Three products aimed at the same audience. I am slightly leaning toward the Eydon but would like to hear from anyone with real world experience with any of these:

http://www.eydonkettle.com/stormkettle.html


http://www.thermette.com/


https://kellykettle.com/homepage


Thanks.

I have the Thermette and Kelly Kettle but haven't used them so can't attest to which one functions better. They both certainly appear well-constructed and capable of doing the job they are advertised for. I recall reading that the Eydon is higher quality. And my extensive research advised that any of the three would be a great addition to my gear.

The principal difference between the Thermette and the Kelly may be which is easier to pour with less risk of being burned. The Thermette's handle is spartan and puts your knuckles at risk. The Kelly requires two hands to pour.

The Thermette was on backorder last spring so took longer to get here but that inventory situation may be resolved. Kelly's customer service was superb as they were responsive to e-mails.

The Kelly is in my teardrop trailer (which is in storage near the mountains) because the one I got is a bit more compact than the Thermette.

I got the Thermette because its copper and it has a history that appealed to me.

I ended up with two because my teardrop is near where we camp and I didn't want to lug a kettle back and forth from the city.

They are not compact.

As survival gear, any of these kettles seems like a wise investment. Gotta love a stove that will run on twigs or dung.

If my JetBoil weren't so efficient I'd have used the kettles by now.

Need to take the time to play with them.

A friend of mine has the Kelly (the smallest one, 1 pint?). It's a nice piece of gear and I like it but the pricetag seems a little high for me.

Also for activities like backpacking & camping a kettle is just not as versitle enough IMHO, a pot will boil water and you can cook in it as well as eat out of it. The 1 pint capacity is also a bit low for the size it takes up in your pack. I know they have larger ones but for backpacking those would probably be a bit too bulky for my liking.

Really the only advantage I can see to the volcano style kettles is that it will bring water to a boil quickly if your cooking over an open flame, which is good if you're cooking on a campfire or a can of sterno. I've don't know how well they'd work on a stove (kitchen, camp or backpacking) though. When I asked my buddy if he had ever used it at home he just gave me the "why would I do that?" look - some people just don't get science.

The Thermette would look hysterical carabinered to a backpack. It'd be like a section of copper stovepipe bobbing on your back.

Their serious utility is for long-term survival in remote places where wood and dung are all you can count on for fuel. Or worst-case urban survival scenarios in which propane and other modern fuels are scarce or unavailable.

They are a neat car camping curio. Not practical for cooking a meal for a family. My main interest with it is hot water for coffee or tea.

Every survivalist should have at least one.

;-)

Is this "volcano" design really considered faster boiling or more efficient than using a pot over an open fire? It seems like this design would be superior and make better use of a given amount of wood, but sometimes the theoretical doesn't live up to expectations in real use, so I wonder what folks really say about them.

I always look at the Kelly Kettles but never buy one. I'm skeptical of their versatility. Because the water is in the jacket on the outside of the chimney, it's not handy for cooking coffee or soup or stew.

I've seen several variations of the Sierra Stove, which uses natural fuel that's whipped up by a tiny fan. Seems more practical -- basically a campstove. I'd like to try one (or make one) someday.

My interim solution is one of those BBQ briquette starters (basically a steel chimney with a handle) that I bought for $5 on clearance from WallyWorld.

I'll say that it IS more efficient. A fairly unscientific comparison of my buddy's 1 pint Kelly and my 2 liter stainless steel pot (approx 3/4 full) with a heat exchanger, using natural fuel, showed that the Kelly was quicker (a lot quicker) to bring water to a boil. BUT with the pot on a stove (coleman xpediton) it was much closer.

I'm sure that somebody with some knowledge of physics/thermodynamics can weigh in on the heating surface to water volume/contact area aspect. All I know is that it works as advertised.

I had a Kelly Kettle.
It was very fast if all you wanted was to boil water for tea.

You can't cook in them because the spout is too small to put anything in or get anything out.
Using the bottom as a stove after boiling up a jug of water is only a mixed success.
I found out there is just not enough bottom contact with the stove top on a woodstove, the element on an electric stove or the ring of flame on a gas stove for it to work on any of them.
It only works with a little fire burning inside it.

For packing they are bulky with no way to balance that by stuffing them full of other items. That is not as much of a concern if you travel by boat or car but if you need to pack your gear on your back it matters a lot.
They are very easily dented, but that is just a secondary concern for me.
They are pretty expensive here too.

To recap:
They were designed to boil water for tea fast and efficiently with a small fire inside them. They are excellent at that, but they are a single use item. They are not even good to brew the tea in once you have the water boiled.

If all you want to do is brew tea, I would think a Zip stove, or even a Esbit stove, would work fine-and, the cup you use to boil is at least more packable...I was going to get one a couple years ago, because EVERYONE on several outdoor forums I belong to raved about them-till I came to the same conclusion, that it is, essentially, a single use item, as scafool points out. I lean more towards carrying multiuse items where I can-a stove/pot combo should be able to cook food, not just boil water...I like to mix my meals in the pot, so that pretty much killed this for me. That, and it looks impossible to pack.

I use a mainstream kettle with my white box stove. Perfect, it does 3C of water. I have never seen those kettles listed above. I have some bigger kettles for the house, that I can use on the stove or with my propane grills in a power outage.

When your off the grid, in house or backcountry, kettles are really great for hot water.