Open Country 2qt pot 7.8oz. (a 15 dollar aluminum pot vs. 60 dollar 7.9oz titanium pot!)

It's always nice when you find gear that's better than you thought it was. In my teens I was given a grab-bag of old gear, including a large, stiff, oddly shaped headnet. Years later I looked at it again and realized it was a 10×18 mesh stuff sack that weighs less than one ounce.

Titanium really only has the edge over aluminum if you use a campfire to cook with.

Edit: that wire bale is pretty slick. Too bad they don't make an Open Country 1 quart pot.

Isn't there some danger in using aluminum cookware if it's uncoated?

Michael
The weight is often discussed but some get Ti simply because it is more dent resistant than aluminium.
I would not recommend Ti to anyone that cooks .( I only boil)
Franco

I have the 2 qt and 4 qt aluminum pots, they're awesome. My 4 qt pot is almost 20 years old and besides one good dent is in great shape. These pots are fantastic for cooking in the fire. … And yeah, a one quart would be nice, but I use a Brunton IB cookset to fill that gap. Also great pieces of aluminum cookware.

Texsport also makes a 1.5qt aluminum pot. Note that the lid is very heavy, but a grease pot lid works. I simply remove the handle (substituting a piece of the handle and a smaller alum screw) and cut off the flange leaving a thicker disk for a lid. The pot, bail (aluminum) and lid comes up to about 5.875 oz. I use a K-Mart grease pot for solo work at about 3.75oz. I think they still sell their set for $17, though most parts, except the pot, are pretty worthless.

Aluminum is not toxic. It is found in all sorts of stuff and common alloys of Titanium actually have aluminum in them. You really don't get away from it. Acidic foods like spighetti sauce will cut into aluminum leaving a LOT in your food, however.

As others have said, the big advantakge is ti doesn't dent as easily. It is also more brittle. I cracked a ti pot one time unbending it. Aluminum generally takes a few dents amd bends with little effect.

At the thinness we are talking, nothing makes a good cooking pan. Aluminum is slightly better than ti, but it really doesn't effect heat transfer that much.

For boiling water, making soups/stews, breads, etc at camp, I prefer aluminum because it is just lighter. Thanks, Michael!

http://www.opencountry.com

2 Quart Aluminum Kettle Item Number: 4368-0085

This traditional straight-sided aluminum kettle with plated wire bail handle has a flat cover lid with a riveted "D" ring on it. Simplicity, durability, and light weight make this a great value!

Dimensions: 6 1/4" DIA x 4 1/2" 0.26 Lbs. (4.1 oz)

I don't know how REI went from 4 oz to 12 oz. (Mistakes were made)

Congrats on the newfound enlightenment! That's always a nice surprise.

As far as REI's listed specs, take them with a grain of salt. They are often wrong. For more accurate results, scour the web for actual users measured weights. Especially if weight is a big part of the reason for the purchase in the first place.

The pot that comes in boy scout mess kits is about 0.9 liter and probably made by open country or texsport.

It may be more of a 0.7 liter pot, so my volume may be off.

My Open Country hard anodized 2qt. pot and lid weighs 6.25oz. Costs a fraction of titanium and performs just as well, if not better (I like to have the option to cook in my pots). I also own the 3 cup pot. I just don't see the benefit of spending (at least) twice as much on titanium. They don't make the hard anodized anymore but you can find them over on the Trail Designs site.

I got my non-stick two quart and three cup pans as a set with a pot lifter off Amazon for about fifteen bucks. They are a great value made in the US. I think it's called the Sierra piece set.

I see absolutely no advantage of using ti over aluminum for cooking utensils.

1. Ti is VERY expensive
2. Ti does not distribute heat well or evenly
3. most Ti is not non-stick
4. size for size Ti usually weighs more than aluminum

I have Ti in my CC Sidewinder/Inferno woodburning stove B/C it withstands the higher heat of a wood fire.

Ti tent stakes? well, maybe but generally I prefer MSR's Groundhog aluminum stakes.

Ti in the frame of a .44 magnum revolver for Griz protection, great.

Ti in the case of a watch, OK.

Apparently a lot of folks are getting smart about the marketing hype that has been pushing titanium cookware and I am encouraged to see folks pushing back against that hype and pressing forward toward a return to the idea of practical application and the fundamental principles of price/value.

It's about time.

I'm one of them. I've found no advantage to Ti pots, other than having been able to say I own a few. Yeah, I used to be a lemming, on some levels I probably still am one but just don't know it yet. The miracle of marketing.

Whatever, now those titanium pots sit on the shelf.

The bottom line is that even at four times the price of lightweight hard anodized aluminum Ti is not superior cookware.

I've been using an Open Country hard-anodized 2 quart pot, supplied with the Trail Designs Sidewinder setup, for a couple of months. $60. That setup has performed very well and is the principle reason that my Ti stuff is collecting dust.

In any case, of course, pack what makes you happy. Always HYOH and so forth. But $60 for a pot to bring a liquid to boil is ridiculous.

The Bush Pot is a great little 1.1 liter (5 cup) pot that come in plain aluminum and hard anodized with a bail handle. It is 6.8 oz but could be made even lighter with a lighter gauge bail handle and a MYOG aluminum lid.

Four Dogs sells them as well as Ben's Backwoods:

Hard Anodized:
http://fourdog.com/1-1-liter-bush-pot-hard-anodized/
http://www.bensbackwoods.com/servlet/Detail?no=687

Plain Alum:
http://fourdog.com/1-1liter-bush-pot-plain-aluminum/

Those are nice-looking pots, glad to know about them.

Titanium, in terms a specific gravity is 71% heavier than aluminum.

Here is a post I made on another thread:

Have you considered an aluminum Stanco Grease Pot? It works well for two people.

40 fluid oz = 1.3 Liter capacity

3.7 oz (for both the Pot & the Stock Lid combined – definitely very light)

$ 6.14 in cost (definitely more affordable than the Open Country or other pots on the market).

… It also comes with a grease strainer, which can be left at home.
Or if you like a Bakepacker type insert for baking, then you can trim the rim off and turn it upside down into the bottom of the pot, where it will nicely approximate a Bakepacker at zero cost.

You can also shave off almost 1 oz from the lid by getting rid of the large plastic knob. A bead, or paper clip are two of the possible substitutes.

The pots are available here:

I know this is an old thread but hey, I’m an old guy.

Many years ago I bought a Trail Designs Sidewinder Caldera Cone stove. It’s titanium and, as I said above, that is so I can use it with the INFERNO gasifier insert to make VERY hot wood fires.

Anyhow, this stove came with an Open Country 3 cup pot , which I found is perfect for my backpacking cooking needs with any stove I use because I do cook, not merely boil water.

It is an anodized aluminum wider-than-tall pot and that ratio makes it maximize heat efficiency. I also use a nice roll-up MSR aluminum windscreen to save on fuel. When used on the TD Caldera Cone stove it perfectly conserves fuel with that cone design and perfect fit. I usually use ESBIT fuel tablets which are a bit hotter than alcohol and lighter per meal.

I know this is an old thread but hey, I’m an old guy.

Open Country makes great products.  They closed their camp cookware in 2016.  My 2 cents.

Don’t want to be a Debbie Downer or anything, but I’m amazed that the industry makes Aluminium (a known neurotoxin) cooking products at all:

Recent studies have demonstrated that the brain may be considered as the target for Al toxicity (Exley, 2014), resulting in neurodegenerative (Exley, 2013; Shaw et al., 2014) and neurodevelopmental disorders (Blaylock, 2012). Recent detailed studies by Exley and the coauthors have highlighted the association between brain Al accumulation and neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and autism spectrum disorder (Exley and Clarkson, 2020; Mirza et al., 2017; Mold et al., 2018).

I’d stick to titanium.  But that’s just me.

Andy

The beat-up on aluminium is an old one, and was totally discredited when it was started. It was just a couple of guys with a bee in their bonnet – and no science to support.

Consider: aluminium is one of the most common elements in our environment. (Geology) If it was toxic we would all be dead – tens of thousands of years ago. Or if you like: we have evolved over tens of thousands of years to live safely with it all around us. No, it is NOT a toxin of any sort. Carry on.

The association claimed between aluminium and brain plaques was found (several independent review studies) to be due dodgy incompetent lab work: contamination is sample preparation!

Did you know that dihydrogen monoxide kills tens of thousands of people every year?

Cheers

Roger, which part of the paper “Molecular mechanisms of aluminum neurotoxicity: Update on adverse effects and therapeutic strategies” (Advances in Neurotoxicology, 2021) did you disagree with?

The paper opens with : “Aluminum (Al) is considered as the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, being the third most abundant chemical element after oxygen and silicon.”

Something’s abundance says nothing about its toxicity when in the brain.  Bacteria are abundant, it doesn’t mean you want them in your brain (it’s why we have a blood-brain-barrier).

Entry and Deposit of Aluminum in the Brain

Aluminum, as a known neurotoxicant, contributes to cognitive dysfunction and may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. The important reason is that aluminum can enter and be deposited in the brain.

If you enjoy using aluminium, I’m not going to try and stop you.  All I said is that I won’t.  Your characterisation of the literature is strange to say the least.

Cheers,
Andy

Hi Andy

Yes, the original Exley scandal was a bit of a notorious stuff-up. A seven day wonder, which died. It was flawed. But on the web, resurrection is the norm.

