Nice bit of "kit"

I 'd like to show you a nice piece of "kit " I picked up at wally world the other day.Seems the eco- yuppies are seeing the devil in plastic bottles now and carrying tap water around in "sports bottles" is becoming stylish. Any way these nice wide mouth bottles are available and cheap(.$5.00).

Stainless steel! (not aluminum)I figurethey would take to being set into the edge of a fire and boiling water pretty well. Add a $1.88 elastic water bottle carrier harness to help carry and it makes a nice outdoors water carrier again with the ability to boil

 

What capacity?
Double walled?

Did you try boiling in them? Just wondering how the insulation (if any) would affect.

 

single walled, you can boil water in a plastic bottle as long as there's water in it to carry the heat, so Stainles shouldn't be a problem.

just below the threads is 800ml (measured),I didn't toss it into the fire as it held tap water from home. So I guess it didn't get a complete test,saw one like it flash by on a commercial for one of the "survival" shows popular on the tube now I think it was "Double survival" with Cody Lundin and Dave Canterbury; Cody, I think did put his in the fire and it had some black marks from prior fires.

 

very cool.
Thanks for sharing.

 

Yep, I also picked up a pair. Wish they had the larger sizes though - these are about 20 oz. capacity or so. Online we can find the same basic bottle in 32 and 48 oz. sizes.

 

Kleenkanteen

We've had a couple of the 16 oz steel bottles from Klean Kanteen for about three years now for our boys to take their drinks to school. We send them a bottle of fruit juice for a fraction of the cost of an individually packaged drink.

Aside from a few dents on the bottom, probably from being dropped, they are still perfectly serviceable.

I see now they have a bigger selection than when we bought ours. They have the single walled bottles from 12 to 64 oz, and they now have double walled vacuum insulated bottles.

I haven't sat down to figure out the energy cost of making one of these things to compare it to the energy cost of making a similar plastic bottle. This would be good to know to evaluate how long you'd have to have the thing in service before it actually amortizes its energy cost of production to make it cheaper than plastic.

But, short of totally crushing it, the only real part that can be damaged beyond usability would be the cap. Were that to happen, it wouldn't be too great a trick to stop it with any sort of cork, rubber stopper, or even a wood plug, I would think.

 

Well "energy amortization" of a reusable plastic bottle substitute maybe a fine( splitting hairs) topic of discussion; but I would guess reducing plastic trash out weighs it. Ilike the replacement stopper quality..( hadn't considered that).

 

I was more referring to the energy cost of production. The amount of energy it takes to smelt, roll, and form that bottle. Then, compare that to the energy to make a PET drink bottle or a TetraPak container.

There is, of course, the added benefit that for it's lifetime, it can replace thousands and thousands of plastic bottles, or the other TetraPak drink cartons.

Got into a similar conversation about wind generators on a different forum. I'm not so sure a wind generator can ever return the energy it took to manufacture it before it fails. My most obvious argument? You never see wind generator powered wind generator factories. I think it may not be so green as we hear.

These steel bottles may be a similar energy situation. I still prefer them to plastic bottles. The durability alone make them more attractive to me.

 

Yes, I agree with that, too. That plastic will be around for many decades, in a useless form. That steel bottle can pretty easily be turned into any other steel part and put back to use.

 

oops, useless comment I can't delete...(one of many )

 

I just picked up 2 750mL stainless bottles. $6.00 I think. I was thinking along the same lines, you can easily boil water in them, BUT, the nice little disclaimer/warning label says: "Intended for cool and cold beverages only. Do NOT for use with hot beverages. Do NOT use in a microwave oven... Do not use cleaners containing bleach or chlorine. Dishwasher safe"

Now, I do not know why, so can anybody explain the bleach chlorine thing?

I have one bottle that's painted blue, one that is just plain stainless. I was thinking about getting some high temp paint and painting the stainless one, on the outside only, as a way to help protect it for use in/over a fire. Necessary or not?

Thanks

 

Oxidizer

Bleach is an oxidizer. I wouldn't worry about using it to clean or disinfect it, but if left on the steel, even stainless steel, bleach can rust it. Shouldn't be a problem at all if you rinse it with plain water.

The hot beverages warning reminds me of a set of six steel single wall coffee cups I found in the basement of a house I rented near Ellsworth AFB. They were beautiful. And worthless. You'd burn your lips if you used them for hot coffee. But not to worry, after you burned your lips the coffee would be cold in a minute because of the good heat conduction of a metal cup.

I brought them into the office for guest coffee cups. Guests didn't drink a lot of coffee, they wouldn't make off with the cups, and they couldn't break them.

 

hmm mine doesn't sayanything against using heat...
wow 2pages on a simple bottle...

 

woiks! thanks Tracy