Trangia 25+27 capacity question for field use

Hm, this will take some thought!

 

@Marc, thanks for the retort link, I've wondered what the shelf life of the simple freeze packed food would be. Neither the food or the package would have been sterilised as in a retort (pressure cooker) process.

Probably good enough for 48hrs+ as it'll be reheated.

 

If you wrapped it in your sleeping gear as insulation and took pains to keep it cold, maybe. Especially if you're hiking in cooler temps.

Last thing I'd want is stomach troubles a day's hike from a proper loo. My previously iron gut has turned quite sensitive in recent years, I personally wouldn't risk it.

 

Greetings, All,

Sweet Bride and I, have made some very tasty home-dehydrated meals over the years we've been backpacking. When we did our first 850 miles of the PCT, we were the best fed through hikers out there!! In fact, as some of our meals created a bit more than we wanted to eat, we shared with others who eagerly woofed down whatever we offered them!! And, those home-dehydrated meals last for many, many years, if packed in a cool, dark place. For us, it's THE way to go, if you want light, delicious, and very healthy meals on the trail. Yum!! Take care, and God Bless!

Every Good Wish,
Doc

 

Hi @Doc Mark, I remember you talking about dehydration previously, it's something I've yet to experiment with. You'll have to remind me what dehydrator you used, water being the enemy of preservation.

Also I can't recall how you packed the meals, or if you mentioned it at the time.

 

An easy way to rehydrate a dehydrated meal is to add water to the meal in a sealed container. After breakfast or at lunch. Then when time to cook it does not take near as much fuel to finish.
I have not done boil in the bag for more than 20 years. I make my own dehydrated meals. I learned it first as Freezer Bag Cooking.

 

Some good suggestions here. I do a sort of hydrid of these. I vacuum pack, but I actually use tinned food. OK there's some terrible canned food, but there are also some cracking tins out there. Certainly here in the UK. I empty out the tin, pop on the freezer to set them if they're very saucy, then vac them. The pack better than tins, there's no tin to have to dispose of and they cook really quickly in the bag. I use the hot water for washing up, or for coffee and eat the contents straight from the bag. No mess. You can freeze them solid if you like and pop them into an insulated pouch. I've had some stay solid for nearly 2 days. Using film, you can make the bag any size you like so it will fit in your pot.

Why are you all looking at me like that?

 

@Chris J probably because of your comment about UK tinned food. Probably not helped by the images in this thread I guess.

https://classiccampstoves.com/threads/better-late-than-never-pt-2.40137/

 

This discussion reminds me of our amiable encounter with Sarah Kirconnel, the Freezer Bag Cooking lady, in 2007. This was at Ipsut Creek in Mt. Rainer Nat'l Park. Christine and I, and Sarah's small party, a son and a friend, were the only backpackers there, so at some point we went over to their campsite and introduced ourselves.

We were frying steaks and the aroma thereof had floated their way; they found it very enticing. They were cooking freezer bag food; Sarah had a blog and had come out with at least a couple of books on freezer bag cooking. So, in the nature of things, she was cooking freezer bag food, partly, I'm sure, for blog reporting purposes.

We laughed wryly about it; if you're the Freezer Bag lady, you don't get to fry steaks in the backcountry- it's bags all the way!

 

I recall you mentioned that before.
It depends on what you put in the bag, Ed. I never could have eaten her menu, I learned from her ideas. I never did follow her blog either.

I think it was my father that said ... those that can, do. Those that cannot, teach.

 

Nothing contra to her and her blog and books; I don't doubt she had/has many good ideas.

It was just an interesting juxtaposition at the time.

 

True enough. Steaks are more difficult after 2-3 days on the trail. Not impossible, I am sure.
I did take her idea about baking. I used a silicone muffin cup, a large one, and put the powdered mix, added water and stirred. The mix already had the dried egg and milk. My added treat was sprinkling crystallized maple (syrup) on top.
A pot with three rocks and a thin aluminum platform, water underneath, will (steam) bake. I used a home made caldera cone stove setup. The maple ends up like a tasty frosting.
I made one for 13 of 14 days in Grand Canyon.

Ken

 

Our steak frying thing is, of course, an attribute of our one-night backpacking trips. Second night, when we do one, we've done spaghetti, which requires sausage, but otherwise dry sauce mix and dry pasta.

I haven't done a multi-day backpacking trip which would require dehydrated and other light and/or highly-efficient foods for many years, and I doubt that I ever will again, now. Though I wouldn't rule it out, the current 'system' gets us out on the trail several times per season with very little planning needed. This is also why weight is not that much of a concern, so we can usually bring two stoves, 'just because'....

 

Ken, you're making me hungry, even though lunch wasn't long ago.

 

My goodness, we do seem to have wandered down the trail into Freezer Bag cooking country!

Alas, here in the Yukon, the Grizzly bears think putting food inside a sleeping bag is mixing smaller treats with larger treats, the sleeping human in the sleeping bag being the larger treat....we actually go to some lengths to separate food and its smell from bedding, tents and other gear, typically 30M away in a Kevlar bear-resistant sac, as the trees are not always strong enough to suspend a food cache up high, we tie it in the Kevlar sac to the base of the tree...people change shirts after cooking so their sleep layers don't smell of food...alas with warmer winters bears are up for much longer than they used to, even the buses now wear ads ''Be Bear Aware Year Round Now!"...

Now, what is the most dent-resistant, the Duossal, or the Hard Anodized, or the No-Stick? I am guessing the Duossal as there's stainless steel in the inside...

 

I don't worry about bears...I just make sure that my wife is wearing her lucky pork chop at bedtime and I tie her shoe laces together in case she tries to out run me

The Duossal 2.0 is 5mm (I would have to double check this to confirm) I think if memory serves me right. The earlier versions were slightly thinner.

 

Dunno about pork-chops and boot-lace sabotage, personally, I use a portable electric fence, runs on 2 'D' cell batteries, 2kg including the wire-tape...

Hm, so Duossal might be better at fending off dents, not from bears mind you....

 

@Cookie Would that be 0.5mm? 5mm is nearly 1/4".

 

@Marc You are correct. Here is the verbage from their website "The thickness of the material is a total of 0.8mm. Stainless steel 0.3 / Aluminium 0.5 mm"

https://shop.trangia.se/en/storm-cooker-serie-25/duossal-d/