Billy can VS Kettle

[myotis]

When backpacking on my own (which I supose is akin to bushcrafting) I started carrying all the pans that came in the nesting set or with a trangia and the pots and kettle that came with it. But soon discovered that most of them got carried out and carried back unused.

I ended up with a large plastic insulated mug and a the smallest trangia pot plus a foil lid.

The cooking routine was to boil water in the pot and make a coffee in the plastic mug, then cook meal in pot while drinking the coffee.

After meal, wash out pot, boil more water for more coffee or drinking chocolate in mug. In spite of tryng to keep the weight down, I found the insulated mug meant I could potter about cooking the meal and the coffee stayed hot.

If two of us went, then we would take the trangia kettle and a second larger pot, which made life so much simpler.

And if I felt like the additional weight I would sometimes take the trangia kettle backpacking, as it was really useful if the weather was bad and you didn't feel like washing out your cooking pot, but in need of a brew up.

My minimalist kit today is an insulated mug plus a small billy (around the 1litre mark) with a tight fitting lid. I would then add a second 2 litre billy with a lid, and then a kettle, as circumstances allowed.

But its one of these things that you need to find out in practice. When I backpacked with dehydrated foods I only took the Trangia kettle as it boiled quicker than the pan did.

The one pot plus plastic mug worked fine, but needed discipline to wash out the pot and a lot of the time this was really irritating.

So if you can put up with the weight, I reckon that a two billy nesting set is probably a good starting point. Or if you are happy heating water and drinking out of the same thing a crusader mug and billy seems a reasonable starting point.

Graham

Graham

 

[w00dsmoke]

I nearly always take a small Kelly Kettle as a dedicated water boiler. It weighs very little and if I'm only going for a couple of nights I prefer just taking it as with a little thought on food, cooking is no hassle. I would stick to dehy. But either way a KK gives me water for the luxury of hot washing anytime I want and thats worth it's weight in gold when grubbing around in low places!

 

[Treemonk]

I use an MSR titan cookset - 1 litre pot, 800 ml pot and 800 ml kettle. I have fitted a bail to the big pot.

They all nest together neatly and weigh including a pot cozy for the small pot, pan gripper, whitebox stove and windshield 580 grams! A crusdaer mug weighs about 270 g on its own.

The big pot gets used for boiling water mainly. The kettle gets used as a mug. The small pot is used for food.
The pot lid is also a frying pan and have used for a base for grilling bannock.
The small pot can be raised on 3 pebbles within the big pot to make an oven to cook bread or pies

 

[woof]

I have a nesting set, and have recently bought a 14cm billy. However, it remains unused, and i have since got a 2 pint s/s teapot from a charity shop, and i will try using that as a solo pot, just to see how i get on. But i will clean it after use, to save(and out of habit)messing about in the morning.

 

[Bimble]

Heres, something I wrote a while back in antother thread, it seems it may be of discussional use. I think the kettle is best.

Just for the record, no causal link has been found between cooking in aluminium pots and Alzheimer’s. It’s just one of those pseudo studies based on bad science that sells news papers.

I personally think Zebra cans are overpriced and very heavy. They are actually every day cooking pans in Asia and defiantly not something I would want to carry far. (I think most people’s logic is ‘Ray’ swears by them so they must be good, I urge you to reconsider.)

I carry just two items when on my own. A 0.8 litre trangia kettle (£8 new from any outdoor shop) and a 1 litre aluminium pan that fits over the kettle. Both these live in an ordinary plastic bag to keep soot of the rest of my gear.

The kettle is the most useful cooking piece of kit for bushcraft. Most people don’t realise that the Scandinavian kettle is designed to cook in. The lids are deliberately large so you can cook and eat out of them directly. They are as easy to clean as any pan and they spill less when stirring.

They are cleverly designed so you can place one next to a fire without having to suspend it. You fold the handle over away from the fire. To pick it up you use just one hand placing your index finger on the lid button and lifting the handle and moving in one movement, simple, no burnt fingers, no spilt food in the fire! (Suspending valuable pots directly over a fire was considered bad practice in Scandinavia long ago.)

They are simple to drain when cooking food like rice/pasta/beans. Just hold as stated above to keep the lid secure, placing your spoon over the spout to not let any food out and pour away the excess water.

The low flat design presents the maximum surface area to a fire/sprit burner and hence boils much quicker than a tall pot like a Zebra. Much of the problems people have with sprit stoves is their use with inappropriate pots and pans. I think the shape of the kettle also allows much more stuff to be packed inside, particularly your spoon and of course spirit burner for when a fire is imprudent.

The rolled top edge, reduced size opening and inside fitting lid make them much more robust than an equivalent weight/volume pot.

The aluminium pot I use is also trangia, and does service as a bowl keeping food warm by the fire while the cooking is mostly done in the kettle. The pot also doubles as a fry-pan, but not that often, as frying is a difficult thing to get right using lightweight pans and a fire.

You can get a bit fancier than the basic kettle I use, I think primus now do a hard anodised variant and you can get stainless models to, but you can’t beat a Scandinavian coffee kettle for versatility and performance when solo camping in my humble opinion.

As an aside, this is how to make tea properly in the bush (A little anal I know, but if something’s worth doing it’s worth doing well!):

1. Filling from a river or lake place your thumb over the spout and submerge the kettle in the water. Now remove the thumb so water is drawn from below the surface, that way you don’t get bits of insect and scum in your tea.
2. Boil water and then place tea bag into kettle.
3. Put milk powder in insulated cup (you should not plan to use your cup for cooking. From experience, it’s much more useful if it’s designed to keep your drink hot outdoors. I hate the crusader cup. I suppose it’s alright as an improvised shovel for digging a fox hole, but as a drinking utensil it sucks and the crappy handles are dangerous with hot fluids, not that your drink stays hot for long!), pour in a splash of cold water and mix the milk powder.
4. Now here’s the important bit. Pour the tea into the mug containing milk! (If you do it in this sequence you don’t scorch the milk with the boiling water as it is added slowly. This is why a teapot is used to make tea. If you don’t believe me, make a cuppa this way then another by putting cold milk into the hot tea. Now taste both side by side.)
5. The other reason you use a kettle/teapot for this is that the infusion should be poured from below the surface as you pour, this way you avoid that metallic looking, bad tasting, scum that is produced when steeping the tea.

 

[Armleywhite]

I always take a pair of mess tins, my ex army folding hex burner. Never let me down, fairly compact and light. Covers a multitude of uses.

Jobs a gudun.

 

[Husky]

As an aside, this is how to make tea properly in the bush (A little anal I know, but if something’s worth doing it’s worth doing well!):

There is always a (at least one) right way to do something but often you dont know the reason why something is done a certain way.
I love this kind of tidbits of knowledge!