Don't Clean Your Cookware! 

Half the fuel? Nope.

Mors Kochanski had probably forgotten more about wilderness survival than most of us will ever know. Because to him, wilderness survival was just life. What a loss when he went under. 😞

When wood fueled cookstoves were in use, there was a thing called stove black. It was used to rub onto the outside of your cooking pots. Now I understand why that was important.

Not necessarily "half the fuel", but certainly less fuel and less time. Fact is, from an engineering standpoint, you and Mors are correct, and it works both ways - black absorbs heat and it also radiates heat. Back to the cook kit, buff the outside with steel wool and give it a couple coats of hi-temp black spray paint to "get a head start on the blacking process". Second tip, for times when you are forced to cook over "dirty" fires (like pine), rub the outside of the cookpot with dish soap (I carry some Camp Suds in a small Nalgene bottle (2 oz/4 oz?), do you cooking, then scrub down the outside with water, or leaves or sand, and the soap and pine tar will come loose easily.

That move you made at 1:41.....If I tried to split anything with ANY of my knives that way it would've split my thumb to the bone. Great video just the same.

RIP Mors Kochanski! A true legend in the bushcraft family.

I was taught many years ago from a ranger to take Murphys Oil Soap with me. Before you put your stuff on the flame you wipe a bit of the Oil Soap on the areas on the pot that normally collect the char. Once you are done cooking you can wash the pot with just water as the cooked on Soap is already incorporated in the process. It has never failed me and I'm 65.

I've got stained stainless steel cups and pots. I'll wipe ashes and soot off soap not to get it in my rucksack but I don't scrub them to a shine. Never thought about it making it more efficient...pretty cool! Thanks for teaching me something new!

I live in rural VA , and have 1200 acres of woods and streams behind my house, it's amazing how much resources u can find in such environments, I love to look for springs , stealth campsites , metal detecting old home places (there are a few) just go for walks looking for wild eddibles, mushrooms, and this place u shown in this video reminds me of my backyard, love it , great video , I go to the mountains and hike alot on known trails , but have just as much fun in my backyard as well , great 👍tip on these pots , I always try to shine them up , gonna try it your way for a bit

Silky saw tip was cool too.

Glad to hear you quoting Mors Kohanski. Used to watch his videos before he passed away.

Where were you when I was a boy scout? The men would come around and inspect our cookware after a week of summer camp to make sure it shined!

Excellent point about leaving the outside black. Regarding the keeping the inside clean, you're right about that too. I got dysentery eating off a fork I hadn't cleaned well enough.

You are so correct on the darkened pots and don't forget Anny or most pots for backpacking are a dark gray better heart absorbing thank you for the video James

That’s good to know, and makes perfect sense. Mine are all black on the outside lol, either from laziness or it’s just burnt on so much I can’t scrub it off lol. Excellent video brother!

I never really thought about whether to use shiny or black cookware since your going to cook over a fire or propane or some source of heat. Good information to have. Again, if the sooty black bothers people, they can always spray high temperature paint on the outside and make them whatever color they want or a nice attractive black so they cook more efficiently. Now that I watched your video, I am going to choose black or at least darker color cookware.

Learned something new again. My pots are not polished to a high gloss either. I think the resulting patina gives them something like character. I really like your videos, especially the 1790's series and the Hobo series. Look forward to more videos. Greetings from Germany

I am never clean outside my pots, i love it to protect with this patina. But I didn't even know that reason for boiling fast.Thanks for sharing this great info and video. Thumb up

Congratulations on 6000 subscribers. Great info. Have a great week

Excellent video. Thanks!😎

Hello my outdoors friend, thank you for sharing this informative video. You continue to be a wealth of information. Always the best of good things for you and your family. 🤗

Sounds like you raised the ire of a cooking Karen 😏 😂 Great video

Great lesson. Thanks for sharing 🙏

Makes sense enjoying the tips and tricks.

I agree 100 percent with you about the outside of my outdoor cookware. I just wipe off any soot and clean the inside very good. If it was good for Mors it's good for me.

The cup is beautiful and well loved/used as it should be! 🤗🤗 PS Look how well cast iron cooks and it's black! Yes a old person talking. keep up the good work!

excellent info, makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing

Excellent tip, thank you.

