Cooking with a tea kettle ....

[88BlueGT]

Well, I was going through my gear last night and found a GSI kettle that I have never used. Comes in at 6oz (approx 1/2 the weight of my current pot/pan setup) and the strainer piece is PERFECT size for storing my pepsi can stove. I was thinking MAYBE. just MAYBE, I could cook with this thing. Its the older version so the top opening is kind of small so eating out of it may be a little difficult. I checked it and it seems that I can fit a spoon or fork in there pretty easily though. So my question is, has anyone ever used something like this to cook with? or is this just dumb.... :rolleyes:

[mweinstone]

sounds fun and possibly awsome. its a no brainer. it may be a discovery. im wondering if it spills less boils faster stays hot longer looks cooler. i think so. get back to me on this for sure.

[88BlueGT]

Will do, I'm going to try to cook something up when I get home. I will let you know how it goes.

Still interested to hearing some pros/cons/experience with cooking with a tea kettle. It would be nice to be able to have both in one!

[mweinstone]

as much bacon as i cook. it might control spattering greese more and let exsess greese be poured off. all pasta can be drained thru the spout witch is cool. and if you left a scrap of bagle in it at night you could catch a mouse to tease and it wouldnt be able to get out from the sloped walls. exsulent emergency trap for mice.

[88BlueGT]

So now it has 3 purposes! :D

BTW, didn't even think about the pasta and being able to easily pour our the excess water, great idea.

[Toli]

Will do, I'm going to try to cook something up when I get home. I will let you know how it goes.

Still interested to hearing some pros/cons/experience with cooking with a tea kettle. It would be nice to be able to have both in one!

I used a Primus Tea Kettle for years... My stove/fuel/spoon fit in with room to spare. I modified my spoon alittle to fit the inside shape so I could scrape all the food off... That thing would boil a cup of water with just 7ml of fuel :D...

[88BlueGT]

^^ Thats awesome I'm excited to go home and try it out now. I will have to redesign my pot stand for an optimal boil time but thats no big deal. I just hope my extra pot stand material wasn't thrown away when my garage was being overhauled last week :/

[Rocket Jones]

It's great for boiling water, but I think if I were doing any actual cooking I'd prefer a regular pot. Easier to stir, easier to eat from, easier to clean.

I love my kettle, but I do FBC only.

[88BlueGT]

I don't cook any fansy foods on trail so a kettle should be fine. I plan on expanding my knowledge of FBC as well.

[88BlueGT]

OK well if anyone cares. I took a LITTLE bit of time tonight to go out and mess with the kettle a bit. This is a 32oz kettle so it holds 2 cups of water (more than ill ever need) perfectly fine with a little room to spare. Unfortunately, I believe this will be too small to eat out of, unless I want my food goo'ing over the top. I took a look at GSI's new kettle and they have redesigned one with a wider top. I may take a look into that or other kettles on the market.

I did run a few boil tests with the kettle. I can say this, I am less enthusiastic with the results than I am about the idea of using a kettle pot (<--- catchy huh? lol)
With 1oz of fuel I got a boiling time on 2 cups (room temp) of 7:01 seconds. Now that is a significant amount longer than my current cookset which comes in the 3's or 4's I believe. Granted, this was using my pot stand for my other pot, so boiling times could be decreased with the shift in height of the pot stand. It did seem to work well where it was though :/ I also ran it with no stand and just sitting on top of the stove (pepsi can stove) and I ran out of fuel after approx 1.2 oz and never boiled. I guess I would need to put more work in to get the times down, BUUUUUUUUT its not big enough to eat out of so I guess there is no point in going any further.

I am still VERY interested in hearing some stories of cooking with your kettles! I need some ideas!

[SassyWindsor]

I've been using a Titanium 1.3 liter Pot with lid, somewhat similar.

[fredmugs]

Thinking only about the tea kettle I have at home doesn't it take longer to boil water than other backpacking options? Biggest reason I bought a Jetboil is because I got sick of watching my hiking partner have boiling water so fast.

[grayfox]

I have several kettles that I use for cooking as well as just heating water.

My favorite all round is the MSR Titan, just a pot really with a lid and a small bend in the edge for a spout. I like that the sides are straight and I like the handles that fold flat. It is just the right size for me.

I have three other small kettles, stainless, anodized, and aluminum. I like the wider bottom that heats better on my stoves, they all have lids and pour spouts and bail handles that can be hung over a fire on a wire or green stick. They are all a bit different in design. I like the strainer that one has, I like the spout being even with the rim of the pot on another and I like the taller bail on one that lets me take off the lid without upsetting the tea kettle. I wish one had all the good parts together.

Where I have trouble is in stiring the pot I seem to always send a bit of my food out the spout by accident. It is hard to cozy the kettle without spilling. I think that I will try to find a cork that fits and try to seal the spout with it.

Using a two piece cozy makes eating from the pot easier on your hands when it is hot.

I like using the kettle--just making a pot of tea and putting the pot in the cozy is a nice ritual.

[Ashman]

Thinking only about the tea kettle I have at home doesn't it take longer to boil water than other backpacking options? Biggest reason I bought a Jetboil is because I got sick of watching my hiking partner have boiling water so fast.

Same hear, that coupled with a failure of my alcy stove

[Toolshed]

I used a trangie aluminum tea kettle for a number of years (2002-2005 or 6) with my pepsi can stoves before i bought my bargain cave ti pot. This is when I was carrying "add water" FD meals.
I like the simplicity of the kettle, the ability to keep water very hot (I created a reflectix cozy for it and used an old wine bottle cork over the spout) and a the bail handle which stayed cool.
I never "cooked" with it but it was fast for boiling water for coffee and meals. I suppose if I needed to cook in it I could, but I can imagine cleanup being a pain my my big-ass hands.

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