Boil to heat?

[thechip1]

Oh man, instead of a camp stove, I should have bought one of the camp microwaves!

[housil]

I prefer to dump contents of the entree into a bowl and heat it up in my microwave...

...but a tommy cooker is much easier to carry than a microwave and the extension cord.

[MCIera]

That's a good point. I keep an Esbit with tablets in my 24 and 72 hour individual packs as a redundant heating system to the FRHs, in case the FRH does not work. An Esbit with tabs is a lot lighter than carrying an additional 12 pack of FRHs

And in my multiperson 72 hour kit, I keep cans of Sterno and one of those Sterno stoves as a secondary backup to a gas stove, since the alcohol fuel is a little safer to use in confined areas and can also be used with less danger to those who might be mechanically challenged.

...but a tommy cooker is much easier to carry than a microwave and the extension cord.

[norge]

i have always used the water after boiling the mre in it, no harm
just a waste of hot water if you dont use it.
have few ex us rangers friends that said the same thing.
if you dont want to use your water in the frh, you can
piss in it and the frh wil stil heat the mre dinner.
have tryed it,wierd smell bu no harm if you use your own pi
for heating the mres or other army food in the winter time
i use my cooleman stove it runs on anything.
when its realy cold i use nafta or gasolin instead of cerosin
that that its harder to ignite.
summer time i use the frh or make a smal fire and place the mre dinner
close to the fire or bury in the soil under the fire.
cheers from norge

[donaldjcheek]

...that same literature warned against subsequently using the water used to heat the MRE pouch for coffee, cocoa, etc. because of possible contamination. ...

Yes, I remember that now, too. Was it on a slip of paper in the meal pouch, or written on the entree? I can't recall.

When you're humping your own water around, you tend to be reluctant to waste any of it.

As I recall, it was printed on the box that held the retort-pouch entree. As I stated earlier, I often ignored this. As Richard W. pointed out, when you hump your own water, you can't waste it.

[sahkeah]

Yes, the warning was on the cardboard box of the main entree, about not using the same water that you boiled with. One of my buddies got sick from drinking the water he used to boil his meal from the canteen cup. In some meals, they came with some kind of silly cardboard "pouch stand". We also had the smaller white spoons to chow down with. Interesting note about the white spoons. In war games, we used to wear the MILES gear and if you got 'shot' or 'killed', it made a loud beeping noise and the only way to turn it off, was to have a special key. We used to heat the end of the white spoon and then insert into the key hole of the MILES gear and it would harden to the shape of the key. Walaa! We had a key and if we got 'shot', we would just turn ourselves or our buddies off and be 'alive' again to fight. We fought some Rangers at Ft. Ord (MOUT) one time and they couldn't understand that we were still fighting and not dying after they shot us.

Semper Fi,
Steve

[deanopilot]

I use a couple of non-conventional heating methods: First I can stare angrily at the main entree pouch to get it steamed up. Second, I can shove it behind my back while I lounge around on the couch for a half hour or so. That way I can heat my beefsteak and couch potatoes. HA!

[Treesuit]

I seemed to remember that the warning for not drinking the water from the FRH's was printed on the sleeve itself, at least when the first versions came out. I could have sworn that is where I saw them, maybe not. Also I never saw any guys get sick from drinking the reclaimed water either after warming an MRE, in fact most guys I knew dumped the contents of the MRE into the canteen cup and heated it that way with whatever else they wanted. Yeah, and I also never saw that mysterious little pouch stand either.

[DangerousDave]

Why worry about heating it up??? Cold is good. I eat cold omelets with vegetables every day. What the H E double toothpicks are you talking about?

[Treesuit]

Hey guys I don't know if this merits it's own thread but I found this by accident and decided to post it here since were talking about boiling water to heat MRE's. Thought it would be neat to try out and see if this can be done.

http://www.alpharubicon.com/prepinfo/triggccsm.htm

Looks like it might be better than trying to use trioxane and/or hexamine tabs. I personally have never seen the tuna can burners this guy is talking about but it might be something commonly seen in Europe or elsewhere.