Bushcraft Cookware: Pots, Billy Cans & Pans for the Campfire

What makes good bushcraft cookware?

Camping cookware for a stove and bushcraft cookware for a campfire are not quite the same thing. A stove delivers a small, controllable flame under the centre of the pot. A campfire delivers uneven heat from all sides, flames licking up the walls, sparks, ash and soot – and it rarely sits level. Cookware for the fire therefore needs to tolerate high, uneven temperatures, be easy to hang or lift and have no plastic, rubber or glued parts that can melt.

The ideal bushcraft cook kit has as few pieces as possible and each one does two jobs: the lid is also a frying pan or plate, the mug is also a second pot, the pot bag keeps soot off the rest of your backpack.

Stainless steel, titanium or aluminium: which material is best?

The material decides how your pot behaves in the fire, how much it weighs and how long it lasts. There is no single best material – only the best match for how you cook.

Stainless steel: the campfire workhorse

Stainless steel is heavier than the alternatives, but it forgives almost everything a fire can throw at it. You can leave it in flames, let it boil dry by mistake, scrub it with sand and bend it back into shape. Its weakness is heat distribution: thin stainless bases develop hot spots, so stirring and cooking over embers rather than high flames matters. For most people starting out, a 1–1.5 L stainless pot with a bail is the best pot for campfire use.

Titanium: light, strong, but unforgiving

Titanium is very strong for its weight, so manufacturers make pots with walls well under half a millimetre thick. That saves weight, and titanium boils water quickly because thin walls carry little metal to heat. But titanium conducts heat poorly, so the heat stays where the flame touches: porridge, rice and sauces burn onto the base in seconds. Bare titanium is excellent for boiling water and rehydrating meals, less good for real cooking.

Aluminium and hard-anodised aluminium

Aluminium spreads heat beautifully, which makes it pleasant to cook with on a stove. On an open fire, however, it is the weak link: aluminium softens well below the temperatures that glowing embers can reach, and a pot that boils dry in the coals can warp, sag or develop holes. Hard-anodising makes the surface harder and more scratch-resistant, but the coating can discolour and degrade under direct flame. Use aluminium for stoves and controlled cooking; if you use it over a fire, keep it hanging above the flames and never let it run dry.

Cast iron, carbon steel and enamel

Cast iron holds heat like nothing else and is perfect for baking and slow stews, but a skillet or camp oven weighs kilos, not grams – it belongs at a base camp or on a canoe trip. Carbon steel pans are lighter than cast iron, take a seasoning and handle high heat well.

What size pot do you need per person?

The right pot size depends on what you cook. For boiling water to rehydrate meals and make hot drinks, you need less volume than for cooking pasta or stew from scratch. A pot should never be filled to the brim over a fire: leave at least a quarter of the volume free so boiling water does not spill onto the embers or your hands. The food calculator helps you plan how much food, and therefore how much volume, you actually need per day.

Height and diameter matter too. A tall, narrow billy can suits hanging over a fire and fits long items such as fuel bottles inside it. A wide, low pot is more stable on a stove, heats faster on a small burner and is easier to stir. For boiling water to make it safe, volume per trip is what counts – the boiling calculator estimates time and fuel for a given amount.

The billy can: why a bail handle is king

A billy can is a simple cylindrical pot with a wire bail handle, and it is the classic bushcraft pot for good reasons. The bail lets you hang the pot from a tripod, a crane (a stick angled over the fire), or an adjustable pot hanger, so you control the heat by raising or lowering it rather than by moving the fire. It also lets you lift a boiling pot out of the fire with a forked stick or a notched pot hook, keeping your hands well away from the heat.

Folding side handles, common on camping cookware, are fine on a stove but tricky over a fire: they get hot, they are too short to reach safely across flames and they often have plastic or silicone sleeves. A bail handle also stays cooler when it folds down away from the flames, though it will still be hot enough to burn you – always use a stick, pot grip or glove.

