Thread: Camp Oven

Never used aluminium, always cast iron. Never liked the look of the old pitted ali pots and wonder where all that aluminium has disappeared to... while cooking your food?

The pot you choose, if you only want one, is dependent on what you want to cook most, how many you are cooking for, and what heat source you use.

I have both of the units listed above.
The 4.5 quart is a great general purpose pot that will easily feed 4-5 people a stew or a soup if you have no extra side dishes like rice. You can easily bake a nice round loaf of bread in it, and it will roast a decent sized whole chicken.
The 10 quart is just over double the volume so approx. 8-10 people, will bake an oval loaf of bread, and you can fit two whole chickens side by side, or a small leg of lamb if you cut the knuckle and fold it back. Will also fit a couple of venison shanks.
These pots have the raised lipped lids, which are the only way to go if you are looking to cook over an open fire as it lets you put coals on top of the lid to make it into an oven (heating top and bottom at the same time - very important if you are looking to 'bake'). It means you can lift the lid to check the cooking without ash falling into your food.

I also have a #3 Potjie with legs, a #3 without legs, and a #8. The #3's have a max capacity of 7.8L, and the #8 is 18.5L, and weighs about 19kg!
Pots with legs work best for open fire or lpg gas ring, no legs best on stove top (wood or gas or electric) or in the oven. You can also get (or make) leg stands for the pots with no legs which makes it more versatile. I use all of my pots with no legs in the wood fired pizza oven depending on what's being cooked.
Where the potjies come into their own is the all in one pot meals (as opposed to baking or roasting). They have a curved bottom on them that makes it super easy to stir your food off the bottom to stop it burning. The curved bottom of the pot makes it super efficient to heat, and once up to a boil, event the #8 filled to the top will stay on the boil with just the inner most ring of a three ring LPG burner set to less that 1/2 fire, or a couple of coals rolled under it on a regular basis.

I have fed 40 people vegie soup in a single sitting out of the #8 filled to the gunnels when accompanied with fresh bread buns, fed 20 teens a beef stew with it 3/4 full.

They are great pieces of kit, and once you master the art of using them, you will want more than one.