Coffee pot girlscout trick

Has anyone tried this on aluminum coffee pot or just an aluminum pan? I havn't heard of it.
Soaping the bottom before putting on fire, to make cleanup easier?

I followed the link you provided, and it directed me to a review of a camp stove coffee pot on Amazon.com. Maybe it's a typo?

Thanks,
J.

One of the reviews talks about soaping the pot to keep it from turning black. That's what the link refers to.

Wasatch, what soaping does is make it la bit easier to wash the black soot off the pot. It doesn't keep the pot from turning black, and the pot will eventually end up black (at least in spots) anyway. It also requires a thick coating of soap each time. Consider that a black pot will absorb heat more efficiently! The black will rub off, so you'll need to put the pot in a stuff sack to keep everything in the pack from getting black. After trying both ways, I decided that soaping the pot wasn't worth the trouble. Soap is hard on aquatic life, and IMHO the less you use the better.

This is one reason I prefer to cook over a stove rather than using a fire. It's easier on the environment, too. Out here in the West there are quite a few places you can't build a fire, either because the surroundings are too sensitive (high altitude or overuse) or because of high fire danger. The bonus is a non=sooty pot!

The Boy Scout trick is to bring the pot home and let your mother clean it.

(That didn't work either.)

+1, Gershon!

Yeah, soaping pot bottoms is an old-time method of making soot clean-up a bit easier, and yes, pots are still messy with soot, soap or no. For some a fly-drive-camp vacations, I've planned to cook over a fire and just packed a few saved cans. Carry in repurposed plastic shopping bags and toss at the end of the trip. Done!

CM

That is no longer a good idea. Cans now have a plastic liner (BPA) and putting them over a fire is not a good idea.

One time, at scout camp...

Sorry. We soaped pots before putting them on the fire when I was a youth participant in scouting. Liquid soap worked well. As OM said, it was to make the soot easier to clean off.

"That is no longer a good idea. Cans now have a plastic
liner (BPA) and putting them over a fire is not a good
idea."

I understand. However, I'm talking about using cans to do such tasks as heating water in a short-term situation. Canned food has to go through a process with a heat that I doubt is duplicated if I boil water. Without pressure, food won't get hotter than liquid allows. OK, it will be something above 212 F unless I'm boiling plain water, but not as hot as a dry-baked food or burning the can dry.

Sad, but back in the day.....

J.

Of course, none of this applies to areas where fires are prohibited.

And the good news is that we found our current favorite cooking pot in a campfire ring at 10,000 feet. It was completely blackened, and left to die. We picked it up, carried it out, and cleaned it up. And we've used it ever since.

But over a stove.