Our next online course topic will be part of a series on outdoor cooking, and will be focused on thermal cooking. I want to make people’s transition to life at the field school, or life in general for those who will never join us at the field school, easier. Being efficient with food preparation, and with the associated time management to get it done, can have huge positive outcomes on your daily work load.

When we cook over a fire, we have to gather and process enough wood to cook everything completely. This is because as a pot is absorbing heat energy from the fire, it is also losing heat energy to the world around it. In the case of beans, for example, this can mean simmering for several hours. But what if there were a way to take the heat energy created by the fire, or the stove at home, and minimize the heat loss?

Enter thermal cooking. In a nutshell, thermal cooking takes place when you heat something over a stove or fire, then place it into a container that minimizes heat loss. Thus, the food stays hot and continues to cook without additional energy inputs. We’ve used this for years on expeditions, especially long ones, and it just works. Instead of simmering beans for 3 hours, soak them overnight, boil them for 10 minutes alongside the morning coffee, put them in a thermal cooker, and they’re done in a few hours with no additional energy inputs. If it sounds like magic, it is, although the results are reproducible. In the picture below of me paddling on Chamberlain lake, I’ve got the thermal cooker full of beans under my seat, continuing to cook as we cover our daily route.

My goal for the thermal cooking course is for anyone who takes it to become a successful at cooking things in a thermal cooker. That’s it. It will change your life by freeing up time when camping or living outdoors. 

So what’s the hold up? Me. I’m used to rarely catching a cold, and when I do getting better in a day. I recently had Covid and it kicked my ass, and the healing process has been slow. I’m still on oxygen, which slows me down. As soon as I’m off of it, I’ll start filming the course. Sorry for the delay.

Note: Our online courses take place on our private online network at BushcraftSchool.com. It’s free to join.