Kelly Kettle Review
I have thought about buying a Kelly
Kettle for years but have never been that sure about them. The principal of them
seems sound enough but I always wondered about the bulk of them and the
practicality of finding fuel.
Well the special offer finally tipped the
balance and I bought a 2.5 pint version.
Well I
am delighted. When it arrived the old doubts came to mind again but lets face it
if there is no room for a Kelly Kettle in an open canoe then there is no room
for one anywhere.
Gathering fuel is no problem. I have never really
paddled anywhere that you could not gather some twigs from overhanging branches.
That is what I did today on my Endrick trip. As you can see in the picture below
a few snapped off twigs will be easy to come by.
A few twigs
is all you will need as well. The ones I used today were not even that dry. I
light the kettle by using a small blob of barbecue lighting gel. ( you can see
the bottle in the picture on the left).
For those of you that do not know how it
works you start a small fire in the base and place the kettle on it. The kettle
forms a chimney with water held in its twin wall construction. This gives a
really efficient way of heating the water as a lot more of the heat from the
fire is transferred to the water than you would usually get using a pot. You can
feed more twigs in the top of the chimney if required and as I have said even
quite poor fuel will burn thanks to the chimney effect of the kettle. (For more
details http://www.kellykettle.com/ ) Also you can also use the kettle
on an open fire as well.
In about 5 minutes you will have a couple of
pints of boiling water to make up some dried food or for brews all
round.
As an indication of how pleased I am with the kettle I am now
having to look at new food options. Up till now I was generally a boil in the
bag user but now have to look at the dried foods so I can make the most of my
kettle.
Also the efficiency of the kettle makes it a good choice for
treating large amounts of water to make it safe to drink.
This review was first posted on our forum so if you have any comments or questions post them HERE