Hey, guys and gals- here is an interesting article about tin foil, and how it isn't trustworthy to hold water. I bring this up for two reasons. First, many mini kits (including the excellent AMK PSP) include it as an emergency water boiling vessel. The second is because I'm a chef, and for nearly a decade I've been [censored] about this! Foil nowadays is junk. I'm not sure if it's just because it's thinner to save money or if the quality of the metal is worse, but no brand no matter how expensive can do what nearly all decent foil could do ten years ago. When covering a baking dish I've found that all foils will "burn thru" and pit out when baked for more than an hour or two.

Has anyone else noticed that foil quality has gone downhill precipitously?

Scouts have used aluminum foil for "hobo" meals for decades. They chop up veggies, add a slab of hamburger, cover it all in foil, and cook it over hot coals. I have say that I have noticed them having more problems lately with holes in the foil. I wasn't sure if was cheap generic foil or what. Even heavy duty foil has the same problems.

Ken

I personally wouldn't use aluminium foil for anything related to cooking or boiling, even in the kitchen. Even aluminium pots and pans should be hard anodised and titanium is much preferred for outdoor use.

I usually use the heavy duty kind, I'll see what happens when i use I again.

I regularly cook hobo meals in our kitchen stove and haven't noticed any problem with either regular or heavy duty aluminum foil leaking when cooking at 350 degrees.

Aluminum foil was never very good. But it has got worse as it had gotten thinner.

Used to be aluminum, as a material, was cheap but rolling it out very thin was relatively expensive. So foil was thick. And being thick it could be soft without worrying about people accidentally sticking a finger through it. This thicker and softer foil could folded and unfolded many times before the metal work hardened and cracked.

Now the relative cost of aluminum is higher and the cost of rolling it out, by the linear mile, is cheap. So it has gotten thinner. To get by with this thinner foil it has to be, to some extent, work hardened. Unfortunately being work hardened means that it can't be folded and re-flattened much before it cracks. Take it off the roll and use it once and that may be all it can handle.

Thicker commercial-duty foils, available at a restaurant supply shop, is almost as good as the old foil was. I understand the Teflon coated thick non-stick commercial foil is a bit better still.

Some people have shifted to stainless and titanium foils used for heat treating. These are reported to be reusable many times. The titanium foil is highly resistant to chemical attack and work hardening but you pay more. These foils are also much sharper than aluminum foil so it is easy to lay your hand open like your gutting a fish.

Commercial foil is better than the stuff you get at the grocery store, but even the stuff we get at the restaurant is flimsy compared to the stuff I ordered years ago. Thanks, Art, for the interesting details behind it; I never knew just why foil changed, just that it did.

I think a better solution is a metal water bottle. Or a tin cup.

I had mentioned that link some time ago. It was an eye opener to me when I had first read it. But, I certainly don't rely on foil to use as a boiling container.

I still do the scout foil packet cooking when I go camping tho. I use the heavy duty foil and it holds up well enough for its intended use. I will often double wrap it tho.

The article is in reference to trying to build a vessel to boil water in. It is probably a lot different if you just want to do a potato on the coals.

I don't want to be rude but I have been surprised on many forums how many wasted or irrelevant post there are or how many derailments occur to the subject at hand (it would be courteous to create a new thread and then link to the original to prevent this) simply because some people Quick Post or skim through without all the facts and then thought they should defend their method or continue on about something that wasn't even in regard to the key points of the original topic....

The original post closes by posing this question: "Has anyone else noticed that foil quality has gone downhill precipitously?"

Ken's comment is germane to that question (which could easily be missed if one had simply skimmed the original post).

I'm surprised anyone is still surprised by thread drift -- a phenomenon consistent with everyday, off-line polite conversation.

Hey, I'm still surprised to find polite online conversation! At any rate the heaviest foil is still usefull, it just isn't as good as it use to be. Doubled up it still works pretty well. When I can't smoke ribs, I'll wrap a rack in plastic wrap, then heavy foil and roast at 225 for 2.5 hours. Generally the foil doesn't burn thru at that time/temp combo.