Review: KELLY KETTLE

This is my newest PREPAREDNESS purchase!!  I used my Christmas money from this last Christmas. Yes I waited almost 10 months to buy it, but I wanted to decided between this and a StoveTec stove, but I got this one first. So today we did a test run and we are VERY VERY VERY impressed and happy with this kettle! And I am very happy with the shipping, I ordered this on a Monday and received it on Wednesday!

FIRST, this is originally from Ireland!  They have been using these for over a hundred years! With this you can boil water anywhere! I got the Base Camp Kettle KIT in Stainless Steel. We got the kit, which comes with a cookpot, pot support, grill, and pot/gripper handle. The kit also comes in Aluminum. But I wanted SS so that is what I now have :)  So here is what it says on one of the sides of the box:

"Boils 1.5 liters in minutes!  
For over 100 years the unique Irish Kelly Kettle has made boiling water in the outdoors quick and easy even in extreme weather conditions.
Using abundant natural fuels such as sticks, pine cones, tree bark, dry grass, even dry animal dung, etc. This Kettle will boil 1.5 litres of water in 3-5 minutes.
The Kelly Kettle advantages are:
*No Gas
*No batteries
*No running costs
*Never carry fuel again!
*Never worry about running out of fuel
*Safe to use: The fire is contained within the kettle
*And you can add our Pot-Support and Cook Set to reheat or hydrate food as your kettle boils."

So I tested it.. And we like it! So first you get your wood and such in the bottom pan, I forgot to take a picture of that, but here is one after we were done:

Ok, so it took us awhile to get the fire going... By the way it helps if your kids don't bring you green sticks. If you look closely,  you will see the small pile of green sticks to the right of the pan. It was rather comical as this was smoking like crazy, and I looked at them and said, "Where did you get the sticks", and they said, "off the tree".. HA HA, ok, I explained to them that green wood doesn't burn it smolders, so we poured them out and got some nice dry cherry sticks from the orchard, and they went and found some dry pine sticks. We also grabbed a single piece of newspaper, put that on the bottom then stacked the sticks like a pyramid. Then we lit it, we turned the vent hole towards the wind, which helped a ton!

As you can see, the smoldering wood from before made some soot marks on the outside of the vent hole.  But this is the new fire, with dry wood, and it was hot. The bowl base discolored from the heat, we weren't surprised. I love it, as something well practiced with will work better. And you need to practice using your prep stuff or you won't know how to use it when you NEED it. As you can see here, well barely, the Kettle is on top of the base. It was not boiling yet, but it was getting hot. To feed the fire, you drop small sticks down the chimney.

BE CAREFUL when dropping sticks down the chimney, it is SUPER HOT!!! Now I know in the picture above you can't see the heat coming from the chimney, but it is there, and you can see in the water hole, the sweat from the steam forming.  Yes it says you will have boiling water in 3-5 minutes, this is after you get the fire going. Obviously you can't boil water without the fire.
Yes we boiled water, and it boiled fast, although we forgot to time it, it did boil fast as soon as we had the fire going.
Here is a picture of the Kelly Kettle while boiling.

It is sooo cool! Now just a reminder: FIRE SAFETY, do not have this sitting on a combustable surface. DO not have anything flammable near the vent hole, as we found out, the sticks can shift while burning, and some ash or embers may come out of the hole. Sorry I did not get a picture of the water boiling but it was neat! 
WARNING: NEVER USE THE KETTLE WITHOUT WATER IN IT!

This is a great preparedness item because you can sterilize your water for drinking, cooking, bathing, brushing teeth.. DO not store water in it. The stopper provided (orange, and I didn't get it in any pictures darn it) is for when you are carrying the kettle from your water source. Do NOT boil with the stopper in the hole! And the stopper is for the water hole, not the chimney.

By the way, the base, grill, pot support, handle.. it all stores in the bottom of the Kelly Kettle, and all that stores in the bag that comes with it.

We are very excited to have this in our home. We have a way to make boiling water for when the power is out, when camping or hiking or both.

Another survivalist just did a review on her Kelly Kettle. I am posting the link here so you can see her video she made. She's lucky she has a working video camera. So head over to Food Storage and Survival and see her video. And yes, she LOVES hers too!!