Thank you for the great lesson brother in survival

Always very interesting and informative

Hey! It's the same way with solar cookers! Beautiful scenery. Thanks for the informative video.

Thank you James for your video it was great but I bet it was cold out there god bless you and your family

Totally agree. My wife always freaked out because I've done the same thing 😅. She has this shiny metal obsession. Been doing it for a long time .and it only took about 20 years for her to finally give up trying to scrub my outdoor cookware

I have painted my Cook pots with high temperature paint. For this very reason. Great job. 👍👍

Wise man, see I learned something today!👌👍

I adhere to Mors' teaching. Good vid. Oh, I guess my cast iron cookware in the kitchen would be considered "boggen?"

you explained very well the true about " black" cookware. This is very helpful, especially, for young people and kids. Thanks for that!

I never knew that....Thanks James

I love these videos!!!!!!

I only remove the excess of soot, that's all... Thanks James.

I spray paint all of my outdoor cookware with high temp black bbq spray paint. It's only about $3.00 per can. I put 2 or 3 coats on the outside of each pot and skillet. When I first started bushcrafting, I wanted my cookware to be shiny but I soon learned that black absorbs heat better. Even at home, my pots and pans are black on the outside.

Thank you, James, for the great advice. Besides, you are out in nature, who gives a rats a** what your cooking equipment looks like. It's not supposed to look new and shiny! Those of you who are bothered by blackened cooking utensils, you're not true camping/bushcraft people...

Enjoyed your video 👌 thanks

Hiram Cook tested this in one of his many video on alcohol stoves. He was wondering if the black increased the time to boil due to insulating the pot or if it sped it up due to black absorbing more heat. The blackened pots did boil faster but it did require more than half of the usual fuel to get there. Great video!

I'd also like like add, if you have a ss skillet like the wwII mess kits, I don't scrub the inside either. You can season them like a cast iron skillet so they become nonstick. It doesn't work as well for something mostly used for boiling of heating up liquids, but if you have something you use to cook meat, season it so you won't have to bring any oil

Good job ,very good information , 👍🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸👍

Cool advice 😁

Nice video, James. I have read all the comments and I am not going to enter into the debate over clean vs dirty. But 🤔 there one certain way to increase the efficiency of your cooking and that's to put a LID on the cook pot. 🙄

Nice cup of ash cider... I'll have to try the packs.

🤓Great...great...GREAT... 🤔This is probably the best TIP/DIY outdoors channel... 😉You even include Mors Kochansky's quotes giving that way the credits instead of taking them for your own...👍💁🏻‍♂️👏

Great video

damn i learned something new every time i watch you ,,, thanks man ,, i really enjoy your content and insights

If you go into any commercial kitchen that's been around for a while you will see the bottom of all the aluminum pans have been blackened. When I was in the biz we never scrubbed them down to bare metal. We put them through the dishwasher and scrape off anything sticky or chunky like you said. But the bottom were often blackened

I know this is an opinion video but it really works! So whether or not you want to wash your pots thoroughly on the outside is up to you. Of course you should strive for overall cleanliness when you're in the back country. And, if you're in a survival situation, you should take special care of the surfaces that touch your food. However, this will give you another option for accelerating the cooking and boiling time when you're in the woods. Thank you for watching and please leave your comments in the comment section below.

I used my issued canteen cup for many things from shaving and washing up in the field to cooking with the Boy Scouts. It got blackened and never was able to get it clean enough to turn in. I still have it and occasionally use it still use it depending on what I am doing. The inside was always clean.

Good to know !

Great video brother James. Makes perfect sense that the black would heat up faster. To illustrate the point, this August lay your hand on the hood of a black car. No don't cause you'll get burned. Black draws heat. I never wear a black shirt in the summer for that reason. Like you said brother it's a matter of preference. Thanks for sharing that info. God Bless.

Enjoyed the video. I'll wipe off the loose residue but i hardly wash them, i like the blackened look, adds character. The black is soot and soot is a dirty carbon, carbon has the highest thermal conductivity, much more than stainless steel, so it stands to reason that to whatever degree soot (carbon) would aid in the transfer of heat through the metal and into the food allowing a person to use less wood in the process.

I would have thought that all the soot forms an insulated layer and would have to be washed off for more efficiency. That's why economizers have soot blowers on ships (although they're not scrubbed to a polish, just has the soot blasted off, some abrasion with walnut shells occasionally), but maybe you're school of thought is really the better one. I'm going to have to try this out and do some of my own testing! I've never heard of this before, and if it does work, it will definitely be useful. Thanks for the video!

Looks like you got hit with the same weather we did here in update NY. Have had a lot of single digit temps. Actually got up to freezing today. Can't wait for spring to come.

I love watching your videos, because there so informative. Let's just hope i won't have to put all of them to use. I might miss Perry Mason.

Another good trick I saw on a Blackie Thomas video is to forgo the waiting and just spray the outside of your bushpots with black high-heat BBQ spray paint. It does the job for less than 10 bucks and still looks "clean" after countless uses with the even coating.

You are correct in the old days they use black stove polich to put on the stoves and it work just as good on carst iron pots on the outside . Enjoy jou program

Been watching your videos for a while and just stumbled across this one. Love what you're doing. Keep it up brother.

@1:38 I was doing the exact same thing an split my thumb wide open. (Gloves please ❤) Also, thank you for doing this in what looks like Heaven. RIP Mors 🙏

Yep, thanks for explaining this in simple common man terms AND with a good quote from a great woods wise guy. Being a mechanical engineer, I can give ya lots of geeky heat transfer formulas if you have trouble sleeping and need some boredom. It would be super cool for you to do a head to head competition of shiny vs sooty!!! 👍

Great video, I always like to have a valid excuse for NOT doing something.....👍

Good stuff

I do believe the black is faster myth has been busted a long time ago. It's a personal choice but as you say if resources are scarce and time of the essence then external cleaning isn't a priority. The ash from a fire mixed with a few drops of water makes an amazing cleaning paste in many countries where water is precious pots are always cleaned this way.

Black absorbed heat so good advice if you are cool with soot on everything

good advice cool

Thanks for another great video. You should take up photography as beautiful as your property can be.

I've done a couple tests because I've heard the same thing and I've also seen several videos of other people testing that theory and my conclusions and theirs were all pretty much that the difference is negligible and that the sooty pot sometimes was somewhat slower to boil. With that info it really comes down to a preference of what the user finds more ascetically pleasing to them.

Nice snow also

Good point

Love to hear that 😂 Great Video 👍 U may triggered out a Revolution under the dishwasher worldwide 😂 In Gourmet Restaurants the cooks often Just put salt in the dirty pans and wipe it out with a piece of paper from a kitchen roll...works great but waste Salt..(had to learn that too....Long Time ago)

the spine of a Victorinox saw blade works just as well is also an excellent ferro rod striker of course due to its narrow profile careful thimb placement is required

A cheap or improvised lid will reduce the amount of cook time and prevent stuff from falling or flying into your cook pot. That is why the GI cup with lid and BCB crusader with lid are so popular. That lid will save cook time and keep the nasties out.

My little trick to clean the stickiness/surface carbon after cooking (and after cooking stuff cools down obviously): I carry a nice small bundle of 1/4” jute twine for making birds nests. I simply chop off about 1-1/2’, quickly unstrand the 3 twines, and then scrape them into hair against a log or other wood surface. Scraping down any size jute twine with the blade, or the spine of a knife is a lot faster than untwisting every strand and pulling with your fingers, but I digress. I only pull apart the strands of a quarter inch thick jute twine. But then it stops there and I use the knife. It works great. But getting back to how this ties in with the black pots: my jute twine is a fire starter. The black soot is a form of charcoal. Hello? I use my bundle of jute twine to scrub off the surface stickiness after cooking. It does a phenomenal job, and the black soot builds up on the jute twine, making it more susceptible to taking a flame! So. Dual purpose. After I remove just the stickiness from the pan or pot, then that pot gets slipped into a small carry bag, so just in case I missed anything, it doesn’t dirty up anything inside my ruck. My jute twine goes into a special separate pouch as well for the same reasons. Meanwhile, my pots get blacker and blacker as I do this for the same reasons. Quite honestly, physical science actually backs up this practice. Some people actually paint the underside of their cookware with high heat black paint 😉 😎

Lol I just finished a cup of the exact same cider when I clicked on the video. Lol

In my days we were told to put liquid soap on the outside of the pot for easy clean up

I've never noticed shiny, new pots or cups taking longer to boil water. But now I'm curious. I'd like you or someone to do a side-by-side comparison. My prediction is no noticeable difference between the shiny new pot and the blackened one. So, nice job. Thank you for an interesting video.

