Boiling water without a pot.

NB16 said:
This might sound pretty lame but for quick outings i have used a cambells soup can just for me. Pretty cheap method but only last for 10 boilings maybe.... but back to topic......Coal burned containers using hot rocks, birch bark with hot rocks and using animal rawhide with hot rocks...dont know how well that last one would work. Excuse me if these are stupid ideas Im a noob
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NB16, this shows you are thinking. Good on you. We are all noobs at one time or another. Thinking and trying are how we become...un-noobs? Well, it is how you survive long enough to be called a codger.

Aboriginals of many cultures burned wood into bowls. And used heated rocks to boil water in them. They also used animal stomachs suspended from tripods, and used heated rocks to boil and cook in them. As has been mentioned though, be careful of your rock selection. Some rocks contain moisture already and will explode if placed in a fire. I mean... explode! Like sending hot, sharp shards off in every direction.

A soup can is good. An aluminum can or even a glass bottle work well enough if you don't place it directly in a hot fire.

Keep thinking and trying! That's how we all learn! :thumbup:

Codger
 
FLIX said:
Water boils at 212°F and styrofoam melts at about 250°F. In my experience, I placed a styrofoam cup on a flat rock where it got heat but no direct flame. The cup melted, spilling the contents into the fire, before the water ever reached boiling.

-- FLIX
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Perhaps the styrofoam insulates too well.
 
Carrying a roll of leather might be the only convient way to do boil water in an emergency. For short hikes, I am not carrying a pot.

The other options are found materials which people have already mentioned. I got lost in the Canadian bush for an evening and way out in the middle of nowhere there was a sheet of corrugated metal 4'x3'. There is "almost" always something. What sucks about that sentence is almost. I hate that!

Most people would have to drink possible contaminated water and hope for early rescue. Maybe, look for dribbles near a rock wall?
 
I think the whole "boil water in a paper cup thing" is a silly campfire trick without any survival value. And who carries a paper cup?
 
nick-nack said:
I remember reading that you could "boil" (not sure if its truly boil or not) by filling a plastic bottle with no air at all. But a few raised the points that this may leak ptoxins from the plastic.
On a survivorman he boiled water using his hat which was made of a dense fabric,by putting hot rocks in.
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If you truly boiled it, you'd get a steam explosion that would rip that bottle to pieces ;) I saw a video where a guy was using a cheap, cheap plastic water bottle and tossed it on a fire. It didn't boil, but the bottle was already slowly melting. Wouldn't want to really risk that in a survival scenario, you really can't subject thin plastic to that treatment too many times before it weakens....
 
FLIX said:
Water boils at 212°F and styrofoam melts at about 250°F. In my experience, I placed a styrofoam cup on a flat rock where it got heat but no direct flame. The cup melted, spilling the contents into the fire, before the water ever reached boiling.

-- FLIX
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Styrofoam is a pretty decent thermal insulator, which explains how the water inside can be less than 212 but the cup is over 250 (and also why the "water boils at 212, nalgene gives off gasses at ### (which is over 212) degrees, thus nalgene is safe" argument sort of doesn't make sense (to me, at least - IANA physicist /chemist).

You're going to see a temperature difference regardless, and if the water can't cool the container quickly enough because of the container's insulative properties, it's going to melt, even with water in it.
 
I read that the samis up north make boxes out of birch bark and make coffee in them. It works. The thing is to not let the container touch the burning material, that is why the styrofoam cup melted, it recieved too much energy at once.
If you are boiling water in a PET bottle that too works, i doubt though that the dangerous stuff evaporates as low as 212F/100C and even if they do I still doubt that the boiled water will be a deadly cocktail of any hazmats in the book. The option is not to drink at all, or hike in the swedish/norwegian alps where ALL water is clean to drink straight from the river.
 
I realize that it is not an option in all environments, but here in the South U.S.A. we have river cane. It seldom grows more than 1" in diameter, unlike oriental bamboo, but water can be boiled in sections of it. The first boiling may have an off flavor though. It withstands quite a bit of heat if not directly in a flame. We don't have birch unless you rob someone's landscaping.

Codger
 
This sounds like a good reason to put a sheet of foil in my Altoids tin.

Fold the foil in the shape of a cup (as others have mentioned) but make
the size where the bottom half of the Altoids tin serves as the base.

That should give enough support and protection for repeated boilings.
 
chrisaloia said:
Carrying a roll of leather might be the only convient way to do boil water in an emergency. For short hikes, I am not carrying a pot.
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If you won't carry a small, light pot, you haven't you already decided not to have the "convenient" option? And if a pot is out, isn't heavy aluminum foil a better choice than leather?

The other options are found materials which people have already mentioned.
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Seems like if there's enough water to fish, there's beer cans. :o
 
I make birch containers to boil oin, but a Kleen Kanteen stainless steel water bottle is more convenient.
 
Guys, I think you'll be very frustrated with packing foil with the intent of making a boioling container. It is one thing to build a bowl in the kitchen using the foill right off the roll. It is another thing entirely to fold foil up small enough to fit in your PSK, then to try to unfold it and fashion a bowl out of it. Even heavy foil tends to fail at the creases, making any such container less than leakproof and certainly of short, if any, usable life.

-- FLIX
 
One thing is to make the PSK container out of some material that take heat. Or why not just pack the whole kit in a titanium mug.
 
Quite right Flix, foil WILL develop pinholes at the creases, guaranteed. The leakage IME is not enough that it can't be dealt with by topping up the water though. My suggestion about the pit liner comes from frustration at trying to make a tinfoil cup strong enough hold water for any length of time. Bear in mind too, that (regardless of armchair physics) even the heavier kitchen foils only last for a couple of boilings when formed as a cup or pot - not nearly enough to keep a body hydrated. Don't take my word for it - try it out !
 
It seems to me that there might be a market here for a metal version of one of those cheesy plastic collapsible cups that would fit into...say....an Altoids tin. Anyone know of such a creature ?
 
The collapsible cups were aluminum and steel before they were plastic. I have a couple somewhere. I suppose I should try boiling in one. If the rings expand at different rates, won't work.

My OSK is packed in an amuminum box - 5" x 3" x 3.5". They are out there if you keep your eyes open.

Then there are tea cans. 50 tea bags and a tight-fitting lid on a steel can.

Too bad about Prince Albert.

ED:

Some aluminum pet food cans have seamless bodies - no seams to melt open with repeated use - and very light.

Progresso soup cans are seamless aluminum.
 
This is a great thread which hits directly at a major flaw in many of our survival kits.

How do you get a piece of equipment small and light enough to truly carry on short hikes but large and durable enough to boil water?

Most of us have the fire and shelter thing down pretty well, the knife thing is barely covered ;) but the water is left hanging???

Hm???? I might be looking at birch pot making pretty soon.
 
Clay pottery in the wilds is certainly doable. I've done it. But it isn't something done in a few hours of one day. Water can be boiled in a metal pipe. What about those treking poles some of you use? A tent pole?

The key to problem solving is to keep thinking about the problem and how to overcome it. If one thing doesn't work, try another. Or three.

Codger
 
How about an oven bag - maybe lined with foil for extra protection, into which you drop hot rocks? You would then have something in which to store/carry the sanitized water.
 
I just bought an aluminum cup that fits over the bottom of army style canteens, and it all fits nicely into its belt mounting canvas bag.
99fe_1.JPG
<something like this (I have a different bag though)


If you have a knife you could always care a branch (as big as practical) into a trough, into which you could put hot stones.
 
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