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How Do You Do Your Dishes?

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What's your approach and equipment of choice for doing the dishes/pots/pans when on a trip (other than getting someone else to do it)?

Collapsible sink? Rigid pails? Campsuds or Dawn? Boil the water or add bleach? Scrubber/scaper of choice? How/where do you dispose of the gray water?
 
All of my meals are a one pot rehydrated something or other. I eat out of the same pot in which it was prepared. To clean the pot of any uneaten residue I add an ounce or two of water to the pot then rub the inside with a small silicone spatula until the walls are clean. I then drink the dishwater. So I guess I dispose of gray water by filtering it through my kidneys.
 
No extra gear, soap, etc... I grab handfulls of pine duff and use that. It gets dumped onto the fire. Then a quick wipe with a bandana to remove any excess dry duff that remains. This works on almost everything from oil soaked fry pans to pots with stroganoff residue.
 
You'll find plenty of people here who like to prepare home-style meals on canoe trips and don't mind bringing -- to use some hyperbole -- "everything including the kitchen sink."

I'm of the complete opposite philosophy. I don't like cooking or washing dishes at home, certainly don't want any part of it in the bush, and usually use canoe trips as a way to enforce a diet.

My entire kitchen is a JetBoil stove and a spork. I eat commercial freeze-dried meals, energy bars and snacks. So, for hot meals, all I do is boil water and pour it into the commercial food package. So, more Spartan than Conk, I don't even have a pot to wash. I rinse out the food package in the lake, pack it in my odorless garbage bag, lick my spork, and then do one of the many, any things I like more than kitchen chores . . . such as reading, sky and navel gazing, or sleeping.

To clarify, I'm almost always solo. But even on a group trip, I do the same thing. With prior understanding of all, I don't participate in group meals or kitchen cleanup. I'm no good at it, don't like it, and even to think about that drudgery ruins my wilderness karma.
 
I use the method we used in my scout troop for hundreds of meals with no problem. Lick the spoon and bowl out clean, wipe with small piece of toilet paper, scald same and cup with boiling water, set aside to dry, burn paper---done! this is for hot water meals. Pots with food residue-use a variation of this.
 
Is it "odorless" because there's no food residue in it or is this some special bag that contains odors?

For reasons of weight and space, I use a bear resistant, collapsible Ursack to carry my packaged food and garbage. Inside the Ursack I use one OPSak for the unused food and a second OPSak for my rinsed off meal packages and used up snack wrappers (if I don't make a fire and burn the paper wrappers). OpSaks are like military grade ziplock bags that are supposedly 100% air and water tight odor barriers and have no odor themselves. Here are OpSaks on the Ursack site:

https://www.ursack.com/product/opsak-odor-barrier-bag-2-pack/
 
Karen and I are canoe tripping with our car camping gear. Our longest trip so far has been 7 nights so we've been able to freeze home cooked meals and bring fresh fruit and vegetables. We enjoy cooking and baking in camp and the cooler allows us to eat well. We have not done any trips yet with long portages though. We wash dishes with bleach treated lake or river water boiled on our 2 burner, white gas Coleman stove, in Rubbermaid dish pans which nest neatly in our kitchen box.We dump the water well away from the lake or river. At home I normally do dishes, but when camping Karen always does. She says it warms her up, particularly her hands which are often cold. Works for me!
Next year we are planning a 10 day Allagash Trip to include a few days on Allagash Lake, so no cooler and a different diet. We'll likely do dishes the same way though.
 
For the most part, one pot meals for me too. I prefer to be able to cook and eat quickly because there’s so much to do out there. I typically don’t lounge around in camp either. I have 4 basic meals that I rotate through and add different things I see in the bag. My evening menu is dictated by whatever is at the top of the dinner food bag.

I never make more than I can eat, and the pot gets cleaned of all but a little sauce residue with my spoon. The remainder gets cleaned with a couple swishes of lake or river water and scrubbed with a couple fingers. The gray water is broadcast into vegetation away from camp and the shore. No soap and no need to sterilize since the next thing in it will be brought to a boil.

If im frying something, the pan and plate gets wiped with a paper towel which is burned in a fire. I’ll typically only use a fry pan on a fire. I do carry a small thing of hand sanitizer to clean my hands, or might use a clean wipe if I bring some.

Mark
 
Tripping solo I also do the one pot thing, but when I'm with a group I like to use paper plates. They don't weigh much, and they wash themselves in the fire.

Somewhat relatedly, just say no to hot leftovers. Eat it all or don't cook it. What is it about the outdoors that causes people to want to produce a cubic yard of pasta?
 
I'm a consumptive user of the outdoors. I want to to eat fresh fish and game while out in the wilderness. So i'm either grilling over an open fire or pan frying something I just caught or killed. I'll have backup meals in case the catching and kiilling is going as planned, but generally the whole point of an outing for me is to enjoy the local fish and game.

My cooking kit is simple though, typically an MSR alpine fry pan, small grate and 750ml pot of some kind to boil rice or noodles. If a fire isn't convenient I have ISO butane burners, I carry 2 titanium plates, a long spoon and a fork. Maybe 1 or 2 extra plates and sporks if I'm with others and expect to feed them.