I have an old scout trick you can use... before you use cookware, take ivory dish soap andrub over the outside, the outside only, of cup or pan. Allow to dry. Then use as usual. Later when cooking is done, the cleanup is easy. No black to get on everything later.

I've noticed that, not only do you have fabulous content and helpful advice, you sorta look like Steve Howey. If you watched Reba on TNN or Shameless on HBO, you'll see it as well. He was pretty clean in Reba, but his language in Shameless was less than saintly. Both programs were most entertaining. I've watched about ten of your videos, and with all I've seen from other channels and what I've experienced, you do a really good job. I'm a recent (two days ago) sub but have tried to take in as much of your content as I can. You and Jon Townsend need to get together, and throw Dan Wowack into the mix as well. If Dave Canterbury will join in, it would be the trifecta. I know there are a lot of people out there who have outstanding content, but you can't get them all together unless it's a Rabbitstick style gathering. But you never know. Keep up the good work, sir. Thank you for what you do. I'll keep watching.

Dark pots are fine, don’t want to look like a Pilgrim. Beautiful, take care.

Pure boggin'.... ;) On a similar note I haven't cleaned my frying pan in 14 years.

Nice !

I’ve been camping and cooking over an open fire for a million years and I never really gave it much thought but you’re right. A black pot boils faster than a shinny one. Why didn’t I think of that? I don’t like doing the dishes anyway. Win, Win.

Mors, rest in peace. We miss you

Just curious how do you clean your pots in the field do you have a small clean kit or do you just use sand and scrub it till you get home? Thanks good video

I think I'm going to get me some of that black fireproof paint. 😅

My grandma cooked on a wood stove, inside of cookware spotless outside not so much she was born in 1880's. I learned from her and grandad. And my dad also.

👍👍👍 I watched this some time ago and perhaps added my two cents worth .. I forget. It popped up again on my feed and was well worth a re-watch. Black pots. I only remove the 'loose stuff' off the outside of my cookware so as to not dirty-up anything else that comes into contact with it. My understanding of physics has me believing that a black surface absorbs most, radiant heat / heat in the visible light spectrum, making Mors' contention regarding black pots over a fire believable. Knife technique .. I have been 'trimming / whittling' towards my thumb for 60+ years and still have to cut myself .. yet .. 😏. If one know what one is doing, stays focused, the most important digit on one's hand 'should' be safe. There is always a first time though. One assesses the risk and accepts the consequences.

I really like that haversack... Did you make that yourself? Great hacks!

Hahaha, when i started my hobby, my mother cleaned my blackened stuff till it blinked again...🤣

From now I'll don't clean My military canteen's cup from the outside, I used to clean it from outside, Thank you again,

I use the same bowl for all my meals until the dishwasher is full. If my wife were as indiscriminate as I am it might take a month or more to fill the dishwasher. The crumbs and such from a meal dries in the bowl between meals but I clean my bowl pretty good so it doesn’t really matter. It never looks boggin even after two weeks. hahah I learned a new word.

Agreed. Wipe clean the inner, remove loose outer soot and associated, place into a bag / cloth to protect other gear and pack away. At home .. a thorough wash of the inner and a rub down of the outer with a synthetic sponge to remove the 'will-still-wipe-off' stuff. Black determined to stay put is left in peace.

With you on this James. Hmmm....who should we listen to? Mors Kochanski or a random RU-vidr comment. ;-) Love the scenery in this video as well.

Like your vids. new subsciber. Have you ever thoght about using heavy duty aluminum foil to make a dry base in the snow for your fire starting ?