(Part 2) Best open fire cookware according to redditors
We found 117 Reddit comments discussing the best open fire cookware. We ranked the 46 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
What price range are you looking for? Do your parents generally spend over $100 on your for gifts?
​
Here are some basic ideas:
You could also add basic stuff like batteries, lighters, power bars, trash bags, first aid supplies and other consumables.
​
Other items are harder to pick without know more details...
I found https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076DW5T6F?ref=ppx_pt2_tab_b_prod_image.
I am going to point you over to Adventures in Stoving, made by /u/hikin_jim which has more information than you'll probably ever need.
Some brief thoughts, from my own experience:
I have a JetBoil Flash and quite like it. It can handle about 600-700ml of water at once as long as you pay attention, and take it from ice cold glacier water to boiling in a scant few minutes. It's efficient on fuel, too.
Most of the time while I'm out backpacking though, I carry a Soto Amicus and a 750ml titanium pot. Most of my trips are shorter, so I can use one of the littlest cans of fuel, and the whole kit fits into the pot. It's light, and does the job well. It's surprisingly wind resistant for an open stove. Does take a little longer to boil than the above mentioned Flash. When I hike with a partner, he carries a single larger can of fuel, and we take turns cooking.
I'm usually happy with boiling water a couple of times per meal - for example, boil 500ml to make coffee in the morning, and then take the leftover hot water that didn't go into my coffee mug, add some more cold stuff, and re-boil to put in my oatmeal. I can wait for the second boil while sipping my coffee. This does get cumbersome when sharing the stove, though - breakfast and dinner both involve 3-4 boils of water and the Jetboil's greater speed and efficiency becomes useful, especially on longer trips.
I don't think that there is a reasonably sized backpacking stove that could support more than two people, so I just plan accordingly. I'm also not aware of anything that I would want to carry a huge distance that's capable of boiling a full liter of water (at least not without my hiking partner taking something else off of my back). Such stoves do exist though, there's the Jetboil sumo that has a 1.8L pot, a 1.7L MSR Reactor, 1.8L MSR WindBurner, and also the MSR Windburner Group with a 2.5L pot. You could also just use a larger pot with a PocketRocket, Amicus, etc. I'm not sure what the boil time would look like though, and you might want to do some testing to know how much fuel you can expect to need. Great options, but they are a weight penalty to fill a need that I do not have.
Keep in mind that a "1L" pot is typically measured as "1 litre fills it right to the brim" so if you want to boil a full litre of water, you need more room so it doesn't boil over.
I also have a BRS-3000T. It's tiny and weighs very little, but performance goes down the drain in the slightest of breezes, and there have been a number of concerns over build quality and quality control, so I don't use it.
For coffee:
When I'm backpacking, I will drink Alpine Start, or as a second choice Starbucks Via. Alpine start is the first "fancy" instant coffee that I've seen in local shops up here in Canada, and I really like it. To give you a reference point, my at-home coffee setup is a hand grinder and a Chemex, using very fresh beans from a local roaster. I like nice coffee, but I also think that my enjoyment of coffee outdoors is biased because would you look at that lake and mountain holy crow is there any better possible place to sip coffee?
That is to say, I'm probably willing to drink somewhat lower quality java because the scenery more than makes up for it, but I've also had both Alpine Start and Via as rush/backup options at home or travelling, and even without gorgeous mountains I've been okay with Via, and quite enjoyed Alpine Start.
The camping coffee market up here is starting to grow and I'm eyeing up these little weird unfolding filter bag things. I'm eager to try it out, but i feel like for backpacking I might bot be the biggest fan of packing the used grounds and little filter bag out. I generally try to minimize the garbage I'll have by planning ahead, and the teeny packet of instant coffee is about the best you could manage.
​
Webber's are great BBQs if you're doing a big event and grilling lots of stuff over an extended period. However they do take lots of charcoal to fire up properly.
Firstly you're going to want to buy charcoal briquettes, not lump charcoal. They burn much longer and give a much steadier heat. Downside is they are harder to light. This is where the chimney firestarter comes in. Not only does it make it easier to light the briquettes but it also makes sure that all of them are evenly lit. You know you've achieved this when they have a coating of ash all round. I would recommend using this type of fire lighter:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Packs-Quickfire-Firelighters-Bulk-Hotspots/dp/B005G2RGOU
I think they perform much better than lighter fluid.
Once you have at least one chimneys worth of briquettes going you should be fine just pouring more onto the BBQ directly as required.