Lids, mugs and nesting: save fuel and space

A lid is not optional. Water boils noticeably faster with a lid on because less heat escapes as steam, and that saves wood or gas every single time. Over a fire, the lid also keeps ash and falling bits out of your food. The best lids have a small lip or a folding handle so they double as a shallow frying pan for an egg, a slice of bread or a piece of fish – or simply as a plate.

The steel mug

A single-walled stainless steel mug of 0.5–0.75 L is one of the most useful items in a bushcraft kit. You can set it directly on embers to boil water for tea, cook a small portion of noodles, melt snow or heat a drink while the main pot cooks.

Nesting your kit

Nesting means packing smaller items inside the pot so your cook kit takes up the space of the pot alone. A typical solo nest: the mug inside the pot, inside the mug a small gas canister or fuel bottle, a lighter, a folded pot grip, a tea bag stash and a scrubbing cloth. Wrap the whole nest in a cloth bag – this stops rattling and keeps soot inside the bag and off your sleeping bag.

Frying pan and utensils: what you really need

A separate frying pan is a luxury on a solo trip; the pot lid does the job for occasional frying. For groups or base camps, a carbon steel or cast iron pan with a long handle or a removable handle is worth the weight. Avoid non-stick coatings over a fire: high heat damages them and ash scratches them. A seasoned steel or iron pan becomes naturally slick with use.

Utensils should be long enough to keep your fingers out of the heat and tough enough for rough use. Wooden spoons carved on the spot are a classic – see carving basics – and they do not scratch or conduct heat.

Stove or open fire: which heat source suits your cookware?

In many places an open fire is not allowed at all, or only in designated fire rings, and fire bans during dry periods can include stoves too. Laws vary by country, region and landowner, so check local rules before every trip. The campfire safety guide explains fire danger levels and leave-no-trace practice. That is why most bushcraft kits combine a fire-friendly pot with a stove option.

A wood-burning stove (also called a twig or hobo stove) is a good compromise: it concentrates a small fire under the pot, needs only a handful of dry sticks and leaves less of a trace than a full campfire. Legally it usually counts as an open fire. A gas stove is the quickest way to boil water and often permitted where fires are not – but always check.

How to use camping cookware on an open fire

The most common mistake is putting the pot into roaring flames. Flames are dirty, uneven and hard to control; embers give steady, strong heat. Build a small fire, let it burn down to a bed of glowing coals and then cook – or hang the pot high while the fire is still flaming and lower it as the embers develop. The fire lay tool helps you pick a fire shape for cooking.

In practice: prepare water, food, spoon and gloves first; rake embers level or set the pot on two green logs (never on river stones, which can burst); boil with the lid on; then raise the pot or move it to the edge for simmering and stir thin-walled pots often. Fire cooking takes practice. More recipes and techniques are in campfire cooking and bushcraft recipes. When you cook for more than a night or two, keep ingredients cool, dry and away from animals – see storing food at camp.

Troubleshooting at the fire

Soot and cleaning: how to clean your pot in the field

A pot used over a wood fire turns black on the outside, and that is fine. Soot does not harm the pot, and a blackened outside even absorbs heat slightly better. What matters is that the inside is clean and that soot does not spread through your pack. Keep the pot in its own bag and wipe the worst off with a handful of grass or moss.

Cleaning without a sink

Scrape out leftovers and pack them out; burnt-on food softens if you boil a little water in the pot for a few minutes. Then scrub the inside with a little water and a handful of sand, fine gravel or cold, fine wood ash – ash is slightly alkaline and helps cut grease. Rinse with clean water. If you use soap, use a small drop of biodegradable soap and still never put it directly into a stream or lake: even biodegradable soap harms aquatic life.

What "clean" looks like: the inside feels smooth and not greasy when you run a finger over it, there are no dark rings at the water line and nothing smells sour. The outside may stay black – that is soot, not dirt.

Building your bushcraft cook kit

Start small and add only what you miss. For most solo trips, a 1 L stainless billy can, a steel mug, a long spoon, a pot grip and a lighter are all you need; add a gas or alcohol stove where fires are not allowed. For two people, step up to a 1.5–2 L pot and a second mug. The bushcraft kit list shows how the cook kit fits into your overall gear, and the Kit Builder lets you total up weights for your own setup.