Gear Review: Improved Zebra Billy Pot (14 cm)

(I apologize it has taken me so long to update my blog. I have been very busy with school and not getting out as much as I intended. An absolute truth about me is, when I have a goal or a mission to complete, I tend to get tunnel vision and focus only on said goal, which of late has been school. With practice, hopefully I can cut down the time between posts and balancing school goals, but right now I am on my winter break and can catch up on much needed blogging.)

Greetings. I have had the opportunity to purchase and test out an incredibly well constructed piece of gear, the Zebra Handle Pot Auto Lock or more famously known in the west as the Zebra Billy Pot in the 14 cm.

Zebra Cookware is a company based out of Thailand and they make some pretty serious cookware. Anybody who has ever served or contracted in the Middle East and worked with "eastern" contractors have probably seen the stainless steel food carriers the eastern counterparts carried. This is so the reheating of the food can be done on a portable gas stove or let the intense Arabian sun heat it up. Much better than a microwave and Zebra doesn't skimp on quality. This bad boy is built of some thick gauge stainless steel.

• Height: 5.51 inches (14 cm)
• Diameter: 5.71 inches (14.5 cm)
• Volume: 67.63 fl oz (2 liter)
• Weight: 1.6 lbs (.725 kg)

The 14 cm Billy pot can hold two Nalgene bottles of water. It weighed in at a bit over 1.6 lbs and in an age where people, in my opinion (including myself), carry way to much gear, this piece of equipment can pull multiple cooking duties. As the great Canadian woodsman, Mors Kochanski says, "the more you know, the less you carry."

First thing I did was harvest some awesome spring water that flows right out of the Pioneer mountains in southwest Montana. The U.S. Forest Service installed a pipe to make harvesting easy and they test the water regularly. No other water on Earth can beat mountain spring water filtered through millions of years of Rocky Mountains. This spring is found by taking the Apex exit, 10 miles north of Dillon, MT on I-15. Go west on the Birch Creek road until you get into the mountains. There will be an bend in the road to the north and an obvious pullout where a short footpath reveals the spring... and then I trekked on. (Coordinates for the spring in Google Maps 45.380406, -112.800299 or 45° 22' 49.5" N 112° 48' 01.1" W)

Birds nest is a variety of Rocky Mountain bunch grasses.

An ESEE firesteel and Rocky Mountain chert will do.

Charcloth is glowing and can be added to the tinder.

Fire ignited and the Beaverhead wind lends a hand.

Less smoke and more flame is alright with me.

At my basecamp, after I got a fire blazing, I suspended my pot filled with water above it fixed to a bipod. The bail is heavy duty and not a wire bail. Everything about this pot is heavy duty but because of the width of the bail, the notch in my suspension had to be cut deep. Cordage with a toggle would be more appropriate to use with this wide bail but other than that, I have no complaints. It was quite chilly out but did not take long to get my water boiling and I added some Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) needles and immediately removed the pot from the fire. Do not boil the needles, they need to be steeped like... well... tea, this is needle tea also called an infusion. If you boil the needles, it will be a decoction and all the turpines will be released and you will end up with the trotskies. Always harvest the young, robust looking needles. Although, everything does look more mature in the winter.

Transfer the infusion to preferred drinking container and remove floating needles however available.

Enjoying my tea.

The pot worked great and my infusion turned out very refreshing. Needle tea has a ton of vitamin C in it and also freshens the breath. It is a great drink for the winter when immune systems can be at risk due to seasonal illnesses. I felt like I did not really get to know the pot so the next week I came back to see how much I could really multitask with this wonderful Billy pot. Plus I never got to test the double boiler.

Water to boil for coffee and a hunk of meat.

Grounds and water added to my GSI Commuter Java Press.

Added the press.

After 4 minutes, coffee is ready.

Once the coffee was finished, I put the pot back on the fire and added the dish it comes with. I have read on Amazon and multiple sites that have done reviews that the dish allows the pot to become a steamer, this is incorrect. What the shallow dish does is it turns the pot into a double boiler. I chopped up some peppers and tomatoes with a little sea salt and inserted the shallow dish back on the pot and added the lid to let the double boiler heat the veggies. I also flipped my hunk of meat.

Take note of the metal clips on the pot connected to the bail.

