Review: CampMaid's Charcoal Chimney

I love cooking, and I love fire. cooking outdoors is always so satisfying, especially when done over fire. BBQ's a re primal, an whilst LPG or propane is fast and convenient, its not quite the same. However. getting a fire going takes time and effort and can be fiddly and messy, not to mention frustrating if you're running to a schedule.

I came across a tool to assist In the starting of briquette bbq's on Kickstarter, and thought it would be a good investment. Camp Maid make a variety of camp-fire cooking tools, mostly focusing on cast-iron Dutch oven type cooking tools, but their Kickstarter project for a collapsible charcoal chimney caught my eye.

CampMaid's Charcoal Chimney is a unique twist on the traditional concept to quickly heat charcoal for outdoor cooking! The twist being that the sides of the chimney are hinged so it folds flat for storage and packing. Designed to fit inside the lid of a 12" Dutch oven to keep all your sooty-gear together!

The principle is pretty simple. Up to 45 briquettes at a time are loaded into the top of the chimney, onto the fold-down grill that creates an air-space under the coals for you r kindling or solid-fire-starter cubes. I typically use the fire-Cone starter and kerosene from the big old tank on our property (a hold over from the redundant oil-heating system the house was built with. Once lit, the Quickly heats charcoal in about 7-10 minutes and you're ready to grill.

A handle on the side assists with placement and emptying once its hot and ready to go. The handle is supposed to be heat-safe. However, id recommend wearing gloves. and take care. my handle melted and caught on fire! Once the plastic sloughed off and burned away, it was fine but be aware.

Both the body of the chimney and the handle fold flat for easy of storage, though I found once fired, it took some manipulation to get it fully flat. The inner grill needs to be folded up but the inside of the chimney has space for it.

Also it can be used as a hobo stove. with the internal grill down, pretty much any solid combustible fuel can be placed in its burn chamber, and the rigid sides act as a base for a pan or pot, or even to hold the skewers for your rat-on-a-stick. For camping, tailgating, scouting, backyard, beach, survival the CampMaid Charcoal Chimney makes for a simple, dependable, portable fire pit you can leave in the trunk of the car.

So, it's a simple enough piece of kit, is small enough to slip down the back of a backpack (when cool, and maybe even rinsed off). It not only gives you a contained fire-pit, and a chimney for rapid charcoal lighting.

The fact that the handle melted and caught on fire was a bit distressing, but it's loss has been inconsequential to its ongoing use. One thing to note is hat they do rust, especially after firing. This has made the hinges a bit stiff, but a dose of WD40 should fix that. I've thought of painting the whole thin with a fire-tolerant paint but its probably unnecessary. I might cut some notches into the upper lip to give my skewers some purchase but again, not essential by any means.

Review: Outdoor Expedition - Universal Solar Multi-Bottle

Passing by a closing-down sale at a local camping goods outlet store I wandered in and snapped up a couple of deep-discount bargains, which included a pair of the Universal Solar Multi-Bottle which I thought would make excellent camp-lanterns, specifically for Tactical Baby and Triceratops Girl.

What drew me to them was that the "bottle" component was a squishy, pliant silicone material, making it drop-bounce, trip and generally woops-prone kid proof.

We don't all get out camping together very often, but even around the Bunker, we often go on night-time expeditions. There is a Tawny Frogmouth Owl nesting in a big tree down the block, and the stroll out to listen to it's call is made much jollier (and safer for little people on the pavement) by their very own light.

The area Triceratops Girl lives in is prone to tree-fall power-outages, and the Bunker has some wiring problems, so we both experience blackouts, and having personal lights for the girls makes a possibly frightening inconvenience into a fun excuse for lanterns.

The Multi-bottle is constructed of a soft, collapsible TPE body  which can be squashed down for easy storage and transport, and has a hard plastic "cap" which houses the LED lights, the battery and the solar panel.

The solar panel is fitted to the centre of the lid, and is somewhat covered by the removable handle strap, which can be removed not only to expose the panel to sunshine for charging but also hook over any number of hanging points.

The on-off button is set into the top of the lid as well, and has a built in changing status light, saving space. When the lid is unscrewed you have access to the micro-USB changing slip, which is protected by a silicone plug.

