell the darn thing. Good rid dens! At one point when it wouldn't sell I thought of just painting it gold with glitter on it and using it as the star on top of my Christmas tree. My final judgment on this stove is that it was probably as much me as it was the stove (did you know that 50% of all hiker/stove relationships end in divorce?). I just don't have the patients to fiddle with stoves that much. My father sold me a stove that I would forever be in love with...
This stove is so simple even Dirtbag Darrel could run it. It is a small can-looking thing that has a screw off cap. Around the outside of the can top are little holes. All you do is pour in some denatured alcohol or methanol and light it. the can sits down in a small pot stand. It also came with a simmering ring that lets you close off some of the can's top opening. I used the windscreen from my now defunked and abandoned Whisperlight (best part about the whole stove) with the stove and found that it worked just fine. It was totally silent and wasn't as slow as I thought it would be. Besides, who's counting the minutes when your out in the woods? The only small flaw to the stove is that it does take a bit of fuel to use it. I could get by with one pint of methanol ($.79 at the local gas station) for a weekend trip. I found that the methanol burned hotter and cleaner than the alcohol and it was cheaper too. I still use this stove every once in awhile.
This is a simple white gas stove that my father passed on to me. He bought the thing in the mid 70's for a big trip and had used it very little over the years. Having used the "prime and fiddle" gas stoves before I didn't give it much thought. But once I used it on a day hike I instantly fell in love with this stove. The stove is in an aluminum box about 5"x5"x4". It has a tiny brass tank and a burner inside the box. There is a key that slides in through the side that controls the flame. This key has tool holes stamped into it so it acts as the tool used to completely take the stove apart. Like other gas stoves this stove needs priming but that is it. Just prime it until it will light and forget about it! It is self pressurizing and takes no damn pumping at all. I can roll into camp, light the stove, put on water and set up the rest of camp and not give the stove a second thought. While this stove does fall into the "What? stove" category (when the stove is running all people can say to each other is "WHAT!?") it is very fuel efficient and very controllable. It simmers like a champ. the only negative to this stove is the weight. Even with being mostly aluminum it's weight is prohibitive of most lightweight hiking trips. However this stove was my stove of choice for a trip to the Sierras last summer and it worked great.
Saying this stove is an oddball would be an under statement. These wood burning stoves have been around for years and have had a quiet following. they are more expensive than one would thing at $50. I bought this stove on a lark and have never regretted it. I love this stove! There are no negatives to this stove that can not be overcome. People don't like the fact that it gets all that black suit all over the pot. I just put the stove in the pot and the pot in a gallon sized zip lock bag (HA! a Zip in a zip!). The blackening helps the stove heat faster. The stove isn't as fast as a gas stove despite the manufacturer's claims that it actually burns HOTTER than gas stoves. this is of little trouble because the fuel is all around you, it's free and you don't have to carry it. But most of all, we're not in a hurry are we? This stove is basically a double walled pot with holes in the lower wall. All this sits on top of a stand that has a motor in it with a fan that points up into the bottom of the burn chamber. There is a switch that attaches to the fan motor that takes a single AA battery. the fact that this stove takes a batty turns some folks off but I carry batteries for my headlamp anyhow so I'm never without an extra battery. I collect some small sticks about 3" long and set them by the stove as I'm setting up camp and then I start the fire with a little dryer lint and hand sanitizer. Then I slowly add sticks until the air in the chamber wall is warmed and I turn the fan on low. Once it catches really good I turn it up on high and keep feeding the fire until the food is done. The best fuel to burn in this stove is chunks of charcoal from fire rings. They burn hot and clean. Some people don't like the fact that you have to constantly feed the fire but this is one of my favorite things to do is sit and play with fire (Hee, hee hee..FIRE, FIRE!!). It's very relaxing. One of my favorite things about this stove is that it weighs just 14 oz. with no fuel to carry. If I know it will rain I may keep just enough sticks on me to get the fire going, but once it's going wet wood burns just fine in it. the only time this stove has failed me is when I forgot to bring a battery. Even then it still works but just doesn't have it's blow torch effect.
