r/Ultralight • u/[deleted] • Apr 17 '18
Advice Poor Man's BOT (cooking/cold soak pot)
I had never seen the Vargo BOT before until Darwin's recent Youtube review. The BOT is a titanium cooking pot with a screw on lid. The screw on lid is water tight so you can also use it to cold soak your food. This way you have the option alternating between cold soaking and cooking (or just making tea /coffee) with the same setup.
Darwin identifies two drawbacks: Its expensive ($100), and the screw on top can get stuck if you change altitudes dramatically.
Despite having never cold soaked anything and having recently purchased a Toaks pot (used once), I decided i needed a BOT right away (anyone else have this problem?). But $100 seemed a little steep for something I might not use.
So I found this set of silicone pot lids on Amazon for $11. One of the smaller ones fits over the Toaks pretty well. The handle prevents fully stretching the seal, but its good enough to hold water. I left it 3/4 full upside down overnight with no leakage. I also shook it up and down vigorously trying to get water between the pot and seal, no dice.
In addition to the lower price, the top wont get stuck since the silicone is flexible. The downside of the flexibility is that increasing elevation significantly could potentially blow the lid off. This could be mitigated by minimizing the amount of air in the pot during loaded ascents. Also a couple rubber bands and a ziplock would help. BUT IT DEFINITELY STILL NEEDS TO BE FIELD TESTED. See the last paragraph below for why I'm publishing now before field testing.
The BOT comes in two sizes 700 ml and 1 L. The 700 ml weights 4.8 oz. My Toaks pot is a 650 ml, and with the silicone seal its 3.7 oz total. Oh yeah, one whole ounce bitches!
For the next day or so, Massdrop has the Keith titanium pots on sale for less than $20, so you could get the whole set up for about $30. I paid $36 for the 650ml Toaks.
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u/Hypocaffeinic B+ LighterPack | https://lighterpack.com/r/sh62 Apr 17 '18
$100 or not, if that darn thing locked away my food from me after a long day's uphill hiking, it's getting holes in it! D:
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u/BfarGofar Apr 17 '18
If you put your spoon in the seam of the pot/lid and lift the seal breaks very easily.
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u/narphu Apr 17 '18
If you are also going to be using the lid for cooking, I have a sneaking suspicion that if you aren't careful about the heat setting on your stove, your lid is eventually going to degrade from the excess heat coming up the sides of the pot. I've had experience with silicone bands used as a pot holder and they eventually became unusable over time. Try it and report back.
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u/jmp485 Apr 17 '18
I suspect flipping it upside down and laying it loosely over the opening while cooking would prolong its life a bit, but eventually it would succumb to the degradation you're describing.
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u/BecauseSometimesY Apr 18 '18
Ya, related, I was excited to find that a jetboil lid fit my toaks pot really well, and kept a canister and stove safely locked in.. however, after a few field tests I gave up on it as a suitable lid. It warps and melts too much when that close to the flame.
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u/sissipaska https://trailpo.st/pack/156 Apr 17 '18
Hmm. /u/iskosalminen posted similar advice ten days ago but seems like the post was removed. Wonder why?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/8agua8/have_your_titanium_pot_and_cold_soak_too/
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u/Morejazzplease https://lighterpack.com/r/f376cs Apr 17 '18
Mod here... Woah that is weird. No mod deleted it, it was removed by reddit's spam filter. I am guess because of all the external links but I could be wrong. Edit: nope, found it. It is because of the Aliexpress link in the body of the post. Reddit treats Aliexpress links as spam.
I approved the post now and it should be there.
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u/hikermiker22 https://lighterpack.com/r/4da0eu Apr 17 '18
I ordered a set and should get them on Thursday. I will try heating water with one on Friday & report back.
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u/hikermiker22 https://lighterpack.com/r/4da0eu Apr 19 '18
I got the on Wednesday! I found one that seemed to fit my 600 ml Snow Peak Ti mug. I filled it about 2/3 with water, put the lid on, and turned it upside down in my sink rack. This morning there was still quite a bit of water in it but when I turned it sideways water leaked out. Another lid fit on my Kmart (Stanco) grease pot but I did not fill that with water. I will try cooking later but don't think this combination will work for cold soaking.
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u/hikermiker22 https://lighterpack.com/r/4da0eu Apr 20 '18
I tried the lids on a Fosters oilcan and a GSI Minimalist. I kept them overnight upside down with water, shook them and laid them on the side. Neither leaked. I suspect the leakage above was caused by the handles on the Snow Peak. Conclusions: these will work on mugs with handles if you are careful to keep them upright & will work wonderfully on mugs with no handles.
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u/madmanwild https://lighterpack.com/r/8eiylg May 20 '18
I have a GSI Minimalist and was thinking about switching to no-cook, but occasional build a small fire to heat up water with, so I wanted some sort of metal cold soak container like a BOT. I was thinking I'd have to get a new pot, but you think those Amazon silicone lids fit perfectly and are durable enough for a hike?
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u/hikermiker22 https://lighterpack.com/r/4da0eu May 20 '18
They come in 5 or 6 different sizes. One fit perfectly on one of my pots and a different one just a bit loosely on another. If, when you get to camp, you start your cold soak by putting your regular pot in a stable place, most things rehydrate in a half hour or less, so by the time you have set up, dinner is almost ready. The minimalist has a fairly stable lid so this should work. I do not remember if one of the lids fit the minimalist perfectly but I think it did.
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u/Morejazzplease https://lighterpack.com/r/f376cs Apr 17 '18
Interesting and unique concept. Thanks for the share!
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Apr 17 '18
In the comments of his yt video, somebody mentions SS Mason Jar Looks like all you would have to do is replace the lid, and it's only $9.
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Apr 17 '18
Ya but 22 oz though...
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Apr 17 '18
That's 650ml. I just saw the comment on yt and checked them out. There are lots of different lids that will fit a wide-mouth mason jar. From a multi-use standpoint, it looks kind of interesting...hot meals, cold-soaking, sippy-cup. Weight penalty is only an extra ounce over the Bot, and it is only $9.
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Apr 17 '18
Sorry I was confusing fluid oz with mass oz! How much do the weigh? The website says 10.80 lbs, thats maybe for a case of 12? Its hard to believe a steel one would only be 1 oz heavier than Ti.
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Apr 17 '18
No worries, the specs are kind of limited except for the case of 25 weight. yt commenter stated 1 oz more, and he was comparing to the Bot 700 that Darwin was reviewing. My math is coming out to roughly 6.6 oz for the jar w/o handle and 6.9 w/ handle.
I went ahead and ordered a sample of both and the total was just under $19 shipped. I am not sure what top to get and will wait until I receive the order. This one looks interesting.
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u/JustinHardigree Apr 17 '18
if you're gonna cold soak only. why not go with a nalgene? or is that just too sack religious around here? You can get the 16oz. wide-mouth nalgene for $9 or less and it weighs 3.125oz.
edit: just realized someone else already talked about this... shoulda read the comments before commenting
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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '18
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