I suspect you -could- store liquid in the bottle in a pinch, but I would worry about it getting into the charging port and shorting out. The unit is described as having a IPX7 waterproof rating, which is 30 minutes at 1m depth, but again, I suspect that is only from the outside, when sealed up. Good enough for any amount of weather or looking for your keys dropped into a pond, not for diving ...

The LED light has3 modes, controlled by the indicator-light button on the lid.: low/high/pulse. It is listed as having:
4 hour runtime at HIGH setting
10 hour runtime at LOW setting
and I infer it has ~days runtime on PULSE setting, it wasn't listed.

The outputs of the two settings weren't offered, but I didn't really notice a significant difference. If it was 75 lumen vs 100 lumen, there wasn't much in it.

Shining through the TPE bottle gave the lights a nice diffuse glow, as well as the bottle itself being a glowing ball, good for both seeing your immediate surrounds but also letting people see you, good news when the primary goal was putting it into small hands to carry around.
The handle clipped on and off at either end, and was not at all difficult for 5yo Tactical Baby to manipulate, or carry.

We don't typically genderise the kit for the kids, but as it happened, only the pink bottles were available at the sale. Green or blue are also available.

These bottles have a carry capacity of 725mL (44cu in) so you could also fit a bunch of small items in it to make a bug-out-jar type effect, although that would block out a bunch of the light the emitted, and you would want to watch out for pointy items. At the very least you can store its USB cord inside, so it's all ready to charge when you have a power-source handy.

These are neat little lights, perfect for little hands in the wilderness of the woods or suburbs.

Review: MRE review 1/2 day's rations

I had the opportunity to take a pile of Australian issue MRE components to work to test out, following on from a small selection of them falling in my lap from more than one undisclosed source. I will not be on-selling these, they're for my own entertainment and preparedness.

I wanted to give myself a good trial, so selected a full menu to replace what I would normally eat during the day at work. It is common to see "8,700kJ" as the average recommended intake and I have breakfast, lunch and two breaks at work, so I selected accordingly.


For breakfast I had a brown of muesli/porridge, which I mad with boiling water and a sachet of instant creamer. It made a solid, heavy and hearty porridge, which was flavoursome and had enough variety of ingredients to have a good and palatable consistency.










I had the "blueberry and apple" cereal bar for my mid-morning snack, it was again, dense and for all intents and purposes, could have come out of any kids

Interestingly when I looked up the nutritional content of current US issued MRE kits, they suggested that service-members (who were classified as highly active men between the ages of 18 and 30) typically use about 4,200 Calories a day. The conversion is  1 kJ = 0.2 Calories (Cals)or 1 Calorie = 4.2 kJ, giving a figure of 17,640 kJ a little over double the "average adult intake diet". Bear that in mind later.

Lunch was a bit more involved; a sachet of freeze-dried rice, beef and onion stew, a can of "diced two-fruits in syrup" with a sachet of tropical flavour Thorzt sports drink powder to drink.

The dehydrated rice was reconstituted with a canteen cup's worth of boiling water, and once ready, I simply upended it into a bowl, and added the cold stew to it. I could have tried reheating the stew, either by suspending its retort in a bowl of boiling water, or throwing it all in the microwave, but this would totally have been cheating.

It was a pretty decent meal, there were enough chunky bits of meat and onion to make it more than just thick gravy, but it was hardly a hefty chew. The stew itself was quite palatable cold, but a quick mix with the hot rice made it all the better.

Obviously you have to reconstitute the rice to make it in any way enjoyable, but it will reconstitute in cold water, if you don't have a source of heat, or are under restrictions.



I finished off my lunch with the can of fruit in syrup, which I popped open with my trusty EDC P-38 opener, and tucked into the just-as-off-the-shelf canned fruit. Nothing special to report there though.












For my afternoon break and to snack on in e afternoon, I had selected the chocolate drink, infamous canned cheese and even more infamous chocolate ration. Again, boiling water into the chocolate drink, which made a quite passable hot chocolate.

If I had wanted it to be extra creamy, I could have saved the instant creamer from breakfast and added it, but I think it didn't need it.





The Bega canned cheese, reported to me as a legendary constipation cause, appeared to be exactly the Kraft cheese stick cheese, in a can. It was firm but elastic, and "split" rather than crumbled. It was tasty enough, and reminded me of school-yard snack breaks for sure.

Lastly was the equally infamous legendarily laxative chocolate ration.  I don't actually enjoy milk chocolate, but I wanted the full experience, and even with all the food I'd included in my half-day's ration, I wanted to make a real showing of it.

I snacked on it throughout the afternoon and finished it just before going home, and suffered no ill effects.

Perhaps the cheese and chocolate battled each other into a stalemate, but I was the victor.

Adding up the constituents, I had had 8907kJ (2129Calories) in this selection, and this was just my daytime food.

All this, and I was pretty full, and certainly didn't feel that I had gone without. If anything, I felt I had wanted to eat the cheese or the chocolate, but not both.

It's also worth noting that this only made up a small portion of the full ADF ration-pack. Given that, and the full kJ load in that full pack, you could make one of these stretch a long way, or spread them out between a number of people to make a survival situation both more palatable, but also more secure.

If you can lay your hands on an MRE, you'd have to go a long way to find a better, more densely packed, supplied and readily consumable source of nutrition and energy than the ADF ration-pack. If you're in a position to lay hands on one, do it.

If you're in a field where you might be able to swap out, try swapping for an ADF rat-pack, you won't be disappointed.

Sneak-Peek: ADF ration pack H

Behold the full contents of an ADF Ration pack, menu "H".

I had the good fortune to have some of these fall into my grabby hands, and I wanted to show off the contents.

This represents an entire days consumables for an Australian infantryman.

 

 

 

Bundled in a heavy plastic cover (broken, for legitimacy's sake).

Snacks, three meals, drinks, tea and coffee, a FRED eating tool, spoon, matches, wipes, Vegemite, all a fighting body needs. 

Stay tuned and I'll cover what a meal is like in more detail.

Wish-Lust: platatac - G2G pack

I wanted to give the guys behind Platatac another shout, as I haven't had the folding cash handy to add to my gear-wall in the bunker for a while (damn life expenses!) but they have some cool and useful new gear out there and being fielded as we speak.


One of these is the daypack sized G2G of in keeping with the Platatac tongue in cheek naming convention, the Good-to-Go.


The Platatac G2G pack is one of the lightest packs they’ve released to date weighing just 715g (25oz) with straps. Designed with a low profile exterior void of any MOLLE it is great in the field, on and off base environments, not to mention when you want to keep a low profile in an urban setting. Much like the Nomad line of bags they have.

This pack looks perfect as a lightweight day pack, being small and lightweight so it can be stored in the top of your pack and grabbed out to carry rations or needfuls when caching bigger long-haul packs. It is also perfect for use as a day-to-day back pack for the carriage of gym clothes, food, documents, it will happily fir a standard 13" laptop and other similar sized items.

This pack features a capacity of around 26L (1586Cu. inch) in its main zippered compartment containing one mesh pocket and a 3 litre hydration bladder sleave with hook and loop bladder hanger. On top of the pack is a bar-tacked hydration tube/cable routing port. This keeps grit, gunk and crud out of your pack, whilst letting you access your hydration, and run cables.

Externally, the pack features one zippered pouch for quick access to items such as gloves, pens, keys, ID, food and batteries. Externally Platatac have also added a cinch cord system for bundling up garments such as the Platatac Harry series of jackets.

Also the pack includes side tensioning straps for when the pack is full to capacity, especially useful if you are a gear hoarder like I am.

The pack has a very small pack-down size and can fit inside anAlice Pack's External pockets (with straps detached).

 

The G2G pack has been constructed from a mix of  500D and 1000D cordura for heavy duty abrasion resistance.  Platatac  have utilised a lightweight foam sewn in chevron patterns to provide structure and padding without affecting the ability to fold the pack up for storage.

A heavy duty grab handle has been made from 38mm web tape and has been flag stitched for strength.

With Echo Pack straps included this pack is truly good to go.

Here are its vital statistics: the main pocket: 460mm (H) x 320mm (W) x 180mm(D). The

front pocket 190mm (H) 210mm (W).


Inside the main pocket, the internal mesh pocket 120mm (H) x 23mm (W).

