I've read suggestions in a couple places to put heavy duty aluminum foil in your personal survial kit. One use that is frequently mentioned is using the aluminum foil to make utensils, such as a cook pot for boiling drinking water.

It sounded like a good idea to me, but I was a bit skeptical. Water is pretty heavy and aluminum foil isn't particularly robust. I'm not from Missouri but you do have to show me sometimes.

Anyway, the family was away this afternoon and with my honey-dos complete thought I would test the theory. We had some Safeway brand 18" "Heavy Duty" aluminum foil in the pantry. This stuff isn't as thick as the good stuff from Reynolds but I thought I'd try it anyway.

I tore off a single piece, roughly 18" x 24" and carefully folded it up so it would be watertight. I rolled and crumpled the edges so it wouldn't come unfolded on me when it was full of water. It ended up being about 3.5"-4" high and definitely not a work of art.



As a comparison, here's how big the "pot" was versus the usual size tea kettle.



I started filling with water from the tap and it seemed pretty heavy when it was about a third full so I stopped adding water. I was still able to support the weight of the water by holding the sides of the "pot" but it did seem heavy and I was worried it would tear through the bottom. I carried it over and put it on the gas burner of the stove.

I cranked up the stove and brought the water to a full boil. Its hard to see the water boiling in a still picture. It was a full rolling boil.



I turned off the heat so I could try pouring the water out of the pot. I waited a minute or so and found that the aluminum sides were pretty warm but I could still grab and hold the sides of the pot without burning myself. I was curious just how much water I had boiled so I poured the water into a liquid measure. Surprisingly I did this without spilling much water, damaging the pot, or burning myself.



You might be able to see that it was about 14 ounces, just shy of 1 pint of water which seemed to be quite a reasonable amount for a piece of tin foil.

And, just to make sure this wasn't all a fluke, I boiled a second pot of water in just the same manner. Again, no damage to the pot and it all worked as planned.

So the bottom line is that heavy aluminum foil CAN be used to create a makeshift container to boil water in. And it's reasonably durable to boot.

Cool survival experiment. Thanks for sharing with us.

Nice job, thanks for the tip.

Happy to share my crazier moments LOL. I just had to know whether this tin foil cookery idea was urban myth or not.

Next time, try boiling water in a paper cup or bag. That’s an interesting experiment that also works that is surprising.

I'm curious what you would have done if it failed and dumped 14 onces of water on your stove.

Ted, I *did* actually think about that while I was preparing the experiment. The good news is that the stove has a pretty large catch pan underneath the burners. It would be a pain in the rear to sponge all the water out but it would be a spouse-safe error <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

If I try the boiling-water-in-a-paper-bag trick that Andy suggested I'm going to do that outside on my Svea. The chance of experimental error seems higher <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

cool.

Glad you thought of it.

That’s why the first time I tried it I used a paper bathroom Dixie cup. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Why it works is because the water acts as a heat sink and keeps the paper from reaching the ignition point. For it to ignite, all the water would have to boil away first since the boiling point of water is lower than the ignition point of paper. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Andy your post made me think of a great signature line I once saw on a technical forum:

"I wish I lived in Theory because everything works there"

LOL <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I understand the theory. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> It's the real world considerations I worry about such as the folds on the bottom of the paper bag that water may not have reached before the flame gets there. I'm guessing water goes in first and then you wait a second or two for the water to begin to saturate the paper before you turn on the flame.

Bottom line is that I think I'll try the paper bag experiment outside first <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Give it a try! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />