The Mucket

Got mine yesterday from Ron and Donna Hamilton of Hamilton Dry Goods on eBay.

I'd seen these (also called corn boilers) at a couple of Civil War reenactments last summer and later found them available at some online shops but they were always tin or tin-lined copper and expensive.

The Hamiltons had one in stainless steel for a much better price so I had to give it a look. This isn't the ultralight thin-walled stainless so many hikers are looking for but rather the sturdy stainless that'll hold up well to the kind of use I plan to put it through. Good bye Titanium cookware...hello mucket.

As you can see from the picture it is a combination of a mug and a bucket hence "mucket." <--just hazarding a guess. I see one piece of gear capable of brewing tea and coffee, making soup, purifying water, and handling the job of eating dish on top of it all. Carve a spoon and you'll have your lightweight cookset that should be as capable of doing camp cooking as any expensive non-stick cookware.

I gave it a good washing last night just to get it ready to go and then set it on the cooktop to boil some water just to make sure it's up to the job and it did a fine job. Today I'll start using it to prepare some of my usual campsite fare and then I'll have a better idea what cleanup will be like and whether or not I can use it with my Trangia and MSR stoves as well as over a campfire and on the cooktop.

I'm really excited to have this bit of kit and once it gets some wear and tear it should fit right in with the rest of my load.

Thanks for reading,

B