Cooking by pouring hot water into plastic bags?
Recently I came across pour and store bags. They seem a bit similar to the bags for trekking freeze-dried meals like Travel lunch. That gave me the idea of preparing the meals myself beforehand and packing them into such bags. It sounds easy & clean on the hike: just take out the bag for one meal, pour hot water into it and wait a while. The bags could be reused, which is a plus.
Is something like this a common practice? Which kind of bags would be good for it? (I mean, it has to be 101% food safe and withstand the hot water.) I do realize there’s only so much variety of such meals that I can prepare at home without freeze drying, but I don’t mind. I’m mainly curious if the system works and what bags to use.
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I use this system exclusively, and there's an entire site dedicated to the variety of ways you can do it. I think it is generally called "freezer bag cooking", and the main site I'm aware of is called TrailCooking.
I've always used ziplocks marked as "freezer bags" from the grocery store, but those ones you found seem like they would be perfect.
There's some more information in a different question too.
At it's most basic, I've taken a ramen noodle pack, emptied it into a ziplock, then emptied the flavour pack in there too. On the trail, boil 2 cups of water, throw it in the ziplock, zip it closed, and then wait 5-10 minutes. If it's cold out, you might put the ziplock in your hat to keep it better insulated, or put it between layers of your clothes (bonus of keeping you warm while you wait!).
There's a couple downsides to freezer bag cooking:
- You essentially waste the bags, they aren't very reusable after you fill them with hot water
- Sometimes the bags get little pinprick holes in them if you aren't careful (i.e. ramen can be sharp if it's crushed in your backpack). So when you pour in the hot water, you get hot water everywhere!
Good upsides though!
- Very little mess on the trail, just seal up the bag when you're done!
- no cleaning dishes
- fast and simple on trail
- lightweight because all you need to do is boil water, you can use the lightest stoves - alcohol, esbit, or tiny canister stoves
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I use Nalgene bottles (much more heat resistant) for rehydrating dried meat or beans. I pour in boiling water, leave the lid loose until it cools a little (otherwise it shrinks in the bottle walls and cracks them) and then tighten the lid and carry the bottle with me through the day. At dinner time it goes into a pot to be the start of a meal. The bottles are tougher than bags, and reusable any number of times.
I am not sure I see the advantage of the bags. Surely you still need some sort of pot to actually boil the water in? So you can't just travel without pots, it's just about saving on dishes? Ramen noodles don't exactly get a pot filthy. Because I'm canoeing, there's always lake water to wash dishes in. Maybe things are different when you're hiking.
The concept is a good one though - once you introduce dried food to boiling water, you don't necessarily have to keep it on the stove. Since I take only one stove, often I'll cook one part of the meal, take that pot aside and wrap it in a towel to keep warm, and cook the other part. (Eg spaghetti sauce keeps warm while I cook pasta, or stew keeps warm while I cook rice.)
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