 I bought my pot on Amazon because listed here is the version with the steel clips added to lock the handle. The plastic clips that come standard will lock but plastic melts. Are the locking clips necessary, not at all but they are very nice when transferring water from a hot pot with no gloves.

Meat is ready.

Veggies are under cooked but hot and suit my needs. (1.54 inches or 3.9 cm deep)

This lunch will do in a pinch. Yum.

 Impressions: The Improved Zebra Billy pot is a great bushpot and will last anyone who properly maintains it a lifetime. The metal clips are very handy and if I had ordered the pot without them, I would have eventually ordered the metal clips (found here). The shallow dish is great for a container to harvest wild edibles and medicinals when preparing boiling water or for using as a serving or eating dish. I haven't tested it but I reckon, charred materials could be made with the dish and pot for future fires. The thick stainless steel also is great for resisting rust and the pot could work as a fire transport as well. The thick bail makes it difficult to suspend the pot with a bail notch but this is easily solved with a toggle. It would be nice to have a folding butterfly handle but the locking clips solve this. I highly recommend this pot to anyone looking for a versatile cooking and eating container. I hope this review is informative and am open to all tips, criticism, and feedback. Enjoy your new year and make it a resolution to spend more time outside.

Skål

Locating and Harvesting Fatwood

One of the best things about living in the Rocky Mountains is there is no shortage of fire starting materials. If you consider the massive wildfires that burn every year, the evidence is obvious; all one big tinder bundle. The vast expanses of timbered country serve a plethora of evergreens that offer us resources to be utilized in an emergency or for future use. The region I will focus on, in this post, is east of the Continental Divide in the Pioneer Mountains.

Torrey and Tweedy Mountains.

On the east side of the divide of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, we are in the "rain shadow" and many of our evergreens are efficient with their water use, except for Rocky Mountain juniper. I live at about a mile in elevation, so when I say lower elevation, I am talking about 5000-6500 feet, higher elevation is 6500-8000 feet. I list Engelmann spruce twice because it can be found throughout the low to high montane conifer/taiga forest in my neck of the woods. The species of conifers (cone-bearing trees) or evergreens that make their home here are: 

• Lower montane (lower elevation) conifers
• Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) 
• Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) 
• Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperous scopulorum)
• Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii)

• Subalpine (high elevation) conifers
•  Subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa)
• Limber pine (Pinus flexilis)
• Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis)
• Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmanii)

With exploration through the forest, in both lower montane to subalpine areas, the key thing I look for is dead-standing or down trees. As the conifers die, important water and nutrients flowing up and down the cambium or living inner bark stop moving and gravity pulls the resin, pitch, or sap down towards the roots. As you can see in this forest, beetle kill has really done a number on our trees. CAUTION: BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL AND AWARE OF POSSIBLE SNAGS AND WIDOW-MAKERS WHEN TRAMPING THROUGH DEAD-STANDING TIMBER.

Down trees are a good bet you can find fatwood. The root balls generally contain a great deal of fatwood as the resin sinks back down, it saturates the lower wood and roots.

Tree resin contains terpenes, which turpentine comes from, and helps preserve and waterproof the wood that becomes saturated. These preserved roots are a good indicator these trees contain fatwood. I use the poll (butt) end of my axe to knock and listen for dense, hard sounds on prospective wood.

I should have brought a saw because saws make clean cuts but in a pinch you can pry the wood off or in this case I used the poll end of my axe to smash a large chunk off.

After shaving the wood down, notice the shiney yellow-orange coloration. It should smell heavily of resin.

Using the back of my knife, I scraped of a bunch of shavings for a test fire.

After a couple of scrapes from my ferro rod, I had fire.

After successful ignition, I harvested quite a bit more.

The bright yellow-orange coloration is a dead give away. Subalpine fir and most fir trees contain lots of useful resin.

Juniper Spoon Project

This is the start of the project. This is the actual log that I carved into the spoon. I used only 3 tools, an ax (in this case a tomahawk), a small knive and finally a spoon knife.

 This is the spoon in the rough, before I had received Wille Sundqvist's "Swedish Carving Techniques" book. The handle quickly changed after this.

 This is the start of the sanding process. I am using 220 grit Emery cloth and will go up to 1500 to give the spoon a polished look, before I finish with a food safe wood oil.

 The handle came out much better than before the carving book. This is only the second spoon I have ever carved.