Camping Kettle

Camping and Outdoor Equipment

Camping Kettle

Camping kettle is not an essential piece of camping equipment but one that is definitely required. Camping is an outdoor recreational activity. Campers leave urban areas and head into nature sleeping in a tent or a cabin. National parks are an extremely interesting and enjoyable place to camp. Camping is a cheap form of accommodation but to many is so much more preferred. The idea of going back to nature and being free has a very high appeal. Campers span a broad range of age, ability and ruggedness. To accommodate this campsites are designed in various different ways. Some just have basic amenities whilst others can hire you tents with all the home comforts.But whatever the standard of camping site you stay in you will always want to have yourself a cup of tea or coffee. And it is always better to be self sufficient and this is where owning a camping kettle comes in.

Another version of the camping kettle is the Kelly Kettle. This piece of equipment has been designed and manufactured with the use in wet and windy conditions in mind. To operate this unit you have to have a small fire in the base unit of the kettle and then the kettle part with the water in is placed on top of the fire. The flames of the fire are protected from the elements and the whole unit works on a chimney basis. It is possible for you to feed the fire with more fuel by dropping fuel down. This is a very good invention and the water is also boiled very quickly because of the cylinder shape. The Kelly kettle comes in 3 sizes being that of 1 pint and 2.5 pint and 3 pint.

So when you are away from home on a camping trip don’t miss out on having that lovely morning cup of tea or coffee that is almost second nature to you in your domestic home life. Just because you don’t have electricity when you go camping there is no reason to miss out on your usual morning ritual. And who of us cannot imagine starting a day without the cup of Rosie lee (English cockney slang for tea)

The camping kettle is so easy to use providing you have a camping stove or have a fire running. Just fill it with water and place it on the heat source and wait for the boil. If your kettle is a whistling kettle then you can go off and do some other task or get stuff ready for the rest of the day until you here the whistle that informs you that your water is ready.

Most camping kettles have a water capacity of approximately 2 litres which is good for about 5 or 6 mugs of tea. If you are camping on your own or if you are just a couple then of course you just fill the kettle with less water unless of course you are an avid thirsty drink of tea. So when you next set out for a camping trip always pack your camping kettle and don’t look upon it as just something more that you have to pack or carry. The camping kettle is there to enhance your camping experience.

When selecting a camping kettle you can either go down to your nearest camping supplies shop and take a look at all the different options in real life or you can stay at home at your own leisure and just browse through the internet until you locate the one that you wish to have. There are a couple of points you need to take into consideration when selecting a camping kettle. You need a kettle that is strong and durable and will be able to stand up to rugged treatment. This kettle also must be transported so don’t forget that it is you that shall be carrying it in your backpack or strapped to the side of you backpack. So you want one that is very light and compact. Its perfect if you choose a camping kettle with a handle that can be folded away so as not to interfere with any other goods you may have to carry. Stainless steel is a very common metal used in kettles and this is fine. You must also consider on how much water you wish to boil each time so depending upon how many of you are there should dictate the capacity size of the kettle that you choose. And finally check out the bottom of the kettle. It is ideal to have an encapsulated bottom as these allow for quicker cooking time so you have your boiling water ready quite rapidly and don’t have to waste much time sitting around waiting for it.

History Of The Kettle

A kettle is an appliance that is used for boiling water in order to make coffee, tea or any other beverages that require hot water. There is a history to the kettle culminating in today’s modern electric versions.

During the period from 1880s to the 1920s for making tea and coffee people boiled their water in cast iron kettles which were cast from a mould. If you look at any example of these they are actually very nice kettles which had good thermal qualities.

Coleman Camp Grill Stove by Coleman

Here is a nice example for you to take a look at of a camping stove and grill. It is made by Coleman which ensures you quality and durability and usually a Coleman cooker can last for years and years if maintained and cleaned properly after every trip. The features on this camping stove include perfect flow technology so you have a constant level flow of gas to the burner. The starter is an electric instant start ignition which is so easy to use with just the push of a button. The grill and burner are both independently adjustable whilst the cooking top is aluminized steel. For ease of maintenance the grill is removable and there is an easy clean grease management area for the grill.

