How big a pot and how many pots?

[Tokwan]

When you pack your bag, what is the usual size of the pot u are packing and usually how many pots.
I am using either the Trangias or the Esbits and wondering if there are any better ideas or pots?
I am more concern about the sizes.

[Rick]

The only thing I usually care are two canteen cups and a U.S. G.I. mess kit. There are lighter alternatives but those have served me well for a long time. I have tried other cook pots but always return to the military stuff.

[hunter63]

My go to is the GI canteen/cup/stove.....and have added a Billy pot...or know as a corn broiler....6" steel fry pan.

Or

Full blown cast iron set, enameled plate bowls cup etc......

[TXyakr]

IMO “cook pot selection” depends on many factors that include the type of camping trip, number of people, stove type, climate, food choices, and obviously personal preference. I have over 20 different camping cook pots and a several pans (don’t tell my wife, she may go ballistic). However, many of mine are from thrift shops and yard sales, only a few are titanium from REI etc.

For me: Snow Peak 900ml works well for 2 people but there are smaller and cheaper from brands that include:

http://www.keith-ti.com/en
http://toaksoutdoor.com

Also from Hong Kong there are cheap alternatives from DX dot com but these are not always the lowest price and quality can be poor so shop around, buyer beware.

If you are new to Wood Stoves, I recommend buying a cheap aluminum or SS pot used from a Thrift Store. Don’t obsess about the soot it only improves the efficiency of the cook pot, just take care in handling and packing it. Wrap in Reflectix cozy or whatever.

One other pot I often use is wide and shallow, so it works well for frying fish etc. From Brunton but other brands are fine. (This one was sold to me by a friend who owns an online camping supply store.) Includes nesting 2nd pot, pot cozy neoprene insulator, and detachable handle. I also have an REI brand 3 pot/3 pan nesting aluminum pan set with detachable handles. Alcohol or canister stoves fit inside almost all of my camping cook pots. Canister stoves or white gas are either a requirement or strongly encouraged by Rangers during burn bans in western wilderness areas. Wood fires and Alcohol stoves may be highly restricted or banned, and canisters do not work well if temps are well below freezing. This can influence your pot choice for a particular trip. (both metal and organic if you have THOSE types of traveling companions, mostly I avoid those types of folks.)

At local thrift shops I am always on the lookout for Paul Revere brand or similar Stainless Steel with copper/brass bottom small pots or pans because these are very efficient on fuel and time but expensive to purchase new. (Not idea for backpacking obviously.) Also Cast Iron Dutch Ovens and fry pans, all mine I purchased new but used is good if you know what to look for.

The most difficult thing about buying used is a matching lid. As the Afghanistan people say a “widow who has lost her soldier husband is like a pot without a lid.” Very sad. Even a $2 silicon lid from a pet supply store works for backpacking, or 2nd pot or pan inverted. Glove, shammy towel, neoprene, silicone pad or whatever as hot pad. (I did NOT mean to imply that an Afghanistan soldier was like a $2 pet food lid, please do NOT misquote me. I have much respect for those soldiers defending their land from extremists who are destroying it.)

Edit: I also have a heavy cast aluminum pan with non-stick ceramic, "Green pan" that I got for under $2 at a Thrift Shop. It works well for frying fish when canoe camping like during the white bass spawn a few weeks from now.

[kyratshooter]

Like Hunter, I have been a reenactor for many years and we get into the best of both worlds.

I have a full camp kitchen with 4 nesting cast iron dutch ovens, cast iron skillets and hand forged campfire gear, all of which requires helper springs under the Cherokee and heavy duty tires on the cargo trailer.

I also have 18th century trekking gear in plenty, which is mostly nesting tin-ware with a 1 quart pot being home for the 1 pint tin cup and the deep sided lid of the 1qt pot also being a serving bowl. there is a 6" skillet with folding handle that goes with that set too.

Strangely enough in the modern world much of that transfers and I favor a one pound coffee can as my primary hiking cookware with a smaller tin cup nesting inside. Winnie gave me a spork a couple of years ago and I have made good use of that device too.

When camping out of the vehicle I take whatever I feel I need from the kitchen, although I do prefer the enameled sheet steel skillets and pots just for the "outdoorsy" feel they give the camp.

I also have the echo of my mom's words in the back of my head; "You can cook a little bit in a big pot but its hard to cook a lot in a little pot." Good advice when camping with a group, and more of my efforts are now group camps, either family or friends.