Independent studies suggested that the aluminium supposedly in the (few) samples actually came from the lab prep process. Normal lab process to avoid this sort of accident requires that the researchers run what we call ‘blanks’ through exactly the same prep line. If X turns up in the blanks you have to ask why – and discount all your results. Exley ran NO blanks. His few results were all over the place – but he averaged them. He did not reveal that he was involved in a company which sold ‘anti-aluminium water’. Yeah, right.

The later paper you cited comes from Russia:
‘The study was performed with the support of the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education’
Yeah, right.

Now, that is not to say that aluminium is totally harmless. It isn’t, but for the average consumer, there is no danger. We – members of the animal kingdom, have lived with high ambient levels of aluminium for the last few Billion years, with no apparent risk.
But – to each his own. Enjoy.

Cheers

Consider: aluminium is one of the most common elements in our environment. (Geology) If it was toxic we would all be dead – tens of thousands of years ago. Or if you like: we have evolved over tens of thousands of years to live safely with it all around us. No, it is NOT a toxin of any sort. Carry on.

Unfortunately, this is not accurate at all. Yes, Aluminium has been abundant in the core and upper mantle (lithosphere) locked in ore bodies for millions of years. However, not one species on planet earth has evolved to require, utilise or metabolise Aluminium.  Not one.

From “Aluminium in Biological Environments: A Computational Approach” (Journal of Computational & Structural Biotechnology, 2014).

Aluminium is the most abundant metal element on the Earth crust, however, biological systems have evolved in the absence of this abundant metal. This apparent paradox can be understood in terms of the effective geo-chemical control of aluminium by means of its interaction with silicic acid [1]. Other metal ions such as Mg(II), Fe(II)/Fe(III), Ca(II), Zn(II) etc, have been biologically available, and biological systems have evolved in the presence of these metals, coordinated to phosphate, carboxylate, hydroxyl and other ligands. However, in the last century, human intervention has made aluminium, sparingly soluble, so available for biological systems that one can say that we have started to live in the aluminium age. However, little is still known on the effects of the human exposure to this element, although one could suspect that its effects should be important due to the highly charged nature of aluminium. In fact, in the last years, there are increasing evidences that aluminium could be behind of a variety of toxic effects in biological systems [2–4], with significant risks for human health. Therefore, the open(ing) of the geochemical pandora-box of aluminium into biological systems is unlikely to be without consequences.

I’ll leave it there, as again:  if people like cooking and eating out of aluminium, that’s their business.  Just not for me, that’s all.

Andy

The later paper you cited comes from Russia.

I’ll start with some of the A’s

Alexei Abrikosov, discovered how magnetic flux can penetrate a superconductor (the Abrikosov vortex), Nobel Prize winner
Franz Aepinus, related electricity and magnetism, proved the electric nature of pyroelectricity, explained electric polarization and electrostatic induction, invented achromatic microscope
Zhores Alferov, inventor of modern heterotransistor, Nobel Prize winner
Sergey Alekseenko, director of the Kutateladze Institute of Thermophysics, Global Energy Prize recipient
Artem Alikhanian, a prominent researcher of cosmic rays, inventor of wide-gap track spark chamber
Abram Alikhanov, nuclear physicist, a prominent researcher of cosmic rays, built the first nuclear reactors in the USSR, founder of Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP)
Semen Altshuler, researched EPR and NMR, predicted acoustic paramagnetic resonance
Lev Artsimovich, builder of the first tokamak, researcher of high temperature plasma
Gurgen Askaryan, predicted self focusing of light, discovered Askaryan effect in the particle physics

Andy

Quote:

Christopher Exley, a Professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry at Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, has been blocked from raising funds for his pseudoscientific research. His grant applications were rejected by scientific research councils in the UK.

He then turned to GoFundMe to raise money, and they also rejected him. GoFundMe stated that “campaigns raising money to promote misinformation about vaccines violate GoFundMe’s terms of service and we are removing them.”

Of course, there’s more to the story about Exley’s “research” funding that is either delicious irony or just plain loathsome. Much of his research is funded by the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute, run by an infamous anti-vaxxer, Claire Dwoskin. Ironically, Dwoskin has supported lots of fake vaccine research, including the frequently retracted “research” from the aforementioned Shaw and Tomljenovic.
https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/christopher-exley-vaccine-pseudoscientist/

re Exley:
he’s one of a group of scientists funded by the Child Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), which is a group funded by Claire and Al Dwoskin, who are as rabidly antivaccine as anyone I’ve seen, including even Mike Adams.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/

Comment:
You won’t find any of this on mainstream science journals. Those journals have a reputation to uphold. And better things to do.

Cheers