Lastly I think it's worth observing that the gas fired BBQs are really great. So much quicker to get going and so much easier to cook with. But since you already have the charcoal version, I'd make the best of it.
The Optimus Crux Weekend HE Cook System has a similar profile to a Jetboil but more flexibility and less costly than piecing a system together from scratch. There's space inside for a 230g LPG canister too, versus Jetboil Zip's 100g.
The Jetboil is truly the simplest way to boil water, if that's all you're doing.
Disclosure: I own that cook system, as well as a Polaris Optifuel for any trip longer than a weekend where I might want to burn something other than LPG.
https://www.amazon.com/Texsport-Deluxe-Campfire-Tripod/dp/B015YI2QEU
the model I bought doesn't seem to be on sale anymore but it's the one that came with this pot
I think the reason it got discontinued is that the top lid tended to warp with heat and not seal very well, so it doesn't boil water as fast as some of the other systems. I am planning to get one of the vertical jugs for this summer and still bring my pot with me to cook traditional food in.
Yum! I love campfire cooking! Have you ever used one of these? If not, I highly recommend it.
Camp-A-Toaster CT1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007HRIYDY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uqkiDbBC59XRV
The Jetboil is nice because it is super efficient, which saves fuel and thus weight over a long trip. The efficiency comes from the pot which has a built in heat exchanger. You can get close to the same performance by getting an Olicamp XTS pot which also has a heat exchanger, but it won't be as efficient as the Jetboil. However it does take practice to be really efficient... for larger groups where you may be cooking real food and heating multiple pots of water, you may end up needing a large canister so fuel efficiency may not be critical.
The MSR Pocket Rocket is ol' reliable, been used by a lot of people over the years. But nowadays it's heavy and bulky, the pot supports don't fold up that much so it won't nest inside any smaller pots. The MSR Pocket Rocket 2 is lighter and more compact so you can fit it inside a pot with the canister, makes it much more convenient to pack.
While MSR is a long trusted brand, there are other stoves out there that are much cheaper and have been very reliable. There's the Etekcity stove which is pretty cheap and reliable. You can buy them individually for a few bucks more, but if you go in with a friend you'll save some cash. Another very popular stove is the BRS-3000T, which is extremely light; however, being so small and light it's not nearly as stable as larger stoves like the MSR PR2. If you just want to heat water in a small Ti pot, it's great, but if you want to try to fry up some eggs and bacon on a frying pan, you'll need to pay attention since it won't hold up the larger pan.
You can buy a cheap Stanley stainless steel pot for $10, it's a little heavy but works fine for boiling water. Amazon just started selling a version of the popular anodized cookset if you only bring the pot it's not that heavy, and the hard anodized surface works pretty well for actual cooking if you want to do that in the future.
edit: fixed link.
If you're concerned with your budget:
Coffee maker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N11L8JD?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf
Poor man's jet boil https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B4FY8YO?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf
ECVILLA Camping Mess Kit and Cookware Set - Cooking Picnic Bowl Pot Pan Set 2 Piece https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZZQZH8?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf
I was given this kit. One tank will store inside the pot along with the stove, and I also keep a towel in there to keep it from rattling, and a random, sturdy plastic spoon I flattened the tip and shortened the handle on that works to stir or flip.
I'm a cheap bastard when it comes to buying stuff like this. JetBoil brand stuff is expensive, and the added efficiency benefit is only present with pots and such specially made for use with JetBoil stoves. Not to mention, I can't see saving much fuel over my current use case. It's not usually very windy inside my van, either.
I'm urban most of the week, so there's icemakers all around me, but I rarely pay for ice. I keep trays in the freezer at my office, I keep the pack in the fridge when I'm there and there's actually something in it, and my routine offers me a good store that I stop at daily. Most convenience stores will give you a cup full of ice for free, if you simply provide the cup. I find a 32oz foam cup is enough for a day. If I want to go longer, I stop in that everyday-stop store, and the ladies and gent there I've made friends with let me fill the whole thing up with ice.
My shopping and eating habits are growing more in-tune with using the softpack too, much of it revolving around reducing the need to keep things cool. I get a lot from Dollar Tree, like their ultra-pasteurized milk quarts, which store for a year unopened, and in practice (I was brave for you here ;D) don't need to stay very cool to keep for days after opening. So, breakfast is typically cereal or cereal bars, with coffee made in a pot on the stove. Lunch is often soup, or reheated leftovers from the previous day. Dinner is a lot more random, though. I've always eaten at restaurants a lot, but I prefer to cook larger meals outside whenever I can. We do cookouts at my office all the time, but I also do a lot of sunset cooking on park grills in-town. If I'm out in the woods, I dig a Dakota Fire Pit. I buy meats for all those on the way to those events.
One key I don't think people realize is that it doesn't take nearly as much energy or ice to keep something cold as it does to make it cold. So, my leftovers are often just left out, but stored in a ziplock bag with the air sucked out of it. Otherwise, it'll melt all my ice in an hour. There's usually preservatives in the food (a lot of casseroles and noodle or rice dishes), and it would need air and bacteria to even start going foul. I've only had to throw away leftovers because they went bad by lunch the next day only a couple times, and there was a good possibility I just didn't get all the air out very well both times. For weekends with my son, I'll buy 6-12 eggs and a tiny tub of butter for a dollar each. Butter is still butter when it's warm, and eggs are fine for a couple days, even washed.
So, the cooler is mostly for drinks, once the rest of my routine takes effect. Since most of what I have in there at any given time is either soda, beer, or meat I'm cooking in a matter of hours, I don't even have ice in it much of the time.
Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:
Amazon Smile Link: this pot
|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Germany|www.amazon.de||
To help add charity links, please have a look at this thread.
This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.
You should check this out I don't own one myself yet but I plan to pick one up soon. I've got a friend who speaks very highly of his.
If $40 is more than you are looking to spend you can go with the much more affordable Stanley Camp Cookset for about $15 but I would suggest adding one of these and ditching the plastic cups in the Stanley to bring your total to $20. The Stanley even fits real nice into the steel cup for storage purposes and you can put some food and eating utensils inside the Stanley.
This is basically the set up I use now and it's great.
the GSI is definitely not what I'm looking for. Not only because of price but because of what you said. I also found that people in general don't like the cups and bowls, the bowls and plates tend to get brittle after a year or two.
I'd also have to purchase 2 sets of additional cups/plates.
I'm going to go with something like this for the plates, etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-Dinnerware-Carry-Free/dp/B01B2MYD0W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469235005&sr=8-2&keywords=stainless+steel+plates
And something like this for the pots:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019F6NTUW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=DM73B6WNBEVE&coliid=IVN1CMJ0J4MV
Edit: Thanks BTW that was exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for.
This should work. The mini stove with the cookware looks similar to Etekcity.
https://www.amazon.com/G4Free-Outdoor-Camping-Cookware-Backpacking/dp/B00XX6O4AU
It's a crappy anodised aluminium camping cookpot.
Link to the Stanley Compact Cookset and the Camp Cookset , looks rather nice.
I'm generally a fan of the jetboil though...
[Stansport 2.5 Quart Aluminum Cook Pot with Lid] (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00DFZYNZU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_4Sx7xbKSX61C5) 12$ or so for a nice sized cook pot, walmart has 10$ multitools, but if you want anything remotely useful, buy them both a good medkit and a knife, spend 20-30 on those each ideally but 15 each works I guess. But this seems more like a kiddy thing or a gimmick 30$ seems like some /k/ survival game, not effective for actual survival.
Edit: here is a nice little [Knife] (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B007C1SG7E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_M-x7xbDDFQ1YR) thats dirt cheap, its stainless but not horrible, it will keep its edge as long as they need it to and takes less care to keep it good. A dollarama kitchen knife is not a replacement for a halfway decent knife. It will not work in the same way a normal knife does.
Source: avid outdoorsman, hiker and a cook.
For short backpacking trips or consumption in the first few days: Fresh eggs will keep without refrigeration. You can probably pack 4-6 of them in the little plastic egg containers. And bacon - you can get the ready-cooked microwave style at the supermarket and pack that. Or, cook it a day ahead and reheat it the next morning for breakfast - fully cooked bacon won't go bad that fast as long as you keep it dry and sealed.
Potatoes: powdered, ready-to-eat hashbrowns, or precooked well-done hash browns. They'll keep for a couple days, just reheat.
Egg Container: http://www.amazon.com/Stansport-Camping-6-Egg-Container/dp/B004TEQSUY
GSI Outdoors makes an anodized aluminum 2.7L pressure cooker intended for backpacking. I've never talked to someone who has used it, perhaps you could be the first? :-D
https://www.amazon.com/GSI-Outdoors-Halulite-2-7-Liter-Pressure/dp/B0037D751O/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1503016391&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=gsi%2Bpressure%2Bcooker&th=1&psc=1