The Bottom Line, Up Front
If you want to boil enough water to make a cup or more of tea or other hot beverage as quickly and efficiently as possible using a handful of twigs, pine cones, or other dry biomass, a Ghillie Kettle may be the ideal tool for the job. It can have your water boiling in about 3 minutes or so. That gives almost-microwave-like preparation times in the field for just-add-boiling-water food and beverage options.
Ghillie Kettles are handmade in the UK and come in three sizes. The Maverick can boil up to 2 cups of water at a time. At the time of this writing, the silver-anodized Maverick cost $89 from CampingKettle.com. The Explorer (which cost $104) can boil up to 4 cups of water at a time. The Adventurer (which cost $109) can boil up to 6 cups of water at a time. There are also versions available that are hard anodized rather than silver anodized. There is also a more compact version called the mKettle (which cost $99).
Description
The Ghillie Kettle is one particular brand of chimney kettle. A chimney kettle has a hollow, open-ended shaft running vertically through the middle of the kettle. The kettle nests into a fire pan, and the shaft in the middle of the kettle serves as a chimney. The heat rising through the central shaft creates a draft that draws air into the firebox. This makes a chimney kettle basically a rocket stove in which a kettle serves as the chimney. Since a large percentage of the surface area of the chimney kettle is exposed to the heat rising from the fire pan, it absorbs heat quickly and efficiently, resulting in rapid boiling.
The Cook Kit
For an additional $40, you can get a cook kit that includes a tiny frying pan and sauce pan, a grill, a high quality pot gripper, a base stand, and an ingenious pot support.
The pot support slides firmly onto the top of the kettle. I am sure that the pot support was inspired by the desire to utilize the vigorous jet of flame that shoots out of the top of the chimney when the kettle is in full burn. The problem with using the pot support in this way is that any food in the pot on top of the pot support will probably not yet be fully cooked when the kettle boils and needs to be removed from the flame.
It is true that when the kettle boils the pot support can be moved from the top of the kettle to the top of the fire pan. This somewhat tedious process involves using the pot gripper to remove the pot from the pot support, using the pot gripper to remove the pot support from the top of the kettle, removing the kettle from the fire pan, using the pot gripper to move the pot support to the top of the fire pan, and then moving the pot to the top of the pot support.
I don’t think that I have the poise and coordination necessary to consistently complete such a process with success. I can see myself instead knocking over the entire apparatus, spreading half cooked food, boiling water, and burning embers around the campsite.
Just-Add-Boiling-Water Options
For those like me who struggle with multi-tasking, there are a host of just-add-boiling-water meal options for camp cooking with the Ghillie Kettle. In addition to obvious solutions like instant oatmeal and cup-o’-noodles, a host of more appetizing recipes and ideas are available online at places like
Packing Considerations
The Ghillie Kettle is light, weighing less than 2 pounds. However, take note that it is 10.6 inches tall and has a maximum diameter of 5.5 inches, giving it a volume of almost 252 cubic inches. That makes it take up a significant portion of the available room inside of a backpack. Depending upon their particular circumstances and preferences, the user may decide that the convenience of rapid access to boiling water may make some extra bulk worthwhile.
Test #1
It was a cool, rainy summer evening. It was so cool, in fact, that I kindled a fire in the wood stove in the living room to take the chill out of the house. I then headed for the pole barn to test the Ghillie Kettle. The particular model that I was testing was the Maverick.
I opened both barn doors to allow adequate ventilation. I then put a 12 X 12 inch ceramic tile on my work surface to protect it from heat. I set up the Ghillie Kettle on the tile.
I first filled the kettle to capacity to get a sense of how much water it holds. After dumping some water out to allow for expansion, I had about 21 ounces of water left in the kettle.
I grabbed a bunch of dry sticks, and broke them into pieces each about 3 to 4 inches long. I then took a piece of waterproof tinder made from a cotton ball soaked in a molten mixture of paraffin and petroleum jelly. I pulled the waterproof tinder apart to expose fine fibers, placed it in the fire pan, and then ignited the tinder with a ferrocerium rod. I then added a handful of sticks, and nested the kettle onto the fire pan. The fire promptly went out. I should have allowed the sticks more time to ignite before covering them with the kettle.
I removed the kettle from the fire pan, took a second ball of waterproof tinder, pulled it in half, and lit it with the ferrocerium rod. I waited until the sticks started to burn well before nesting the kettle onto the fire pan. In just a minute or two, the fire was burning fiercely, and in just another minute or two, the water in the kettle was boiling vigorously.
I waited for the kettle to whistle, but it never did. Instead, the lid popped off, and boiling water gushed out. I had filled the kettle overly full.
Test #2
I emptied the kettle, and refilled it with 15 ounces of water. I added fuel to the fire pan, and nested the kettle onto the fire pan. Within 3 minutes the kettle was boiling vigorously. Once again the whistle did not sound, and the lid popped off, but this time no boiling water gushed out.
Test #3
An examination of the lid revealed that the whistle was not assembled properly. I took it apart, and reassembled it with the slot in the inner disk of the lid next to the hole in the outside of the lid.
I then emptied the fire pan into our fire pit, and refilled the kettle with about 8 ounces of water. I then pulled apart a ball of waterproof tinder, put it in the fire pan, ignited it with a ferrocerium rod, added a handful of sticks to the fire pan, allowed them to start burning, and then nested the kettle onto the fire pan. Within 3 to 4 minutes, the kettle was whistling merrily.
There was still plenty of fuel in the fire pan to boil more water. When I emptied the fire pan into the fire pit, even the waterproof tinder was still burning.
Chimney Kettle History
Chimney kettles may have been inspired by the larger and heavier samovar or by traditional Asian hot-pots, which utilize a water jacket around a central chimney. A chimney-kettle-like design is said to have been in common use among Irish fishermen by the late 1800s. By the early 1900s, nearly a dozen companies were producing chimney kettles in Ireland, England, and New Zealand, respectively. Just a few brands are still manufactured, nd there now even fewer now on the market in the United States. One other well-known brand is the Kelly Kettle.
By the time of World War II, chimney kettles were standard issue to New Zealand troops.
In general, the more a particular population enjoys drinking tea, the more likely they are to embrace chimney-kettles-like designs.
Conclusions
The Ghillie Kettle is an outstanding tool for boiling moderate amounts of water quickly. The optional cooking kit increases the versatility of the unit, but it lacks the elegant simplicity of the kettle alone.
One feature that I like about the kettle is that any soot produced by the flame is contained within the inside of the chimney. One drawback of most twig stoves is that they deposit a significant amount of soot on the outside of cookware, from whence the soot tends to migrate to other items of gear.
A key differentiator: The Ghillie Kettle lacks the versatility and compactness of a flat pack twig stove, but it boils water dramatically faster than a twig stove, and consumes less fuel while doing so.
If you really enjoy hot beverages and are willing to plan your menu around just-add-boiling-water entrees, then the Ghillie Kettle may offer a quick and convenient solution for your camp cooking.
Disclaimer
Grills’n Ovens, the American distributor for the Ghillie Kettle Company of Redditch, England, was kind enough to provide me with a sample of the silver anodized Ghillie Kettle Maverick with Cook Kit for testing and evaluation. I tried not to let their kindness interfere with my objectivity in this review, and believe that I have succeeded. I did not receive any other financial or other inducement to mention any vendor, product, or service in this article.