The G-2-G also features a 70mm x50mm hook and loop field for IFF, V-Lite, or just morale patches.

As well as reinforced stitched drainage grommets, the G-2-G also features Bar tacking on all major sew points, reversed YKK zippers to keep crud out of your gear, and industry standard and trusted ITW Nexus plastic hardware, throughout.


One of the things I really liked about the G-2-G line, as well as its subdued, no-external PALS/MOLLE webbing, are its range of regular-guy colours; as well as five kinds of camouflage, beat-cop blue, as well as a khaki, tan, ranger green and grey and black.


I really liked the looks of these, when I checked them out in the retail shop, and at the SSAA SHOT show, and thought that there would definitely be a place in pretty much anyone's pack line-up for a bag like the G-2-G.


 Check it out, and perhaps throw Platatac some interest. The more they get, the more they will innovate and develop new packs like these!

 

Review: Gearlex Ear Clip

I wanted to upgrade my accessory carrying capacity without adding my weight, or adding to my magnetic signature. (I rarely go through metal detectors, but whenever I do, it's a bigger and bigger pain each time). I use ITW Grimloc's on a bunch of my bags and harnesses, which are good, but have a "pop-open" thresh-hold that I have had come open at inopportune times.  

I saw that Hornest SG was stocking a bioplastic carabiner that looked to be suiting my needs. These are the Gearlex Ear Carabiners.  These weather and chemical resistant clips are made from 62% renewable materials and ends up being 15% lighter than nylon materials and are reported to retain that toughness down to  -60oC, in case you are intending to go yomping in Vladivostok or Mawson Station.

At the broad top of the "ear" shapes, the clips feature a 1" webbing loop, with a split notch for feeding it into the location of your choice. 

Unlike the webing notch of the of the Grimloc, the Gearlex webbing loop is on the outside of the carabiner, not the inside. This frees up the internal area of the carabiner to give more space for attached objects, and adds freedom of movement. 

However, it makes me worry about how much of a load the clip can take. The large Ear clips are rated to a max of 78kg and the small to 60kg, which is vastly more than the Grimloc's 36kg break-point. I rather empirically tested it manually by pulling it looped through my webbing , and it held in place to the point of hurting my hand and with the stitching straining.

The gate of the carabiner is fitted with a dovetail locking mechanism which adds to the strength of the gate and is one of several locks now standard throughout the climbing world.  The inside, weight bearing rim of the carabiner is thicker, to distribute the load, but the back edges have a broad rib for stability and strength, without adding too much mass. 

The carabiners are clearly not climbing rated, and come with warnings not to be "load-bearing" but that said, for the strapping of accessories, like water bottles, dummy cords or even strapping on smaller packs to bigger packs, such as the Hill People Gear Runner's Bag, or the Zulu Nylon Gear CAOS admin pack or even perhaps a daypack, for those of us who pack like we're about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.  

Gearlex produce these in Black, Coyote and Ranger Green, and I got one of the clips in black, one in ranger green and a small one in Ranger Green as well, to give me some options when I am setting them up and using them, to match or contrast the gear they are attached to.


Not as hardy and load-bearing as an aluminium or steel climbing carabiner, bigger and more stable than a Grimloc, the Gearlex Ear Clips fill the niche between a light accessory clip and a heavy-duty carabiner.

Both have their places and uses, but for something in-between, you might find that the Gearlex clips, in big and small suits your needs.

Review: Mystery Ranch - Removable Stick-it

I got in touch with my mate Tay Choon Mong at Hornest Singapore, my favourite stockist of the hardy and heavy-duty Mystery Ranch packs and products, after I saw that they had some accessories I had been hanging out for come in. You may recall I have one of the rare Mystery ranch "Asia Pacific only" 1 Day Assault Pack bags, which is a cross between the more mature 3 Day Assault Pack and the more recently released ASAP Pack.

I also have one of the Cinch straps, for comfortable wear and quick release of a pack whilst wearing a loaded plate carrier.

Great kit. The particular accessory that had come to my attention was the Removable Stick-It flap, seen here in Coyote, mounted to my black 1DAP. The Stick-It is a detachable beaver-tail that mounts to the bottom of a compatible pack to offer external storage when you've either gotten too much stuff, or just something too big for your pack to carry.

