Biketouringhobo

What is the best cookware???Titanium how is it to cook with over Aluminum and Stainless Steel?

I am looking to buy the Eveynew Titanium Ti-Ware Dx4, Dx3 cookset from REI ASAP!

Evernew Titanium Ti-ware cookset
Dx4 1.9 Liters 6.5x3.4in pot+fry pan/lid 10.6 oz
Dx3 1.3 Liters 5.9x3.0in pot+fry pan/lid 8.1oz
10.6+8.1=18.7oz = 1.168 pounds

I do have the MSR Base 2 cookset
7.5x5in 2.5 Liters pot, 1.5 Liters pot, lid 17oz 1.062 pounds
MSR Skillet 8.2in 5.6 oz 0.35pounds
17+5.6=22.6 oz = 1.412 pounds

Should I stay the the MSR cookware
and also looking at the MSR Alpine 2 pot cookset
7.5x4.5in 2.0L pot, 1.5L pot and lid
26 oz = 1.625 pounds for SHTF bugout to the San Diego Mtns

cyccommute 

If you want good cookware, avoid titanium. If you want the best cookware, definitely avoid titanium.

Titanium has horrible heat transfer characteristics. The heat is very uneven and food scorches or doesn't cook all at the same time in the same pot. Titanium is also denser than aluminum which means that the lighter weight means that it's a thinner pot. That doesn't help the heat transfer any.

Aluminum is more even and cooks better. The MSR Base2 is a pretty good set although, to be honest, I never found a need for 2 pots while touring even with two people. And I certainly never found a need for the skillet. It went home in Honesdale PA after being drug across lower Ontario and upstate New York. For a single person, the Quick Solo is hard to beat. The Alpinist 2 is pretty good for 2 people.

I would suggest taking advantage of titanium's poor heat transfer if you are going to drink coffee or other hot beverages. The cups that come with the Alpinist are okay but small. I found that coffee in a titanium cup stayed warmer a little longer. It most certainly does at 11,000 feet.

fietsbob

hit the charity shops . why get fancy stuff?

Easy clean non stick coating is advantageous

Lt Stonez

Fire, and fish on a stick

gerryl

Not only does titaniium suck for cooking - it sucks a lot.

robow

I agree with Stuart, I purchased an MSR aluminum pot set (2 nestable pots) a long time ago and the smaller of the two has served me well. I never bother with the second larger pot but then I don't strive for gourmet multi course meals either.

Carbonfiberboy 

These are nice:
Texsport - The Scouter Black Ice? Hard Anodized Cook Set

The very best is an aluminum Sigg Tourist. Try ebay.

wahoonc

Anything that is non stick.

Aaron

fietsbob

SS & Ti Makes better Hot Soup spoons than aluminum.

indyfabz

I always use two pots. Pasta gets cooked in one. Whatever goes with the pasta gets cooked in the other. The frying pan stays home.

arctos

I must confess my sinning ways of using Ti pans and a bi-metal aluminum one lined with stainless steel on the interior. They nest together nicely and are light enough for me at 10 oz between them. My stove, utensils, spices,cleaning pad and more.

The Evernew 1.3L Ti pot is only 15years old and fortunately never had a non-stick coating. The other is a one liter Optimus pot quite old. Almost fifty years as i recall. Both are effective and excellent for cooking for my needs when used properly. By that I mean without a blowtorch stove and high heat level. When used with a Trangia burner the results when cooking real food have pleased me for many years. I steam veggies, cook brown rice and oatmeal and much more.
I am a charter member of the Ride to Eat Bicycle Club.

Rowan

My one and only experience with titanium pots was cooking up a meal for three people, over a Trangia... and the issues that cyccommute discussed made me decide not use Ti again.

Worse is that the pot belong to another person, and she was not particularly pleased that the scorch had marred the finish of the Ti inside the pot. Certainly, I concluded that the weight saving wasn't worth the problems, especially if the alternative is aluminium.

Most of my camp cooking has been in stainless pots, one a Sigg and the other a Trangia that nests inside. I do have an aluminium Trangia set that was given to me by another BF member, but it has rarely been used so far.

One thing I do is coat the outside of my pots with stove black paint to aid heat transfer. Whether it makes that much difference, I am not sure. But the pots go black with denatured alcohol anyway, so I just help them along the way.

Rowan

I am a closet member.

Tourist in MSN

I find that thick sauces are best heated in a thicker Aluminum fry pan, I have had too many problems burning sauces in thin pans. For a fry pan I have been disappointed with the thin fry pans often sold for camping, the one in the photo was a 10 inch Tramontina designed for home use that I got for $10, it is thicker than the camping ones but thinner than the good quality home ones. It had one screw that held the heavy handle on (some are riveted), instead I use a normal camping pot gripper. In a jumbo ziplock to protect the non-stick finish it weighs 410 grams which I am sure is too heavy for some of you. The large size is a bigger issue for me than the weight when finding room in a pannier, thus sometimes I take a smaller fry pan for bike touring because of the size in a pannier.



