FeatherSticks · Cooking
Pot Hangers & Cooking Tripods: How to Hang a Pot Over a Campfire
One stick, one fork, one notch – and your pot hangs over the fire.
Quick facts
- Time
- 10–30 min, depending on design
- Difficulty
- Easy to moderate
- Best for
- Boiling water, soups, stews, coffee
- You need
- Pot with bail, knife, saw, gloves
What you need
- Pot or billy can with a wire bail and lid
- Fixed-blade bushcraft knife
- Folding saw
- Leather fire gloves
- 2 m of steel wire or a short chain with S-hooks
- About 6 m of natural cord or tarred twine for a tripod
- Water container for extinguishing
Step by step
-
1 Pick a pot with a bail handle
Only pots and kettles with a wire bail hang safely. Check the weight when full: water adds 1 kg per litre.
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2 Gather sticks with permission
Use fallen, sound wood or cut green wood only where the landowner allows it. Green wood goes nearest the heat.
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3 Build the support
Set up a dingle stick, a crane with two forks and a green crossbar, or a lashed tripod over a small fire.
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4 Carve an adjustable pot hook
Cut a green forked branch to a short hook and carve 2–4 notches near the upper end, always away from your body.
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5 Hang the pot and set the height
Low in the flame tips to boil, 10–20 cm above the coals to simmer, higher to keep warm.
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6 Lift off safely, then pack down
Lift the hot pot with a glove and a stick, put out the fire, scatter the sticks and leave no trace.
Common mistakes
- Hanging pots with plastic or folding side handles instead of a wire bail.
- Leaving the butt of a dingle stick unpinned, so the pot levers it into the fire.
- Using a thin, dry crossbar that chars or cracks under a full pot.
- Running paracord or other synthetic cord down to the pot, where it melts.
- Lashing a tripod so tightly that the legs cannot spread, making it tall, narrow and wobbly.
- Carving notches deeper than a third of the stick, so the hook snaps.
- Lifting the pot with bare hands or without a clear place to set it down.