Built with 500D Cordura for long-haul durability, which I've come to expect from pack-makers, and fitted with mil-spec 1" webbing straps, Mystery Ranch have gone all out on the both the construction and the hardware. The buckles have a clip-in end, for fixing to MOLLE loops or other webbing on your pack, as well as a spring loaded friction lock for the working end of the buckle.

This kind of attention to detail as well as using better-than-standard fittings is something I love about Mystery Ranch. You pay for it, but it's worth it. The Stick-It attaches to its host pack with four press-stud closing loops of webbing, which feed back into the accessory by extra loops of MOLLE style webbing sewn into the Stick-It's interior. Those press-stud loops allow you to attach it to the bottom of any pack with MOLLE on its base.

I've put it on my Platatac Light Field Pack in place of its "Office" Admin Pack, or in fact as well as it. It also fits the Propper UC Pack, and the old standby the classic Platatac Bullock Echo, though the Echo already has a beaver-tail attachment built in.

The Stick-It has a couple of other interesting features. It is constructed to have expanding baffles in its Center line, in case of very bulky loads, with plastic inserts to stiffen the sides and carry the weight more evenly. You can really fit quite a lot into this, and is is the smaller of the two sizes offered. It also had a set of drainage grommets in its base, for those times you've taken a dip or been caught in a monsoon.

Another very forward thinking feature is the sheer length of the webbing for the attachment straps. This both lets you place the buckles anywhere from right at the back of the pack, to all the way at the front for quick release options of your over-load without shucking the pack propper. They also come with hook-and-loop keeper loops, to bundle the excess webbing up tight and out of the way for snag free utility.

The small Stick-It is perfect for stowing bulky times, like an Ops-Core bump helmet, a bundled jacket like the  Platatac Harry 1.2 Softshell or the like. It can easily cope with even larger items, as long as you're comfortable with the, sitting out over the top of its top lip. The construction is hefty, and I suspect the weakest point would be the clip on the buckle. I've never had any trouble carrying my every-day items, let me know if any of you try lugging a ammo-can with yours.

The Stick-It isn't usually available as a stand alone item, but can be found in the Mystery Ranch Gunfighter pack, or through Hornest.

Wish-Lust: Kickstarter - PACE lid

 I love modular and multi-purpose kit, and if I can get and everyday piece of equipment like a drink bottle to do double duty adds a significant thumbs-up from me.

This Kickstarter project, from GoRuck badass, and innovating outdoorsman, Chris Way.



This is the PACE lid, and it's Kickstarter is underway.

PACE stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency. When planning for events in life you have to expect that unforeseen things may happen and knowing this is empowering.

The container in the PACE lid is 300mL (10oz), it's deep enough for an ID or credit card as well as a variety of other gear.

The container is 7.6cm (3") in diameter and 5.7cm (2.25") inches deep. There's a small well around the perimeter that can secure items vertically and in place if they are bent, like cards, matches, other gear items. It's a feature Chris designed in and finds very useful in certain loading particular items in.

So far Chris and his team have tested the PACE lid and found it forms a water tight seal on wide mouth Nalgene, Klean Kanteen, Hydroflask, and MSR bottles.   I have a couple of Nalgene's so their perfect for me.

The prototypes seen here are apparently 3D printed, but the production models will be tooled plastics.

As well as the lids themselves, Chris is offering a pre-filled First Aid PACE, stocked with products from MedTraining Group, who specialize in non-permissive First Response fitting and training. 

If you're super keen, high-end backers can also get training and adventure time with the PACE team, so there are all kinds of benefits to backing this project, big or small.

For me though, it's all about the lids, and stowing my gear, wherever I go.

Be sure to check it out and hopefully, we can get it over the line.

Review: Outdoor Gourmet Company - Butter Chicken instant meal

I wanted to try out a variety of instant meals, in a more controlled environment before risking them on an expedition. I find that there can be all kinds of hidden or unknown complications with gear, and one thing I don't want to take chances with in the field is my food.

I selected a couple of different brands on offer, (two I picked up in my walk-in of Kathmandu's store) and wanted to give them all a go, and report how they went.

Read the rest of the review on Breach Bang & Clear here: