Cold soak newbie question

[PaulW]

I frequently go stove-less, but I’ve never tried cold soaking on the trial. My question: how do you keep your container and utensils clean? When I do bring a stove, I count on boiling water to help me clean up. When I go stove-less, I just wind up with leftover packaging. Thanks for any tips.

[Matthew / BPL]

I’m not a cold soaker but if I was I’d use some water and shake the hell out of it and then drink it. Then I’d use a drop of unscented Dr. Bronners, a small amount of water and disperse it over a wide area far from creeks/lakes. I’d probably try not to use soap ever day.

[James Marco]

Yeah, without hot water, clean-up is a b!tch. Soap is a no-no in the woods. I haven’t carried any for the past couple years.

Many things simply do not rehydrate well without hot/boiled water. Beans, rice, macaroni, dried meats, lentils and other high density trail foods never really complete hydrating. Often, even pre-cooking and drying do not do the same job. Adding olive oil, ghee or your choice of the various oils, often leaves a film that can be difficult to remove. (Oils add a LOT of calories for the weight!) But you can save about 12oz by dropping your stove and fuel. To me it is not worth the trade-off…especially in bear country…

[Lester Moore]

The key to easy cleanup is to avoid oily foods. A titanium mug requires very little cleaning if the food is not oily, and if you’re not cooking food in the mug under a flame. Just add some cold water, scrub the inside of the mug with your fingertip, drink the fluid (yum), then repeat two or three times till it’s tolerably clean.

You can also store and soak in a doubled ziploc bag. It works pretty well to use a thin, disposable bag for storage of the food, then put that bag into a heavy-gauge bag for soaking. The inner bag may leak a little, but if it’s not oily food, you can rinse out the heavy outer bag and re-use many times. It’s not ideal environmentally, but no cleaning. This method works well if using a Crotch Pot or body heat to speed the soaking process.

[Matthew / BPL]

Just my $.02 and unsolicited thread-drift but I find it to be so much easier to just eat food that doesn’t require re-hydration. I don’t have to clean anything and I don’t have to carry wet food around or wait to east it. I just pull some hard cheese, nuts, salami, seeded crackers, dried mango, etc. out and start eating it. Good times.

[Lester Moore]

so much easier to just eat food that doesn’t require re-hydration

+1. Going no-cook means less weight, less complexity and one less chore to do when you get into camp at the end of the day. On a short trip of a week or less, the weight penalty and arguable lack of food diversity of going no-cook is well worth it IMHO.

[Roger Caffin]

Cold food is one thing, but a lack of hot coffee is a completely different matter!

Cheers

[PaulW]

During warmer months, having hot coffee is the main reason I bring a stove. It’s always an agonizing pre-trip decision. I long for the day someone will invent a really tasty, pre-heated, instant coffee!

[Lester Moore]

Coffee – try warming up a packet of Justin’s chocolate hazelnut butter in your pocket, then add a single-serve packet (or two) of instant coffee – mix and enjoy on the trial.

[Matthew / BPL]

Genius

[Roger Caffin]

<rant>
The words ‘tasty’ and ‘instant’ do not belong in the same sentence.
</rant.

Cheers

[Tom K]

“but a lack of hot coffee is a completely different matter!”

Quite.  It’s the only reason I still carry a stove.

Cheers

 

[Adam Holbrook]

I tried going cold soak and wasn’t able to find much that appealed to me.  It was a minimal weight savings and that was offset to me with food that was properly hydrated etc.  Cold soaked ramen noodles was about all I could find that I could eat and rehydrated well and pretty quickly too.  I’m still looking for other options that will work, but that’s just to use as a supplement for cold lunches.  I’ll be packing some sort of stove with me regardless of the season for coffee and some hot dinners.  I’m more interested in stoveless than cold soaking, but not full time.  Gotta have some variety.

[Andrew z]

For the non-cook crowd – you don’t find that the added weight of solid food outweighs the stove/kit?

Cheese and nuts are great, but they aren’t exactly light. Until the day after you eat them…

[Ben C]

Cheese, and especially nuts, have a higher calories/oz. ratio than most any dried food.

[Lester Moore]

For the non-cook crowd – you don’t find that the added weight of solid food outweighs the stove/kit?

The added weight of a stove and fuel is miniscule, especially for short trips – much less than the weight of an ice axe, microspikes or a liter of water. The main attraction of non-cook for me is freedom from cooking and cleaning chores and having less stuff in the backpack to manage. For longer trips, the stove begins to make more sense in terms of food weight and variety – especially if you can share a stove. I can eat any glop for a weekend trip and like it fine, but for a week or more, the variety is more important.

[Andrew z]

That makes sense. I can definitely eat pre-made PB&Js for a weekender without getting sick of them if it saves me camp chores.

 

 

[Jonathan H]

Oatmeal, couscous, rice, ramen, freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, instant mashed potatoes, stovetop-type stuffing mix, AlpineAire makes freeze-dried versions of hummus or bean dip… these all rehydrate just fine. You can mix things up with spices, seeds/nuts, tuna packets, etc. There’s enough variety that I don’t miss the stove and the simplicity is great.

[Nick Smolinske]

You can always tear up a tortilla and use it to clean up. Also, if you do add oil make sure it’s unsaturated.

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