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

Name: David Anderson
E-mail: danderson@backpackgeartest.org
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Height: 6'2" (1.87 m)
Weight: 285 (130 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.

Product Info

Manufacturer: AntiGravityGear 2003

The first thing I notices upon opening and inspecting the Mama's Kitchen Cook Set was how well all the pieces fit together. The pots fit snuggly within their cozies, and the small cozy is a perfect fit within the large pot. The stove and pot grabbers fit inside the small pot, and the windscreen goes between the large pot and it's cozy. The entire kitchen set takes up a cylinder 5 inches (13 cm) tall by 6.5 inches (17 cm) in diameter.

Large Pot: The large aluminum pot is approximately 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter and 4.25 inches (11 cm) tall. It has a non-stick coating to ease cleanup, and a black exterior to help it absorb heat better. While listed as being a 2-quart (1.9 L) pot, I found that it was a little short of that capacity, though it really doesn't matter since the useful cooking capacity is really only about 1.5 quarts (1.4 L) anyway. The lid is made out of unfinished aluminum with a D-ring handle near the edge.

Large Pot Cozy: The pot cozy is basically a cylinder made out of a material that is often used as warehouse insulation. It resembles 2 layers of bubble wrap stuck together with foil on both sides. The seam of the cylinder and the bottom of the cozy are attached using foil tape. Right around the seam there are 2 slits creating a flap that folds down so that the pot can be lowered into the cozy using the pot grabbers. They can then be removed and the flap folded back up. The cozy lid is simply a circle of the insulation material that has a small tab of the foil tape in the center for a handle. Once the pot is lowered into the cozy, the top is put on and the top edge of the cylinder is folded down over the top to help seal in the heat.

Small Pot: The small pot measures about 5 inches (13 cm) in diameter and 2.5 inches (6 cm) tall. The construction seems to be similar to the large pot. Unlike the larger pot, the small pot holds somewhat more than its stated 3-cup (0.7 L) capacity, though I would consider its usable cooking capacity to be somewhere in the range of 2 cups (0.5 L). Unlike the large pot, the lid for the small pot has its handle in the center

Small Pot Cozy: This is just a smaller version of the large pot cozy, with 2 exceptions. The lid does not have the foil tape handle, instead there is a slit in the middle that allows the pot handle to stick up through it. The small cozy also has a warning sticker stuck to the outside with a warning to keep the cozies away from flame or direct stove heat.

Pot Handle: The pot handle is the fairly standard design aluminum pot grabber that has been around for years. It grabs the lip of the pot, and holds it tight. Unlike previous versions of this design that I have used, the AntiGravityGear version has a very tight fit where the two pieces of the handle connect. While it gives a more secure hold of the pot, it takes more effort to remove the handle from the pot.

Windscreen: The windscreen is simply a 2.5 in x 24 in (6 cm x 61 cm) piece of aluminum flashing with the ends bent to form hooks. The windscreen forms a ring that is about 7.5 inches (19 cm) in diameter when the hooks are connected to each other.

"Tin Man" Alcohol Stove: The stove is made out of two empty soda cans, and uses denatured alcohol as the fuel supply. It is of the double wall design, with an open center section that is surrounded by a pressure chamber that feeds jet holes around the outside of the can.

Initial Report

When I first started unpacking Mama's Kitchen, my immediate impression was that this sure looked like homemade gear that was made by someone that is significantly more talented than I am. That isn't too surprising because that is what it is. Other than the pots, everything else is the sort of gear that hikers have been putting together themselves for years, to only difference is in the quality of the end product. I can make a soda can alcohol stove that works well, but mine are generally an ugly mess with uneven burner holes and epoxy smears. The fit and finish of the stove and pot cozies is far beyond anything that I have been able to produce so far.

After digging through Mama's Kitchen, it was time to go digging through the pantry to see what I had available that I could use the pot cozy to cook. I found a box of macaroni and cheese so I was ready to give it a go.

The recommended method of cooking with the Tin Man stove is to use steel or titanium tent stakes laid across the top of the windscreen to act as pot holders. Unfortunately all I have handy is aluminum stakes. The directions also suggest that once the outer jets light off, the pot can be placed directly on the top of the stove. Since I was at home and had plenty of fuel, I decided to just light the stove and wait till it got to the point that I could just place the pot directly on the stove.

Just for to see how well the pot cozy works, I added the macaroni, and just brought it back to a boil before immediately placing it in the pot cozy. I normally cook my macaroni for about 6 minutes, so I figured that I would give it 8 minutes in the cozy before checking it. When I opened the lid, I found that the macaroni was actually cooked a little more than I would normally cook it. Oh well, it wasn't the first time I've ever eaten overcooked macaroni, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

For my second experiment I decided to test the limits of cooking with a cozy and decided to cook something that I never would have bothered trying on the trail, brown and wild rice. Not the instant rice garbage, but the real thing that you simmer for 40 minutes. I loaded up a half a cup of rice and a cup of water in the small pot and set the pot up on one of my hardware wire pot stands that I made for my own alcohol stoves at home.

This arrangement caused an interesting problem. While the pot was held at about the recommended height, at the top of the windscreen, I was never able to get the small pot to come up to a rolling boil. With the jets around the outside of the stove, instead of on the top, the flames were shooting out wider than the sides of the pot. After going through one stove load of fuel, I decided to wait till the jets were lit, then setting the pot directly on the stove as I did for the mac & cheese. Once I did this, the water came to an immediate rolling boil around the outside edge of the pot.

I boiled the rice till the stove ran out of fuel, about 7 minutes and then I immediately put the pot into the small pot cozy. While waiting, and playing the part of the optimist, I cooked up a batch of holy basil chicken, and then popped the top on the cozy, dumped the rice on the plate and loaded it up with my dinner.

Well, the rice was cooked to the point that it was edible but it was the equivalent of brown rice that has been cooked about 30 minutes. I never really expected that the cozy would succeed at cooking something that simmers for that long. The thing is that given how close it was to a success, I plan on trying a few more experiments with the brown rice and using it as something of a baseline.

Test Plan

I have two trips planned in the next couple of months. Next week is a combination car camping and backpacking week, and in early September I plan to hike the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier if I can get my sorry old body into shape in time. To do this, I hope to get out for several short backpacking trips in August.

This should give me a lot of experience with a variety of weather conditions. Sun, rain, wind, hail and possibly even snow are all to be expected in the Cascades in August and September. I don't expect that the temperatures will fall much below freezing till after the field report is due.

I will be interested to see how well cooking with cozies works in cold, wet windy weather. It's one thing to leave it sitting on the kitchen counter to cook, it is quite another when there is cold wind and rain blowing on the cozy to suck the heat out of it.

I also expect to do a number of experiments at home to see how well cozy cooking works with many of my current backpacking meals, and to see if I can come up with some new meals to try out with it.

Though I will be primarily using Mama's kitchen with the Tin Man stove, I will also do some testing with some of my other stoves. Mama's kitchen is also available without the stove and windscreen, so it is appropriate to test it out with some other options too.

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