White Box or Caldera sysytem?

If you know which particular pot you have you can see if they have a Cone that matches it at Trail Designs. If so, this would be a great system for sure for cooking.

However, if you are unsure and do not want to buy another pot, the White Box would be a great choice as well. It is a great stove, only weighs 1 oz and is bomber, not to mention is only around $20! As well, the large diameter cook pot that you currently have would work very well with the White Box Stove. When that thing blooms, it is pretty big. I have used it with a 5" diameter kettle and it works great, so your pot would be good too.

You don't need a separate pot support since your pot will sit right on top of the White Box Stove, but you will need to make a windscreen. However, IIRC, the Whitebox kits comes with a large piece of aluminum to use as a windscreen also, so this should work well.

Also, the Whitebox stove has a huge fuel capacity, something like 3 oz of fuel. I have boiled just over 7 cups of water using my Whitebox Stove and a 1.8L GSI Dualist cook pot.

Either way will be a good choice though, IMO.

look at the Sidewindeer cone for its ability to burn wood W/ the optional Inferno insert. Also great with ESBIT or alky.

A two liter pot is fine if you are doing lots of real cooking, because you need some stirring room. A smaller pot is fine if you are going solo. Smaller yet is fine if you are only boiling water. The first issue is to decide how much pot volume you really need. The overall size of your cook system is important, because the bigger it is, the bigger your backpack needs to be, and the bigger it is, the heavier it is.

An aluminum pot is fine if you are really cooking. Titanium is fine also for water boiling, but not so great for cooking. Titanium will withstand the heat of a wood twig fire, and aluminum is likely to deform. Beer can pots are a little on the fragile side. If you pack them harshly, they can be deformed. If you stuff a spare pair of socks inside a beer can pot, it will do better.

You may want to explore a food dehydrator. You can dry your own food and mix up your own lightweight meals. But there are many dry food products anyway, if you look around.

Whatever you decide upon, experiment at home so that you know which fuels work best with which cooking styles. You don't want to get a bad surprise when you are three days out on a six-day trip.

–B.G.–

Thanks for all the insightful info.
I think i should just get the white box and play with it to see if i like it.Its only 20$ so i cant lose.
I also should really figure out dehydrating food.I like to eat a lot so that is why i never really go on long trips.My last bpack trip was only 15miles rt and i brought 1 lbs of cooked lentils,1.5 lbs of lasagna,2 lbs of of mashed cooked sweet potatoes(This is the raw weight before i boiled the lentils and steamed the sweet pootatoes.There was a lot of water in that cooked stuff on top of all that.)I also brpught 1 lbs of raisins ,1 lbs of choc bars.

If i could figure out dehydrating i could get the smallest pot system and just add water.

There are some others here who are experts in the food dehydration game. I have a food dehydrator that I purchased about thirty years ago, and it still serves for me. In fact, I will likely be doing an 8-hour dehydration on some peaches tonight. That wastes a certain amount of heat in my kitchen, but that serves to warm most of my home in the wintertime.

What you will find out is that dehydration takes time and energy at home, but then that saves you cooking time and energy out on the trail. One friend of mine never cooks anything on the trail and simply cold-rehydrates food while walking along. Saving energy on the trail may mean saved weight of white gas, butane, alcohol, or Esbit, or it might mean the saved resource of wood twigs.

There are too many foods at the grocery store that are already dehydrated or else freeze-dried, and they are much cheaper than doing the raw food yourself. So, get a dehydrator and then start shopping for food. Some people hit the farmers markets to buy a bushel of fruit to dry. Some people have their own fruit trees. I've found a good grocery store source of canned fruit in #10 cans. The fruit is already peeled and cored, so that makes preparation for the dehydrator pretty simple (rinse off).

I've found that a half-cup of fruit chips plus a half-cup of instant cereal and then covered with a cup of boiling water will serve as my trail breakfast.

–B.G.–

"My issue is largely because in the past i have hauled large amounts of food that need to be cooked.I don't like the ready made meals and have not figured out dehydrated food where all u need is to add water."

Not the question you asked, but very relevant if you want to reduce weight, simplify, and eat well, especially if you are not into gourmet/highend meals on the trail.

If you can cook a simple robust meat-free stew at home you can eat well (adding meat if necessary) on the trail . As Bob G. mentions, a dehydrator is the key. Add in off-the-supermarket-shelf meals to come up with 6 good meals and you will be set. The most daunting aspect is assembling the "minor component ingredients". It does take time and energy to figure it out. There is a Lot of information on this site, if you can find it.

Sarah's site – http://www.trailcooking.com (make-it-yourself) and Packet-Gourmet (buy it) should give you enough info to decide if you want to go this route.

I am typically below 1.5 pounds of food per day, my "kitchen" and fuel is minimal (Caldera Cone), and life is good.

Go with the White Box. It works great with wide pots and has the fuel capacity that you'll need.

"Add in off-the-supermarket-shelf meals to come up with 6 good meals and you will be set."

Greg, why six?

I start out with three ziploc bags (instant rice, instant quinoa, and couscous). For any one evening's dinner, I can use whatever mixture of those I want, and then I dump in one portion of instant soup mix and one of turkey. So, I really have about six ziploc bags inside my bear canister to cover it for dinners. For breakfasts, I start with one of the same cereals and add fruit chips from another ziploc. One ziplock of Gatorade powder and some instant coffee. Throw in some lunch bars and I am good to go.

–B.G.–

"Greg, why six?"

No particular reason, except that I like variety in tastes and textures. Six will cover seven days of hiking, and repeated 13. I actually have 8 favorites, tried and true. Three are off-the-shelf, 5 I build at home. If my pantry is stocked, I can assemble 2 weeks of meals, including lunch and breakfast, in about 2 hours.

I admire folks who can build on the fly, but I am not one of them. On the trail I really like "no-thought-required" dinner prep. Often times it is dark-thirty and I am brain-dead. All dinners are in ziplocks and numbered by day. Boil water, add to bowl, cover, wait, and eat.