This is my new lightweight darling! It weighs about 2.5 oz. and costs about $2.75. the fuel tabs it takes weigh about 1/2 an oz. each and one tab will cook a slow cooking dinner like Lipton Noodles and coffee. My total weight for this stove with fuel for a weekend is about 6 oz.! It doesn't cook fast but that's never been a factor for me. there are a lot of different fuel tabs for this stove available but the Esbit tabs burn hotter, longer, and cleaner than anything else. I use the old Whisperlight windscreen with it to speed boiling times. I have not used this stove in the winter and figure I'll use the Zipp Stove for winter camping to save on fuel. Fuel costs are about the only bad thing I find with this stove. Campmor carries the tabs for $5.99 per 12 count box. I have found them as cheap as $3.99 a box of 12 though. that's about .30-.50 a tab. Still not too hateful for the weight savings it gives me.
New! MSR Pocket Rocket I can't believe I have bought another darn stove! And an MSR at that! In all honesty this stove was nothing more than an attempt to have tried everything. A canister stove is about the only stove I have not tried and I like to be a well rounded person so I wanted to get one. Of course when it came to which one I chose the lightest one that wasn't titanium and over $100. Ladies and Gents, I give you the Pocket Rocket! A $35 wonder (somewhat)! It only weighs 3 oz and is a little blow torch, literally. You could do sweat soldering with this thing. The light weight of the actual stove is deceptive because it doesn't include the 8 oz. minimum canister. I bulked at the weight at first but I figured that the MSR was the same weight as my Zip stove @ 11 oz. And it is a whole lot easier than the Zip (although I still love the Zip!). It folds down so small that it can fit anywhere in your pack. The first weekend I used this stove it was cold and windy and the performance was less than great. Wind really effects this stove. Unfortunate the only time I use a real stove (non cook fire/Esbit) is when it's cold. This stove is not geared toward that but MSR says that a fresh canister is good down to 12 degrees. My initial performance was less than this but I am not fully schooled in the ways of the canister and have yet learn how to ring the maximum performance out of it. One trick MSR suggests is a gem of advice. Take the worthless fry pan lid from your pot and turn it upside down. Fill it with about an inch or two of water and set the stove with canister in the water. When the canister pressurizes from the exchange during operation it creates cold and freezes up, making performance go down. When put in the fry pan of water the water disperses the cold better than just air and the can doesn't freeze up as fast. It works like a charm. Now all I need is a tall wind screen. I've never felt more ambiguous about any other piece of gear before. Usually I know within a few uses weather I like a piece of gear but this stove has me stumped. I have used it now on two trips and still don't know how I feel about it. It is very light but the performance lacks a bit. But then again it's simplicity somehow wins out overall. This will be one of those pieces of gear that demand further use and updating. I'll get back to you after a few more uses. Pots and Utensils Like most folks who have been hiking for awhile I've run the whole gambit of pots and pans and utensils. I began with the MSR stainless set that is a very good set but as I got more into the lightweight aspects of hiking I found they were too big and heavy. I then picked up the Peak 1 solo kit for $12 in the local second hand store and liked them much better because they were smaller and lighter. But they were still stainless steel and still too heavy for what I wanted. I don't use stainless but for car camping with my wife. This was about the time when the big titanium rush started. Oh how I longed for this stuff! It was just too darn expensive though. then my father gave me his old tall aluminum kettle pot. It was just what I was looking for! It is just as light titanium but much cheaper. Yes it's not as strong as titanium but I don't drive tent stakes with my pot...anymore... yes there is the big Alzheimer's link to aluminum but there is NO scientific link between aluminum pots and Alzheimer's. Besides, I don't cook every meal of the year in aluminum. My favorite pot I use is what I call my "Little House on the Prairie" pot. It is a tall 1 LT. pot with a little bail handle just like little Laura Ingles carried her lunch in, lol! It weighs only 4 oz., is blacker than the ace of spades from suit and has a lot of little dents in it and feels like an old friend when I use it.
My newest pot is a Walmart Grease Pot. It weighs about 3 oz. and costs about $6. It is colored black and comes with a strainer under the lid. I removed the knob from the lid and fixed it to the strainer after placing a piece of heavy foil over the strainer. This allows me to use the strainer for rice and pasta but still hold heat in with the foil cover. I can also pull back the foil and throw a tortilla on top to warm. this pot is just the right size one. I use my bandana as a pot grabber and have yet to get burned...yet! I then made a light fleece pot cozy for it that holds the heat in but allows me to hold the pot while eating.
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