[pct-l] cooking pot

[Steel-Eye]

Good morning, Amanda,

I have one of the old Wal-Mart grease pots that I use as an alternate or
back-up but I think Scott's reference is good:  While grease pots have been
carried on many, many portal-to-portal PCT, AT, and CDT hikes, overall the
AntiGravity Gear pot is a great value and a better place to start.

As Scott mentioned the grease pot was intended to be used merely as a place
to poor the extra grease accumulated from cooking your bacon, chorizo, or
the like so it has features different from regular cooking containers.  One
grease pot feature I've never liked is the rolled-to-the-inside top lip of
the pot.  The advertising for the A/G Gear pot even mentions this
difference.  I had a few comments about the lip configuration at:
http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=166296

Another subtle difference between the grease pot and most normal pots is the
fact that the grease pot lid fits outside of the pot rim while normal pot
lids fit inside the rim; and the grease pot lid is domed upward while most
other lids are rather flat-ish.  When cooking, condensate that accumulates
on the underside of the grease pot lid will follow the lid to the rim where
most of it seems to run outside the pot rather than dropping back inside the
pot.  That doesn't cause a huge problem, but I would sooner keep the water
and the mess inside the pot.

I am not fond of having to use a separate gripper handle for lifting so I
installed a wire bail across the top of the grease pot - just a personal
preference.  The A/G Gear pot presents the same problem.

I don't know what alloy the A/G Gear pot is made from, but the grease pot is
a very soft - read weak - grade of aluminum.  A drop of the pack, or a bump,
could easily collapse a thin-gauge grease pot.  Again, that's not a
show-stopper but it is an aggravation.   Some hikers seem to think it is
wilderness-chic to have an old, black, beat-up pot that looks as though it
was salvaged from a homeless camp under the Burnside Bridge, but I don't.

I find a small advantage with the grease pot's bottom configuration:  It is
perfectly flat compared to other pots that have a raised portion occupying
most of their center.  I think the non-flat bottom configuration allows the
pot to better handle direct application of heat, something that is not a
design consideration for the grease pot.  The practical advantage of a flat
surface is that it allows me to use a credit card, or the like, to more
easily scrape the residual Alfredo sauce from the bottom.  If you use only a
spoon it doesn't really matter.  I don't know what the bottom of the A/G
Gear pot is like.

The titanium/aluminum alloy pots such as the ubiquitous - but expensive -
Evernew models are considerably stronger for their weight, and I prefer
them.  Even with a titanium pot I do what I can to protect it from impact.
One key is to keep the lid in place on the pot, thereby providing structural
rigidity to the open end.  I keep all my pot lids in place with a
minimum-size SilNylon sack that has a snug drawstring closure.  The sack
also reduces the possibility of getting pot-gunk on the sleeping bag that is
wadded around it inside the pack.

Over time, particularly on the internet, there has been discussion about the
potential undesirable effects of cooking in an aluminum container.  Believe
what you will about the issue, but the inside of the A/G Gear pot is
non-stick coated, which should reduce or eliminate that consideration.  You
may not be off-the-hook though, depending upon what you may have read about
the potential undesirable effects of cooking in a Teflon-coated container.

Sigh...

Steel-Eye
http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Bryce" <sbryce at scottbryce.com>
To: <pct-l at backcountry.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] cooking pot


> Amanda L Silvestri wrote:
>> There has been some past discussion here about cooking pots.  As I
>> recall, there was mention of a very light pot that was very
>> inexpensive.  I don't remember its name but think it was for sale at
>> Walgreen's or was it Walmart?  Does anyone recall?
>
> Walmart used to carry a cheap aluminum pot called the Grease Pot. It was
> intended for collecting cooking grease. I don't think they carry it any
> more.
>
> Check out the pots sold by AntiGravity Gear.
>
> http://www.antigravitygear.com/proddetail.php?prod=MK3CNS&cat=63
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