Tea

Campingaz Camping Kettle by campingaz

Here we have an aluminium water camping kettle with lid and handle. The water capacity is 1.3 litres and the weight of the kettle is 200 g. It is a very light one to own and at the price it is retailing for it is very cheap indeed. However it is not the highest quality example out there. We found that when you put the lid on you have to slot it in at an angle because if you don’t then it hit’s the handle joints. Another factor we are not too sure about is that the lid handle is a plastic plug. We have not road tested one of these yet but we are not too sure on how long the plastic plug will last for because of heat. All in all though it’s not bad for the price and if you lose it, to replace it will not break the bank.

So you have checked out the examples of the camping kettle and decided which one that you shall have. But there is more to making tea than just boiling the water. You at first must actually boil the water and of course to do that you need a heat source. The heat source is provided by a camping stove which can be fueled either by propane gas or butane gas. The specialist camping equipment maker Coleman have even devised their own form of camping cooker gas called white gas which in our opinion is superior to both propane and butane. So to boil the water in your new kettle you must have a camping stove and we shall give you 1 example of this from the Coleman range. To find out more about the camping stove and make comparisons you could take a look at portable gas stoves to help you along on your way.

To help with outside cooking and protection of the flame from the wind there is a wind block system. The sides of the stove can be raised to redirect the wind away from the cooking flame. If it is not windy the same sides can be lowered and used as side tables. This unit runs off the new 100% propane cylinders and has a power of 5540 Watts. When on full power this unit will cook continuously for 1 hour 10 minutes on 1 cylinder. It is a perfect unit to use with your camping kettle as you can boil your water at the same time as grilling the morning bacon. What could be better than a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich for breakfast out in nature?

You have come to this web site because you are in the market to buy a new camping kettle or to replace your existing one.So what we shall now do is give you a couple of pages of the examples of kettles that are out there in the market place.We will give a picture of each for you to see how they look and then a small piece of writing describing the item to help you see which one is ideal for you.To buy your camping kettle you can either go to one of the many camping specialist shops and see the item in real life or use the internet to check them all out at your own leisure in the comfort of your home.

Examples Of The Camping Kettle

4 Pint Camping Kettle With Whistle by Vicraft

Here is a fine example brought to you by Vicraft. Vicraft is a company located in the West Midlands that specialise in making aluminium cookware. Many thousands of their kettles are supplied to the camping trade retailers every year which are sold to the general public. When camping no matter which camp site you stay at there is sure to be one of these kettles boiling away on someone’s cooker or fire. It is an ideal kettle for camping and the whistle is so loud when the water has boiled you are sure to awaken fellow campers who may join you for the early morning cuppa. When boiling the water it does it exceptionally quickly as well. It is both lightweight and compact with a water capacity of 4 pints.

It seems like a lot of equipment to just have a simple cup of tea. But tea is the best drink in the world and is especially delicious when drunk out in the wilderness with the peace and tranquility nature gives us. So whilst looking for a kettle remember that a portable camping stove, camping mug and flask are also needed to make a cup of tea with your camping kettle.

Accessories For The Camping Kettle

Travel and Camping Karabiner Handled Steel Mug by AGS labs

This is the type of mug that you should be looking out for when you buy a mug to drink the tea you have made using your camping kettle. It is a sleek stainless steel mug both in shape and appearance. On the side of it is a very tough karabiner handle which lets you hang it from either a belt or to strap it on to a backpack. To ensure that your tea or hot drink remains as hot as possible for as long as possible it is double walled. These double walls add strength to the mug as well as keeping the drink hot. The whole mug is made from food grade stainless steel. The volume of the cup is 200ml and it weighs 95 g when empty. Easy to take with you and keep clean. The handle can be either blue, purple, green or red in colour.

Jack Pyke 730ml Flask by Jack Pyke

So if you go hiking and wish to have liquid with you then the thermos flask is an ideal accessory. They are slim and easily slide into any backpack without taking up much space. They are light as well and very durable. They can break but this has to be done intentionally. They keep hot liquids hot and cold liquids cold. Stainless steel is non rusting and with a convenient screw pouring lip they are so easy to use. This Jack Pyke flask is a 730 ml stainless steel flask. On the outer it has a non reflective olive colour coating that helps to protect it. The length of this flask is 29.5cm and the diameter of the base is 8 cm.

