For a lot of my life I didn’t think to go camping alone. I always went with people and up until this past summer i let that hold me back from going camping. There is obviously something to explore there but not right now.
I brought with me a mini propane grill. You know it when you see it. I also brought a couple of alcohol burners. One a simple homemade version of this and a Trangia knock off that I bought quite a few years ago and has performed quite well. I also picked up a fuel bottle, a very small one, 350ml. I considered a larger version but the 350ml seemed to be the right size. I’ve noticed since I made the AliExpress purchase that they are also available on Amazon. I brought some extra fuel in an air tight container. I used bioethanol and heet mixed together.
I used both stoves. I used the puck style to heat water for tea and the knock off for boiling water for protein pasta, frying eggs, and other cooking. The puck is just the right size to bring water up to a roiling boil and then extinguish. It’s quite a clever design- a simple aluminum tin with a screw on lid, filled with carbon felt, and a small circle of stainless steel mesh fitted to hold the puck of carbon felt inside, on the base is a lid without a liner so that the whole thing can be extinguished. I didn’t come up with the design but based it off a few puck style stoves I saw on Youtube and for sale. Anyway that inside one of my stands really did a great job at boiling up water for tea.
The red camp trangia knock off has really stood the test of time. I’ve used it steadily since I bought it and other than having to order some new rubber seals* for it, it has simply worked well. I used it in a couple of stands- a CampingMoon stand and the ZenCamps stand and windscreen. I used both with a titanium wind screen. I used a kettle with a relatively wide base for both stands.
Because my camping trip was made more difficult due to car troubles not detailed here I didn’t cook as much as I should have and intended to. That said I did make coffee every day I was at camp and tea every night. I used two different pour over styles- this little doohickey and this conical pour over set. I can’t find the exact pour over I used on Amazon. I found the doohickey to offer a less satisfying brew than I had hoped. Its an effective design and I hope to get a little more practice and get a good brew. I think my problem was grind size. The conical set is one I have used extensively at home, and other than car camping I would not use this for serious backpacking. The silicone is quite thick and heavy. The kettle I used was from this set. It works quite well but is a little hard to control for pouring. I used a small hand grinder to grind my coffee fresh each morning and I had set the grinder tro pour over in advance. It worked quite well.
I carried everything in this silicone collapsible picnic basket. This combined with a cooler and a lot of ice packs worked really well for holding all my food and cooking gear. I’ll detail the contents of the picnic basket in another post.
Anyway the coffee was great and the experience empowering.