Overview of my Camping Gear-Part 4-Cooking

In this next part I want to take a look at my cooking gear. These are the items listed as numbers 7, 8, and 9 in Part 1 of the post.



The first two items you see are the cooking pots. The first one is a MSR 2L titanium pot, and the second one is a Snow Peak 1L titanium pot with a knob on the lid that I put there myself. When I am alone, I used to take only the 1L pot, but decided that it was too small for me because it always ended up overflowing. Because of that, now I either carry only the 2L pot, or the two of them together. The great thing about titanium is that it is so light weight. I use the red bandana that you see to wrap the small pot. That way it does not make noise when stored within the larger one. Neither pot is still in production, but at the time I bought them they were very expensive. The big one was close to $100 and the small one close to $70. Titanium is still very expensive, but if you have the money, its strength to weight ratio is great. For some of what I consider good lower cost options you can take a look at my post here.

The next two objects you see are a pot grabber and a small sponge. The pot grabber came with the 2L MSR pot. It is small and light, but not too comfortable. I keep in the pot together with the sponge, which comes in handy when cleaning burnt on food. You can see some more info about the sponge here.

The rest of the items you see are part of my stove (stove, fuel bottle, small priming bottle, wind screen, repair kit, and lighter).

When I use a stove, I like a serious stove. I don’t want to time burn durations or measure ounces of fuel. I want to be able to put the food on, and cook it without too much hassle. That is why my choice is a white gas stove, specifically the MSR Whisperlite International. In my opinion, what gives this white gas stove the edge over a canister stove is that I can re-fill the fuel container. That way I don’t have to worry about running out, or carrying extra containers. I have never done a review on the stove because it has been around for so long, and I’ve had mine for years. There are probably more hi-tech options out there that I don’t even know about. The Whisperlite International is a well tested and proven stove, which will burn multiple fuels, and will cost you about $90. It comes with different size bottles. The one you see in the picture is the small, 11oz one. For more information on different type of stoves, you can take a look here, and for a tutorial on how to light a white gas stove, you can see my post here. For an unrelated tutorial on how to operate an alcohol stove, see my post here, or for a tutorial on how to make a wood gasification stove, see here.

I always carry a repair kit since this not a simple tool, but in the many years I have been using this stove, I’ve never had to repair it.

An item that you don’t see here is my spoon, which I keep in my food bag.