you need a camping dutch oven

Spring is comping, wether comes warmer, are you ready for camping? maybe you need a set of camping duth oven!

How to Cook with a Dutch Oven while Camping?

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Everything you need to know about using a camping Dutch oven: finding the right size, cooking techniques, temperature charts, how to properly clean, and a whole lot more. If you’re interested in Dutch oven cooking, then this is the place to start!

Dutch Oven Heating Methods
Camping Dutch ovens were primarily designed to use hot coals or wood embers, which are placed underneath the pot and on the lid. This dual-direction form of heating is the only way you can bake or braise with a Dutch oven.

Dutch ovens can also be suspended over a campfire using a tripod, placed on a campfire cooking grate over a fire, or placed directly on top of embers.

Depending on your stove, it is also possible to use a Dutch oven on a camp stove. Our Dutch oven’s legs fit in between the grates covering our camp stove’s range. This is a useful feature when camping in areas with seasonal fire bans.

Charcoal Or Embers?
If you’re using your Dutch oven to bake or braise, you will want heat coming from the top and the bottom. And to do that, you will need to use either charcoal or wood embers.

Charcoal Briquettes: The consistent shape of briquettes make it easier to evenly distribute heat. You can use a temperature chart (see below) to roughly estimate the number of charcoal briquettes you will need on top and bottom to achieve a certain temperature.

Lump Hardwood Charcoal: Less processed than briquettes, lump charcoal is irregularly shaped, making it more challenging to formulaically determine equal heat distribution. While lump charcoal lights faster, we find it doesn’t have the staying power of briquettes. So you may need additional lump charcoal to replace midway to maintain temperature.

Wood Embers: You can also use embers from your campfire to heat your Dutch oven. However, the quality of the embers will be determined by the type of wood you’re burning. Softwoods, like the pine typically sold at campgrounds, produce weak embers that die out quickly. Hardwoods like oak, almond, maple, and citrus produce embers that last much longer.

Managing The Heat
Just like home grilling, a lot of Dutch oven cooking centers around heat management. How hot are your coals? Where is the heat going? And how long will that heat last?

Wind Shelter
One of the biggest challenges when doing any type of cooking outdoors is the wind. Windy conditions will steal heat from your coals and cause them to burn out quicker. So, it’s advisable to try and buffer the wind as much as possible.

Rock wind shelter: A small, semi-circle rock shelter is quick to construct and can be very effective against the wind.

Fire ring: If cooking at an established campground, it’s easiest (and safest) to use your Dutch oven inside the provided fire ring. Which also doubles as a wind shelter.