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Qualicum Beach, BC
Canada
1301 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2011 : 7:56 PM
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Nope, not a portable microwave. This is something that Mountain House came up with. It's cooking with chemical reaction. They call it the Mountain Oven Flameless Heating Kit ($12.50 US at REI).
It will cook up to 5 Mountain House dinners, per kit. It comes with a reusable insulated bag, a container & salt tabs to mix with water and 5 heat activation pads.
Yay!... No more stove and fuel weight to pack! Well, let's look at this a bit closer. The entire flameless kit weighs 322 gms and that weight is up against your stove, fuel & pot weight to boil enough water for 5 meals. My smallest, lightest pot, fuel tank & stove weigh 424 gms (900 ml titanium pot, Crux stove & 231 gross wt fuel canister).
With my pot/stove/tank set up, I burn about 95 gms of fuel to get 5 boiling pots of water. So, at the end of the trip, I'll be carrying about 334 gms of gear back.
Is the flameless kit lighter at 322 gms? Five used activator pads soaks up 132 gms of retained water. So at the end of the trip, I'll be carrying about 454 gms of gear back. 120 more gms than my small stove set up.
In reality, I usually use a bigger pot & stove for multi-day trips, but I also boil water for coffee & tea, which I can't do with the flameless kit (also can't melt snow). The Mountain Oven Flameless Kit might be good in a vehicle emergency kit for winter breakdowns, but for replacing a stove, fuel & pot, for multi-day trips, I'll stick to my pot & stove. |
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Jasper, ab
Canada
1028 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2011 : 8:00 PM
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| I just used one of those Mountain house dinners and it worked amazingly well. Steam was shooting out of the bag within seconds of adding water. It got so hot I couldn't pick up the bag. The food was very good, but there isn't much of it and the waste you have to carry back out is heavier than I like.I won't buy it again. |
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North Vancouver, BC
Canada
1602 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2011 : 8:47 PM
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| I picked up something like this in a truck stop on my last road trip in the US. It was basically a mircowave dinner but you didn't need a microwave. It wasn't intended for the backcountry but we tried one out as a novelty. The heating worked fairly well. It was chilly outside so I wrapped it in my jacket to ensure it would stay toasty - glue from the packaging melted onto my jacket. |
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Calgary, Alberta
Andorra
3787 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2011 : 9:30 PM
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Would that not jsut be an adapted use of the common MRE technology?
I could see it as good emergency food, but not good steady backpacking food for the waste alone.
Neat to be reviewed though - I haven't seen this in stores yet. |
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Flameless Cooking