The 32 cup coffee pot is a must as well as the smaller 12 cup unit. The big pot is for hot water near the fire at all times and the smaller coffee pots get rotated in and out of the fire at a rate dependent on how many people are standing around talking.

I will also use disposable cups, plates and utensils whenever possible because I am a lazy rascal and do not like to wash dishes.

[TXyakr]

Baking outdoors: I have recently experimented with primitive baking, the easiest methods are probably with a Dutch oven that is preheated and then to use small balls of dough that have been pre-chilled in snow or ice. Therefore winter time of year is ideal for this. My mother baked loaf yeast breads on a clay stove my father built on a crude table top constructed of sapling tree trunks, she used aluminum pots and wood as a fuel. Not as simple as bannock bread on a stick over a fire but it taste much better. I have tried cookie and various biscuit mixes in Dutch ovens, these will go flat if the oven is not preheated and small dough balls are not very cold. Next is to try much lighter weight pots surrounded by heated rocks, or cardboard coated in aluminum foil over a small camp stove. Or just a small oven constructed of clay and/or stones and use wood fire coals. The variety of dry dough mixes is unlimited: leavened or just with baking powder etc. Ideally it would be backpackable, or canoeable not requiring an MRAP transport vehicle. One friend of mine often does canoe with 2 large Dutch ovens in his 17 foot solo canoe in this region and 16 foot solo raft on the mid Salmon in Idaho. I call them boat anchors. He calls them essential gear. LOL Hit a sharp or hard rock and all is lost very quickly.

[hunter63]

We do a lot of baking in Dutch ovens.

Secret is to have a trivet on the bottom inside the DO or in our case a hand full of like sized gravel, a pie pan for the bread, pies, corn bread.
Actually the same gravel has been in there for 20 plus years.....LOL

I place a preheated DO in a 16" cast iron fry pan set on a trivet....filled with coals (or charcoal)......put bread in pan, into oven, then cover up then shovel coal on top.(or charcoal).
Don't put in DO over fire unless you are doing stew, soups, etc.......Baking no.

[TXyakr]

hunter63 gravel is great idea! I never considered it. I had tried inverted disposable aluminum pie pan, and also cut and folded a pizza pan etc even double layered cookies which was a bad idea because bottom layer baked faster (in a deep DO). Mostly use parchment paper to save time. Bottom line best to minimize empty space and seal tightly. I agree use coals below and above, there are charts online to give estimates on temperature based on rough number of coals and size of DO but best to experiment because how much food, moisture content etc are additional variables, how many times you open how many DO and pans are stacked, if DO(s) are in feed pan to buffer wind and reflect heat back etc. I can cook/bake/roast with just about anything outdoors but cast iron is the most fun if I have the time. Virtually anything that fits can be cooked in one.

[TXyakr]

Here is a simple cheap idea I had with an aluminum "grease pot" (1.5 quart) and canister fuel that fits completely inside it which can be found at most local Wal-Mart stores for about $15, or extra $30 for the stove. Good to know if something ever happens to your primary cooking setup and you need a quick cheap replacement and are near some small town with a WM. Add some instant mash potatoes or rice, trap or shoot some squirrels or rabbits and you have a quick "shepherd's pie". Can of vegetables if your wife insists on it.

cookpot.jpg

Edit: Personally this would not be my first choice, I am not a big fan of Coleman or Imusa.

[randyt]

I use a mors bushpot, sometimes a canteen cut and a 6 inch carbon steel skillet.

[Tokwan]

Reason I am asking is I have a few cooksets. I sometimes do not know which one to pack. I do love the old GI mess tins ( a pair) and the water bottle and cup. But sometimes, I was thinking that if I have one big pot, then my cooking is limited to one. I might need one big pot and one small pot...then the packing comes into play. I want to save space and weight. I would put the smaller pot into the big pot, and all the food in there too....sometimes, I just couldn't make up my mind..its when , where and how you are.....but sometimes, it just kicks you in the butt for bringing the wrong set. DILEMMA!!!!!!

[Tokwan]

The ego of having the branded and expensive cook sets, and then opting them out and going for the old GI mess tins and cup...really hurts your ego.........sigh!!!!

[Batch]

I have a kit that has a frying panish size nestled in a bigger pot. It is a cheapo kit that came with two plastic coffee cups. I have a stove that nestles into that same rig. That was my original back pack set and it is still just as functional. I have a jetboil also. I have a billy can style pot.

