Heating Beverage Bags in US MRE's

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Tedster
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Re: Heating Beverage Bags in US MRE's

Post by Tedster » Sun Feb 02, 2020 8:47 pm

The beverage bags are one of those items that I doubt are hardly ever used by most for their intended purpose. They are good quality, strong material though, and VERY useful for waterproofing or storing whatever. Dirty socks, segregating garbage etc. All kinds of uses. I always save a few back for hiking uses.

The thing I noticed is the FRH has a very limited shelf life.

When I was in the .mil the rations we were issued were (relatively) "fresh" and straight from storage to our supply chain. So were the FRHs, naturally. The deal with the FRH in those conditions was just as soon as the water was poured into them they started reacting strongly and got VERY HOT RIGHT AWAY, it was comical to watch guys because you better have the meal pouch stuffed into the box (sleeve) the first shot away or the FRH is almost too hot to handle. Seriously. Lots of swelling and gasses and noises &c, they were impressive. Once they get a few years under their belt in storage they are pretty much useless and not worth the hassle, imo. They sort of start to get warmish after several minutes. Forget it. Boil some water and dunk it.

The Beverage itself is way more important than all the BS packaging anyway, at least to my mind. The coffee ration is currently reduced to almost nothing, and lacking entirely in some meals, and sometimes replaced by foo-foo inspired flavored (although very watered down) drinks that (allegedly) contain caffeine.

It would be really interesting to know what the actual unit cost is broke down line by line to Uncle Sam for various components, and how thoroughly ripped off the taxpayer is on that deal (in my opinion) to say nothing of the soldiers and marines. I would encourage anyone to weigh out a gram or so of instant coffee and try to make a nice big stout cup of Joe with it. Try to get a sense of how much (or little) water you think is needed, and whether you believe that is adequate for an O-dark thirty get together. Not.

For my money the 2.5 grams of "Type II STYLE VII" or whatever it was, it didn't taste too good but it DID have some zing to it. They put one in every accessory packet. Then they reduced it to 2.2 grams. Today ya hafta ratfvch an entire case of MREs just to make a single large cup of coffee - a 1.5 gram packet of instant.

If only Comrade Bernie knew!!!!!

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RockyRaab
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Re: Heating Beverage Bags in US MRE's

Post by RockyRaab » Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:06 am

The beverages are the worst aspect of MREs, no question. And that's going some, because the rest of the stuff in there isn't all that good, either. If it weren't for the small tubes of commercial drink mixes in some acc packs, there'd be nothing worth drinking but plain water. Coffee? they put coffee in every TOTM - the one meal where it can't be used and isn't needed. One, there's no bev bag in a TOTM, and the meal is intended for classroom use WHERE THERE IS ALWAYS A POT OF COFFEE.

Funny, isn't it? the bev bag is about useless at the job it is provided to do, but good for unintended uses. The Canadian bev bag will at least stand up on its own - but will we adopt such a simple and practical design? No. IMO they should put gusseted bottoms in the bev bag AND the main meal pouches. That would make the retort pouch an actual serving bowl you could put down without all your food gushing out.
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RGoodellSr
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Re: Heating Beverage Bags in US MRE's

Post by RGoodellSr » Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:44 am

RockyRaab wrote:
Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:06 am
they should put gusseted bottoms in the bev bag AND the main meal pouches
I second that emotion
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