Reviews > Cook Gear > Cook Sets > AntiGravityGear Mamas Kitchen Cookset > David Anderson > Field Report

Name: David Anderson
E-mail: danderson@backpackgeartest.org
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Height: 6'2" (1.87 m)
Weight: 275 (125 kg)
City: Lynnwood, WA

I grew up car camping with my family in California, and started backpacking sometime around 5th grade. As an adult I've lived, worked and backpacked in New England, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. I've also gotten involved in sea kayaking in the last few years.

My backpacking style is generally heavyweight, though I choose the lightest gear that will allow me to maintain my comfort level on the trail and at camp.

This is the complete Mama's Kitchen.
Two pots, their pot cozies, Tinman alcohol stove,
windscreen and pot grabbers.

The complete kit packs inside the large pot cozy.

Product Info

Manufacturer: AntiGravityGear

Year: 2003

Mama's Kitchen is comprised of two lightweight, aluminum non-stick pots, and their pot cozies, which are made out of aluminized bubblewrap insulation. In addition the kit contains pot grabbers, and an optional Tinman alcohol stove, made from soda cans, and a windscreen.

When packed up, the stove and pot grabbers go inside the small pot. The small pot goes in its pot cozy, which fits snuggly inside the large pot. The windscreen wraps around the large pot, and this slides right into the large pot cozy.

The complete Mama's Kitchen, packed up and ready to go is a compact 5 inches (13 cm) tall, 6 inches ( cm) in diameter and weighs less than a pound (0.45 kg).

Field Report

I have taken Mama's Kitchen, or pieces of it, along on three trips so far, as well as taking it on some day hikes and playing with some recipes at home to see what it has been capable of. Most of the testing has been in fairly mild weather, some light rain or fog, and temperatures between around 40 F (4 C) and 85 F (30 C). There were two days on my most recent trip where I was using it in some fairly extreme wind and rain, and where the temperatures dropped down to around 35 F (1 C). The testing was all done in western Washington State in the Olympic and Cascade Mountain ranges between 1000 and 5700 feet (300 - 1750 m).

Stove: Having made my own soda can stoves in the past, I was interested in seeing how the Tinman stove worked out for me. I really like that there is no need to light any alcohol outside the stove body to prime it, as is required in many stove designs. The stove does an excellent job of boiling water, and is able to keep a rolling boil going for at lest 10 minutes on one fueling.

By having the holes drilled around the outside of the can, instead of in the top like most other designs, it allows me to set the pot right on top of the stove once it is burning properly. This eliminates the need for hauling around some sort of pot stand.

I have only brought the stove along on one trip, for two nights, because on my longer trips with Laurie, I need to be able to simmer some of our meals, and that is one feature that this stove is missing. It only has two settings, On and Off. If I was bringing along another alcohol stove that was capable of simmering, I would also bring along the Tinman stove to boil water for drinks and such while cooking on the main stove.

I have made one addition to the kit when I am bringing along the Tinman stove. I use the top of a tuna can as a heat barrier when I am cooking with the stove directly on the duff. This seems to be sufficient to keep the needles from starting to smolder while I am cooking.

Windscreen: I have found the windscreen to be sufficient for most purposes. When the large pot is set directly on the stove, it does an excellent job of blocking the wind. When I am using the small pot, I overlap the ends a little bit, and I prop it into position with some small stones.

It would be nice if the windscreen was a bit taller, to help channel the heat up along the side of the pot, and to help protect the flame a bit more.

Pots: While experimenting with the pots on my nice level front porch, I never realized that there was a serious problem with having non-stick coating on the outside of the pots. When cooking on my MSR WindPro stove, on a slightly less level surface, the pot just slid off the stove and dumped out my oatmeal. I also found that I had to hold on to the pot with the pot grabbers whenever I stirred the contents of the pot.

While talking to the manufacturer of the pots at a trade show, it was suggested that the non-stick surface on the outside could be scorched off without damaging the surface on the inside. After burning some of the coating off, I found that it helped a little bit, but not enough to eliminate all the slipping problems. I have also found that the coating has continued to burn off when I cook dry meals, such as eggs, in the pot. As long as there is liquid in the pot, it will keep the coating from burning.

I believe the sliding problem could be solved by stamping concentric ridges around the bottom during manufacture. This would give the teeth that are on most of the pot stands on commercial stoves something to grab onto, even with the non-stick coating. It would also provide more surface area for heat transfer from the stove flames.