The reason you bought a camping kettle is to boil water in order to make a cup of tea, coffee or instant packet soup. The most popular drink made though is that of tea. The Camellia sinensis plant is the plant that is used to make tea and is grown in plantations such as the example in the picture on the right. The leaves, leaf buds and internodes of this plant are prepared and cured by a variety of methods to give us the tea we are familiar with. Tea is an agricultural product.

Such is the variety of tea there are at least 6 different varieties which are white, yellow, green, oolong, black and pu-erh tea. White, black and green tea are the most popular types of teas and most common tea found on the market today. Tea comes from the same plant but it is the difference in processes that distinguishes the different types of tea.

The tea bag

So there is a little information on what tea is and where it comes from. As you can see there are many different types of tea but with camping the tea that you will most probably have is tea in the tea bag. This is easy and convenient to make and easy to use.It was American tea merchant Thomas Sullivan in 1907 who first began to use something resembling the modern day tea bag. He began to distribute his tea in small bags of Chinese silk that had a drawstring at the top. Here you could drop the bag into a cup of already boiled water and the tea flavour would filter through the silk and flavour the water. After the water had been flavoured the bag could be lifted out and the tea leaves kept in it ready to use again at a later time for another cup of tea. However the potential of this method was not fully recognized for decades to come. During the World War 2 tea was rationed and it was not until after rationing ended in 1953 that the UK company called Tetley launched the tea bag in the UK. The tea bag became and instant success.

With the tea bag the tea leaves are packed into a small envelope that is usually made of paper. The benefits of the tea bag are fully recognized by all with their convenience and ease of use. Many people make their tea this way today. But what you may not realize about the tea bag is that the tea used inside one is called fannings or dust in the industry and is in fact the waste product left over from the sorting of higher quality loose leaf tea.. Tea specialists say that the tea bag and the combination of using waste tea gives an inferior and less tasting tea. Not only is the tea inferior quality but in some instances it is also possible to taste the bag itself in the drink.

Other reasons that tea from the tea bag is considered not so well flavoured are that dried tea loses its flavour very quickly when it is exposed to air. The majority of tea bags have leaves broken into very small pieces and thus the surface area to volume ratio of the leaves in the tea bags exposes them to more air than conventional loose tea. Thus they go stale quicker. Another reason is that when the leaves are broken up flavoured oils are extracted and lost. And when you do make a cup of tea with your camping kettle the small size of the tea bag does not allow the leaves to steep and diffuse properly. But these are tea experts who taste tea for a living. We that go camping want tea but do not want to go through the process of using a tea pot etc etc to have us a cup of tea. The tea bag does provide a perfectly adequate alternative to loose tea. I have been drinking tea this way for years and will never change.

To heat the water these kettles were placed on top of a stove. In the 1920s to the 1930s kerosene kettles were used and were very popular because you did not need to have a stove to heat the water. They were also very economic because stoves in those days were not the most advanced and you had to heat the whole thing if you wanted to cook anything. So a lot had to be done just to make a cup of tea. On the downside though these kerosene kettles gave off fumes which would often fill the house and they were not healthy to say the least.

It was the Australians in 1938 who came up with the chrome plated steel kettle which ran off electricity. Electricity was available in the cities at this time but not in the country. These kettles did not have an exposed coil but instead had one under a flat bottom inside the kettle. There were also safety features included on this model being that of an overload cut off switch and a cotton insulated cord. 1949 saw the release of ceramic kettles which ran off electricity and were more efficient in boiling water. They were jug shaped.

The 1980s was the period that polymer body kettles were released. They were cheap to make and hence mass produced. Safety features that came with them included whistles, cut out switches and windows on the side to see how much water was inside removing the need for you to remove the lid. It was not until the 1990s that kettles were improved even further by having a base which allowed the kettle to be swivelled and detached.

