Hot food on the ice

I’m a self-proclaimed, talented Mr. Heater chef, but this year I’m making an attempt at a true run-and-gun approach with no shelter, and no heater to cook on. Has anybody used one of these (or similar) in temps below 20 degrees?

I just ordered one after 6 hours out on the ice today in 30 degree temps — I had a pre-cooked, hot sandwich wrapped in three layers of thick tinfoil, inside of an insulated lunchbox, wrapped in towel, inside of a backpack and it was room temp within 3-4 hours.

Hoping something like the above combined with a small Yeti (or Jackery) battery will provide me with a place to keep some stuff warm all day. Supposedly it heats food to 165 degree+ but we will see how that translates once it is 10 degrees outside

Yeah you are way behind in the game bud.

Good to know. I’ve never had to worry about it prior because I’m usually inside a shelter cooking up delicacies on my Mr. Heater. This will be one of the hardest parts of going no shelter

I think you bring more stuff on the ice than most with a shack.

Ripjiggen wrote:

I think you bring more stuff on the ice than most with a shack.

I think you are correct. Some days I’ll bring some hot pasta or what not out in a thermos. If you can’t do that then it isn’t worth having. That thing you listed above is something I have on the work truck. Plug it in at 9am and have a hot meal at noon. I would never try it on the ice or out side lol. Hard to believe you run and gun if these are the things you drag around.

Run and Gun,with all the stuff you want to take you should stick to camp and cook.

I’ve been thinking about trying one, but there are so many models available that I just give up and never end up ordering one. I’ve wanted one for both out in the boat and ice fishing.

When with a big group where you setup in one spot all day, bringing the grill out is fun. But other times, I don’t want to mess with another thing to lug around and deal with cleanup. So these electric lunchbox things seem perfect.

Let us know how it goes. When I bring chili or soup out, I put it in a thermos and it’s piping hot all day. But a lot of times I just want a warm sandwich as it’s easy and quick to eat.

I would look into backpacking stoves. A jetboil would be lighter & more compact.

Or, a small high quality soft cooler + hand warmers?

If you want to run and gun with hot food all you need are some thermos dogs.

Why not just go to the bar for burgers and cold ones?

Y’all are too boujee. I blew the kids mind with this. Especially when I twisted the tip up line that hung from the ceiling so it spun back and forth for about 5 minutes before having to retwist the line again. Hot left over pizza was better than in a microwave!

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i think you missed the part about him not having a shack or heater.

Thermos would be my go to. Out side of that a few beef sticks some seeds and a snickers bar would be enough for me in six hours.

The easiest option is what I used to do often:

Have a tote in the back of the truck with a stove and pot along with some fine china (paper plates, bowls, plastic ware)

I used to fish multiple lakes in a day, and would take a meal break when leaving a lake or getting to the next one.

Obviously your options are really open for food, but I always kept a supply of easy things like dry soups, noodles, oatmeal, pancakes, coffee tea bags, hot chocolate, etc in the tote. Melt some snow or bottled water and you had a super easy hot meal with almost zero planning or work.

My method has changed over the years, and I now use a Stryker Stove, which is an oversized knock off Jet Boil.

You can cook things directly inside it, like soups, boiling brats, etc, and also use it to heat up prepped meals in Food-Saver bags.

Just yesterday me and the boys had Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joe’s on the ice, heated up in boiling water (inside a Food-Saver bag).

The only downside to a Jet-Boil style cooker is the main fuel source is butane based, which doesn’t like to be too cold. The Stryker comes with a propane conversion kit to run off one pounders if you’re trying to cook outside and not in the warmth of a heated shack.

50 years ago we would bring a coleman camp stove out to cook on. My friend forgot the fry pan one time so we cooked the burgers on an ice scoop!!

True run and gun for me is eat before you get there and maybe have some beer sticks or something. I usually forget I brought food anyway.

chuck100 wrote:

Run and Gun,with all the stuff you want to take you should stick to camp and cook.

I’m admittedly a feller who is new to run and gun, but right now I’m carrying practically nothing. My first couple of runs have been bare minimum:

1 ultralight/semi-rigid rod case with 5 rods, 1 lightweight (plastic) k-drill/Milwaukee drill, 1 garmin echomap 5, a bucket for temp seating with plastic ice scoop/collapsible shovel, and a small duffel with tackle, snacks, hand warmers, extra gloves, headlamp, etc.

If this little magic box works I figure it will be worth the extra 2 lbs in battery weight for piping hot food on demand. As mentioned somewhere above a thermos/hot soup is “fine” but I’m used to cooking ham-and-cheese with toasted buns so hopefully this will be a happy middle ground for my new lifestyle.

Youbetcha wrote:

True run and gun for me is eat before you get there and maybe have some beer sticks or something. I usually forget I brought food anyway.

True enough on many days. But on Saturday for example I was out for 6 hours and trekked just under 3 miles. Almonds/beef jerky worked fine, but the longer i hiked and the darker it got the more I wished for a magical, hot sandwich with melted cheese and some crispy ham

edit: and that was in 30 degree weather so I’d imagine the reward of an on-demand hot sandwich or some hot wings etc. will be an order of magnitude higher when we hit zero.

I only bring beer and I’m good at keeping it cold.

Matt Moen wrote:

If you want to run and gun with hot food all you need are some thermos dogs.

Bingo. Ambassadors dogs are the best for this.

I second a jetboil or small backpacking stove. Seems like you enjoy the cooking/toasting experience out on the ice. Lightweight and you wouldn’t need to precook before going out.

We eat good on the ice. Good for you.

Quite normal for us to cook 20 oz steaks, rack of lamb, fish, shrimp, you name it. We did a prime rib on the Smokey Joe a time or two.

lindyrig79 wrote:

We eat good on the ice. Good for you.

Quite normal for us to cook 20 oz steaks, rack of lamb, fish, shrimp, you name it. We did a prime rib on the Smokey Joe a time or two.

We do the same but never once is it a run and gun. It’s a sir and wait while the coals get hot

Small Weber portable, 15 briquets – enough heat to cook brats and coals are cold by time I’m ready to leave.

I hoofed it a couple miles on Saturday and fished a few hours. My only screw up was thinking 4 busch lights would be enough. Man 1 more would have been good when my sweaty old carcass got back to the truck.

broeker wrote:

If this little magic box works I figure it will be worth the extra 2 lbs in battery weight for piping hot food on demand.

What size battery are you going to use? The Amazon reviews says it uses 4 amps and takes a couple hours. They don’t specify temp when they’re doing it but I don’t know how practical this is unless you can run it a long time.

I’ve cooked with a butane single burner using foil bowls, on ice fishing trips.

Brats on the buddy heater, or Mountain House or Omeals MREs. The Omeal’s are tasty and you just add water into the bag and it cooks itself in about 10 minutes.

If you’re out on Waconia, just call the Iron Tap and send your GPS coordinates, they’ll deliver!

I can have enough chilli or jambalaya for 10 guys warmed up in about 10-15 minutes with a green bomb and a single burner stove. Same stove I use winter camping in the BWCA.

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I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, but when my buddy and I were Elk hunting, he had pre planned meals. Any time his family had leftovers (cheesy potato soup, Chinese casserole, tator tot hotdish, and lasagna was my personal favorite. There were others that I can’t think of at the moment.) Anyways, they’d take the leftovers and vacuum seal them, then after hunting we’d go back to camp, put on water to heat and dump a couple of those meals in there. Ready to eat in like 10-15 minutes. Think that’s all I’ll do for camping from now on!