As fer cleaning I rinse everything in the water and use a small piece of soft scrub if need be to get the crusty stuff. If I happen to have a little camp soap I'll use that, but generally just water and some sand from the shoreline and rinse will do it. Either shake or wipe with a small microfiber towel to dry. If I'm somewhere where I'm concerned about giardia or something like that I'll heat the cookware in the fire before stowing. I don't fret much over getting too carried away cleaning stuff, people don't eat enough dirt any more as it is.
 
We used to bring the "kitchen sink". It was light, voluminous, and folding. The Sea To Summit rubber tub complete with handles performed well given we had 4 kids and 2 adults dirtying up cutlery and plates and pots and pans. There's never been a short supply of water both hot and cold so a pot simmering on the fire filled both the tea billy and the sink, with plenty of leftover hot water for a rinse. Yes I was fussy. Clean kitchen clean camp, the kids could get as dirty as they pleased. As the kids grew up and drifted out of our tripping lives there were fewer paddlers, which meant fewer of everything including dishes. Finally with just me and my wife I preferred saving myself the bother of using that camp sink. I've simply been tipping hot water into whatever pots and pans have been used, swishing the dishes and cutlery through the process as I go. I don't always use soap, but I do still rinse. All of this takes about 60 seconds if I'm slow. Some meals we eat right out of the 1 pot, other meals we dirty more, it depends on the meal plan and our mood. There's never any visible food residue, any leftovers (a very rare thing) get sealed and stored. The grey water will go wherever I see fit depending upon its condition. If it's poor then I'll cat hole it, if it's near clean I might douse the fire with it, pour it off in the woods or into the lake. We use a plastic scrub pad and microfibre cloths. Any scorched bottoms on the pots get a sand scrub down by the lake.
 
Depends where you are.. In the desert food particles go in the water in the river along with your pee. Your poop is packed out.
We strain dishwater for particles and pack those out.. Nothing wrong with disposing greywater into the water.
Remember HOOP's posts from CCR?

And in the Arctic, everything goes in the water to dilute.
 
the advantages to the way I do it are -no rinse/soapy water which for pollution and bear attraction need to be dumped way far from your camp and the water which is not always easy. I have seen people rinse food particles and dump them right in camp-good bear bait-won't camp with them..
 
Depends on the who, what and where.

On a solo trip, or a trip with a companion where we are not sharing meals, my “dishes” are minimal; a spoon, a cup and a coffee mug. The cup is used for oatmeal or grits in the morning. When empty of every scraped clean morsel I dump a little hot water (or hot coffee) in the cup, stir/swish it around, Conk drink it, wipe down the inside and lick the spoon.

Instant Via leaves no discernable grounds in the coffee mug, and at best I might give the mug a rinse every couple of days. Or when I get home. OK, I also use a sharp knife for cutting cheese or cured meats, and a plastic knife for spreading peanut butter or etc; I wipe ‘em down and call ‘em good.

Lunch creates nothing but a knife blade or two to clean. Dinners are MacGrady style, although I only eat half a Mountain House meal at a time and reuse the bag for the next day. Wipe down is usually a scrap of toilet paper or an instant oatmeal/grits packet, which goes in the Ziplock burn bag for the next fire.

On family trips we do a little more actual cookery, and may have a pot or pan and more utensils. We bring a collapsible bucket, half a scrubbie sponge and some Campsuds (which works OK in saltwater, some soaps do not, Dr. Bronner’s just makes soapy globules).

Grey water disposal depends on where we are, although on river or tidal trips it goes back in the river or bay. On lake trips I am sometimes leery of grey water disposal directly in front of camp, especially on group feeds where there may be grease or scrubbed off food bits left floating along the beach. I’d rather not have food odor rimming the launch. Same concern with cat hole or firepit disposal; not so much a lions and tigers and bears oh my concern as not habituating mice, chipmunks, squirrels and raccoons to a campsite feeding station.

I am more cautious on group trips with different folks sharing cooking (and cleaning) chores. Sharing cooking/cleaning is one thing, sharing gut flora is another; scrubbie (maybe both halves, one half for grease, one half kept cleaner) wash bucket with Campsuds, rinse bucket with bleach.

Friends that guide are anal about cleaning dishes. Different intestinal flora available, and a client with the squirts probably isn’t a happy camper. Or tipping well at the end of the trip.

In all seriousness contamination issues stem mostly from a lack of proper hand washing before meal prep or cleaning, and I’m only responsible for washing my own hands dammit. I do bring hand sanitizer in the TP bag, and hope any companions feel free to use it.

I have been suddenly and dramatically hit with intestinal distress on one trip. The drama was that it hit, with urgency, at 3am on a desert river trip. I had been late into camp the night before and not felt the need to set up the portable wag bag toilet. Eh, it can wait ‘til morning.

Waddling hurriedly around in the dark with clenched sphincter trying to set up the toilet was not fun. Less fun was that I came within inches but didn’t quite make it fully seated. It was a disgusting lesson learned.
 
I usually volunteer for KP because someone else has cooked. The largest dirty cooking pot becomes the sink. I wipe it out with a paper towel which goes into the fire. I fill the pot 1/2 with river water and heat to a temp just below what hurts. Add a few drops of dish liquid then wash all other items with green/yellow scrub sponge. Clean stuff gets dried with another paper towel. Grey water also goes in the fire. Usually 2 paper towel per wash. Buy good ones.
 
This mesh bag, in size medium, is perfect to hold a roll of paper towels. I've used it for several years now. It keeps them from un-spooling everywhere and easily smashes into my barrel.

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