From 2000 kettles took a new turn and were made out of metal with polymer handles that did not conduct heat. The metal was stainless steel and they had a cut off switch which worked when the water was boiled. There was also a cut off switch on the base that came with the kettle so as that when the kettle was replaced back on the base it would not start boiling again.

So there is just a little history and development on the kettle. They are very basic tools actually and to be honest the good old fashioned non electric types do the job just as well as their modern day counterparts. So just remember when going out shopping for a kettle what’s good for camping is good for the home. Perfect for both is the camping kettle.

Camping UK Hard Anodized Kettle by Camping co

This is a very nice looking camping kettle which kind of looks old and authentic because of the anodized finish. It is an ideal kettle for use for 2 to 3 people and the water capacity is 0.8 litres. The lid is included and it fits very snugly and is easy to put in place. We like the handle as well because it can be folded away which makes the kettle more compact and does not waste any space whilst you are transporting it. It is a very hardy kettle and extremely durable. The lid handle is stainless steel and there’s just something about it’s look that is so appealing.

SunnCamp Nouveau Stainless Steel Whistling Kettle by Sunncamp

Here is another Sunncamp camping kettle for you to take a look at. The Nouveau is stainless steel and is ideal for hot plates and use on gas. What sets this particular model apart though is the encapsulated base that gives you a quicker boiling time. This is good for those of you who are impatient for your morning cup of brew and of course the less boiling time that is required the less cooking gas you will use up. So not bad really. Quicker tea and cheaper tea! The handle is of course heat resistant meaning a safe and pleasant experience when boiling your water. And to let you know when the water has boiled there is the whistling feature to alert you. The water capacity of this unit is 2 litres.

So now you have been able to boil your water on the camping stove in order to make your tea. Tea is traditionally drunk from china teacups but this is completely unsuitable for camping purposes. China cups or similar types are not easy to transport because of the risk of breakage. They are totally inappropriate for camping means. So to enjoy your tea it is advisable to get yourself some proper camping mugs which are light and very easy to transport by just clipping onto your backpack. They also of course have to be made out of something that is durable and can take a certain amount mishandling without breaking. Camping mugs are usually made from stainless steel or something similar. They are sturdy, can handle any outdoor punishment and are virtually unbreakable.

Now when you are out on a camping trip you are getting closer to nature. That is the beauty of the recreation. So perhaps you decide in the morning that you would like to take a day and go hiking and exploring. By doing this you do not know what you will come across or what you will see. However if you are out in the wilderness it is highly unlikely that you will come across a tea shop or food outlet. So you need to pack some food and take liquids with you. It is not advisable to take all your cooking equipment with you because you don’t want the excess weight on your back whilst hiking. So for liquid you can take tea if you so wish. Just boil the water on your camping kettle before you set out and put the boiling water into a camping thermos flask so you can have tea whenever you like.

Tea is the aromatic drink that is prepared from the cured leaves of the Camellia sinesis plant with boiling or hot water and nowadays the common name for the Camellia sinesis plant is that of the tea plant. If you exclude water from the list of drinks then tea is by far the most drunk drink in the world.

When picked from the tea plant´the leaves begin to wilt and oxidize very quickly if they are not dried quickly. Here the leaves get darker as the chlorophyll inside them breaks down and thus tannins are released. This is known as the process of enzymatic oxidation but within the tea industry they called it fermentation. So in order to make tea this fermentation has to be stopped before the leaves rot and become useless for the process of making tea.. The way to stop this fermentation is to heat the leaves which deactivates the enzymes responsible for the fermentation. When making tea careful attention has to be paid to moisture and temperature. These must be controlled because if they are not the finished tea could grow fungi. This fungi would then cause real fermentation that would contaminate the tea with toxic substances rendering the tea unfit for human consumption.

So tea is classified upon the techniques and processes it goes through to be produced.

White tea- wilted and not fermented
Yellow tea- un-wilted and not fermented but allowed to yellow
Green tea- un-wilted and not fermented
Oolong tea- wilted, bruised and partly fermented
Black tea- wilted, sometimes crushed and fully fermented

Post fermented tea- Green tea that has been allowed to ferment or rot