It also works great for the hash browns.



I have had very good luck with Titanium pots for wet type meals that are mostly water as long as I am not using a stove that makes one big hot spot in the center. The metal is thin enough that heat transfer is very good, but because it is thin it has to be a pretty wet type of food to avoid scorching.

3speed

My vote is for Ti. You can save a little weight, and as far as I've experienced, with no penalty.
Stainless would be my second choice. It's rugged and nice. I think the only penalty there is weight.
AL is toxic to eat out of in the long run. If you get AL, make sure it's anodized or something. Supposedly it's banned for commercial use in some countries due to the AL levels of food cooked in it. Sure, it obviously won't kill you right away, and many will say it's safe because the levels aren't high enough to kill the average person. That said, why eat tiny amounts of poison if you don't have to, based on the theory that it's not enough in one dose to kill you?

I'm kinda surprised to see all of the problems with Ti. I haven't had an issue with cooking in my Snowpeak Ti, and it's gotten lots of use. Do you guys maybe not have adjustable stoves? I would guess that I've made 100 meals in my pots and never burned a single one.

cyccommute 

Let's start with toxicity. The toxicity of aluminum is very much in dispute. If you are worried about ingesting aluminum, you should probably move to another planet. Aluminum is the 3rd most abundant element in the Earth's crust (about 8%) and the most abundant metal. You simply can't avoid it. Food grown in the ground (and possibly food grown hydroponically) is going to contain significant amounts of aluminum salts.

That said, aluminum in cookware is going to oxidize instantaneously if it is exposed to air. You can continue to react aluminum with water...forming hydrogen and aluminum hydroxide...if you do it in the presence of a base which dissolves the aluminum oxide formed. But we humans don't eat a lot of basic...as in containing a hydroxide ion...foods because it is extremely bitter. We eat more acidic foods and acids don't dissolve the oxide layer.

Finding nonanodized aluminum cookware, however, is extremely difficult. I haven't seen nonanodized aluminum camping cookware in 30 or 40 years. Anodization is also oxidizing the aluminum but just to a slightly deeper level than you get with simple air exposure.

KC8QVO

I've been cooking with aluminum - snowpeak trek 1400 set - for many years. I have good results with it. For 2 people I can do a nice pasta in it - linguini and clam sauce, chicken parm, etc.

We have used a large stainless pot for boiling water and cooking group meals for 4-5 people. For things like chili and pasta it works. I don't have any experience with the stainless aside from that. When I am cooking I am using the above aluminum set.

My stove is 95% of the time an MSR SimmerLite white gas stove. I have used the Snowpeak Giga Power canister stove, also, but I don't like it. I have trouble throttling mine down to the lower output I generally try to cook with. Boiling water is one thing, but I like to "cook" and for that I need a lower output stove.

grampa.sjb

TI is good for a number of things, but cookware isn't one of them. I've tried it for the weight saved, but for anything other than boiling water, it is just way too spotty on heat transfer. You get a hot spot right on top of the flame, which will tend to burn any food on top of it. AL spreads the heat MUCH better, and while it may be a tad heavier than the same strength TI, it cooks much better. This is especially true for something like a frying pan - which is my favored fish cooking pan - also for fry bread or pancakes. The weight difference is truly minimal, but the cooking difference is significant.

saddlesores

i used an aluminum trangia cookset (two nested pots, frying pan lid, teakettle) for
many years. no problems other than o-ring gasket went bad (it was old). gasket
is in the screw-on lid for the fuel reservoir, can find replacements in many hardware
stores. fuel readily available.

RWBlue01

There is cooking and there is boiling.

For cooking, nothing beats kitchen cookware like you use at home.
For boiling, Ti.

antokelly

CLAY pots are the best.

fietsbob

The stuff in the Kitchens Of the Finest Restaurants. Dine Out.

gregjones

I've been eating out of aluminum stuff for four decades. I feel well and have no reason to seek medical attention for that or any other reason. I'm not, at this point in life, concerned a bit about an AL pot killing me.

Hell, at sixty years and going, it would do me proud to die because of an STD.

cyccommute 

I've never found too many "of the finest restaurants" along any of the bike routes I've toured. There have been some good ones but there have also been some really bad ones. Most of the time, however, there haven't been any at all, hence the need to cook for myself.

fietsbob

Go some where with better Chefs. How about France ? the French Revolution forced the food reserved for the Gentry
out of the Fortified Castles.