For big camping trips I vary between my expanded metal grill over a fire with a cheap skillet. My cast iron. I also have a 3 burner propane Camp Chef Big Gas Grill with the grill and the 16" X 37" cast iron griddle top.

It depends on if it just me. My brother Sean and I. Or, if we start getting bigger crews.

[Winnie]

It would seem the mess tins win out. I have a nice nesting billy tin set and I may even get round to using it, but I usually pack just the mess tin and a metal cup.

[kyratshooter]

One of my favorite sets is the result of being a cheapskate.

I found a set of kitchen canisters made from spun aluminum, without seams.

A simple installation of wire bails provided me with a set of 4 nesting pots/cups with lids that has proven very versatile over the years.

I do not pay much attention to the name stamped on the cookware. It's all going to be set in the middle of the fire to boil water for rehydration of meals or coffee. That does not require a $100 pot!

It's also the reason I horde 1 pound coffee cans.

[TXyakr]

Reason I am asking is I have a few cooksets. I sometimes do not know which one to pack. I do love the old GI mess tins ( a pair) and the water bottle and cup. But sometimes, I was thinking that if I have one big pot, then my cooking is limited to one. I might need one big pot and one small pot...then the packing comes into play. I want to save space and weight. I would put the smaller pot into the big pot, and all the food in there too....sometimes, I just couldn't make up my mind..its when , where and how you are.....but sometimes, it just kicks you in the butt for bringing the wrong set. DILEMMA!!!!!!

Typically I try to plan the food for a trip by the weekend before at the latest so I have a good idea of what pot(s) I will need to cook the various meals in. I also take enough protein (meats and beans etc) even if the fishing, hunting and foraging is expected to be very good. If I bring back lots of food (often do, sometimes pounds of frozen chicken on primitive canoe trips) then that is just fine. I prefer to just extended the trip but other people generally veto that. If not cooking a gourmet meal that requires multiple pots, I may use the 2nd/3rd to boil water by the fire or settle out sediments with alum/sulfate or something. I added some photos of some 59 cent to $1.79 pots that nest inside each other (from Thrift Store). These can be packed with food (instant/minute rice or noodles etc.) or a stove and fuel or whatever as well. The cost does not need to be high. I never assume that I cleaned them well enough to keep near my shelter so put in a bag and hang from a tree when I go to sleep, thus I am not fond of the idea of keeping my food cook pot with my water container. Raccoons like to carry off these things. If I loose my cook pot and stove I can survive without these, but that would really bite. No water container and I might die.

Once a raccoon removed the lid of a very large 16 or 20" D.O. a friend had left out overnight without cleaning.

Pots1Nested.jpg

Pots2Display.jpg

pots3nestTopView.jpg

Stanley small stainless steel pot (Wal-Mart or sports store) is my one person option when camping out of a very small white water kayak, weight not an issue but space a premium. This is not as easily crushed as aluminum or titanium. Plastic nesting cups it comes with are fairly useless, better to fill with alky stove and dry food or fuel. WW yak because it is a lot more fun than open canoe or raft, difference between Testarossa and Pickup Truck.

Edit: it is a little dangerous in a tent one of reasons I prefer tarps, but you can use an extra pot with small tea or similar candles (citronella), solid fuel tablets or coals to reduce the moisture and insects in your shelter even (especially) when you are not there i.e. cooking breakfast or whatever. Especially if in a 3 season tent put stone or wood under the pot or you could burn a hole in the bottom. Not advisable in most nylon tents especially if you are sleeping in there at the same time. Probably my last choice of shelter.

[randyt]

here's my mors pot getting broke in.

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[Old Professor]

Sportsmans Guide.com has Czech military surplus mess kits on sale, two for $18. A big pot, a small pot(nesting and a plate/bowl). Not the smallest kit I have seen but I no longer back pack, so it should work fine.

[xjosh40x]

I got with my canteen cup and G.I. Mess Kit. Sometimes if I feel like hearing the clang I'll strap on a 8" boiling pot I have had for years. My mom got a new pot set and I got one if the old ones and used to cook soups and such in it as a kid in my clubhouse and still have it today.

[Adventure Wolf]

I have a Stansports pot I use when I go camping. It's stainless steel, and I bought it from a Kmart awhile back. It's a 3/4 liter pot. It's big enough that it can make soup for me and a companion.