Other than the sliding issue, I have been extremely pleased with the pots themselves. They are very lightweight, and they clean out very well. The metal pot grabbers have not had any noticeable effect on the non-stick surface, and there are no signs of any scraping damage to the bottom of the pot from any of the lexan utensils that I use. The high sides do a good job of keeping me from splashing out much of my food while I am stirring it.

Pot Lids: I find it kind of odd that the two pots have such different lids. The smaller pot has a slightly domed lid, with its handle in the center. The way that it is mounted through the lid makes it so that it will never quite lay flat, which makes it easy to grab ahold of to remove the lid. It also helps to keep the handle from getting quite as hot, and it also makes it very easy to use the lid as a strainer.

The flat lid for the large pot, on the other hand, has a plain old D-ring attached to the lid near one edge. The way it is mounted allows the D-ring to lay flat on the surface, making it difficult to grab ahold of on the hot pot. I generally have to use one of my fork tines or the cork screw on my Swiss Army Knife to lift it up. It also does not give enough leverage to be able to use it as a strainer (picking the pasta out of the sand was no fun). The added weight of having to bring along the MSR strainer sure cuts into some of the fun in having such a light cook set.

I would really like to see a lid more like that for the small pot adapted to the large pot.

Cozies: When rehydrating dried food, the pot cozies have surpassed all my expectations. I boil the water, toss in my dehydrated meal, and put it in the pot cozy for 10 minutes or so, and when I open it up, I have a nice warm meal. The pot cozies do a much better job of retaining the heat than the foil bags provided with most freeze-dried meals.

When making different meals for Laurie and myself, I have also used the large pot cozy with a GSI Fairshare mug to rehydrate the meal, while heating the water in the pot for the second meal. The mug fits almost as well as the large pot in the cozy, and if I want to use it to make a warm lunch at the same time as I make breakfast, I can just leave the mug, with the lid on, in the cozy while I hike.

I just recently noticed that AntiGravityGear has a new pouch cozy for use with Zip-Lock baggies which I think will be a wonderful way to prepare a warm lunch ahead of time. I have used the pot cozy with baggies to rehydrate particularly greasy food, such as freeze-dried sausage, where I do not want to have to clean grease out of the pot when it is done. This works better that using the foil pouch that comes with the sausage, but there is a lot of extra air space in the cozy that reduces the effectiveness of this method.

For me, the real advantage of using the cozy is when it is time to eat. The food is still warm when I start eating, and it stays warm all the way through the meal. And I never burn my hands trying to hold the still hot pot while I'm eating. This alone makes carrying the cozies worth the weight.

While the cozies work great for rehydrating meals, and cooking things like instant rice or pasta, I have not had as much luck with cooked meals using the cozy. Even if I make several attempts to figure out how long I have to cook a grain at home before putting it in the cozy to finish, it never seems to finish off properly on the trail. I attribute this to the generally lower temperatures while on the trail, and the fact that water boils at a lower temperature as altitude increases. The cozy still saves me a few minutes worth of fuel on these occasions, but not as much as my experiments at home would suggest.

Since I use the large cozy much more often than the small one, it is no surprise that the large cozy is starting to show signs of wear and tear first. All the bubbles in the fold over portion of the lip have now popped, and the inner layer of foil has started to flake away along the bend line. This has not affected the usefulness of the pot cozy yet, though it will be interesting to see if this leads to any issues over the next few months.

Even if this is an issue over the course of several months of hard use, I would still find it acceptable if I had to replace the cozy once a year. Given the light weight, low price and the usefulness of the cozies, I would still consider it a bargain.

I wonder if taping along the fold line would help make the cozy more durable in the weak area without making it too stiff to fold over the top to help seal in the heat.

One other difficulty that I have had is getting the pot lip down past the top edge of the cozy. What I have finally had to resort to doing is taking the handle of whatever utensil I plan on using to eat, and running it around the outside of the pot like a tire iron, to pop the top edge of the cozy outside the lip of the pot.

Summary

Once I learned the all the idiosyncrasies of this cook set, I have found it to be quite capable for most of my back country cooking needs. Having the cozies along really helps make the food more enjoyable. The Tinman stove does a great job of boiling, but at best it will be a second stove on any trips where there will be actual cooking involved. Sometimes you just need to be able to simmer, and on those occasions, I will just have to bring one of my other stoves.

If the problems with the pot sliding, and the troublesome lid design for the large pot are addressed, this would be an almost perfect cook set. Light weigh, durable, easy cleanup, and it keeps my food warm. What more could I ask for.

Reviews > Cook Gear > Cook Sets > AntiGravityGear Mamas Kitchen Cookset > David Anderson > Field Report