Vacuum Thermoses

[Mongoose]

Does anyone use a vacuum thermos in the winter? Do they keep water hot much longer than an insulated bottle? Are they worth the extra weight? I was thinking of getting a small one for holding some hot drinks around camp at night.

 

[ghassert]

I carry two, a wide mouth for soup and a narrow one for tea or hot chocolate.

Both remain hot all day long. I just use them on day hikes, I don't know if they would be worth the weight for a muti-day backpack.

 

[Maddy]

A question about the wide mouth. ( I don't use it to hike). I have a nice stainless steel with an insulating jacket. I fill it with boiling water and let the water sit to warm it up. Then I put the very hot chili or stew inside. I keep in out of the elements in my truck near the heat vent. Three to four hours later the food is luke warm and within 8 hrs it is cold.
I do the same for the narrow thermos and the coffee stays hot.
Does anyone else have the same problem and is there a solution?
Thanks.

 

[ghassert]

A question about the wide mouth. ( I don't use it to hike). I have a nice stainless steel with an insulating jacket. I fill it with boiling water and let the water sit to warm it up. Then I put the very hot chili or stew inside. I keep in out of the elements in my truck near the heat vent. Three to four hours later the food is luke warm and within 8 hrs it is cold.
I do the same for the narrow thermos and the coffee stays hot.
Does anyone else have the same problem and is there a solution?
Thanks.

I used to have a wide mouth similar to
this and my food never stayed hot. I think because it is just an insulated "food jar", not really a vacuum thermos. The one I have now is a vacuum thermos and the food always stays hot.

 

[audrey]

I use a basic Thermos brand 1 quart glass and plastic variety (lighter than stainless) and after 6 hours the liquid is still almost too hot to drink.

 

[BorealChickadee]

I use the small pint size stainless thermos. It's a luxury in weight but worth it when that warm cocoa hits you.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

I have an REI stainless steel vacuum bottle which keeps coffee drinkably hot for 24 hours or so. I got it originally for overnight fishing trips. I broke a few plastic + glass ones (at which point you have a mess, as well as cold coffee.) I borrowed the kid's plastic/plastic wide-mouth on my recent Greeley Ponds trip. The coffee stayed 'wicked hot' but the soup, 5-6 hours later, was only tepid. Better then cold.

I too always preheat the thermos with hot water. In fact (I just looked) it's printed right on the bottle -- "to temper for a [hot | cold] beverage fill with [boiling | ice] water for 5 minutes."

REI stainless steel vacuum bottle

I will say this is one of the longer lasting, well-used items I own. I dare say it is indestructible.

Tim

 

[NewHampshire]

I have had pretty good luck with Stanley Thermos'. In REALLY cold weather it will still be pretty warm at the end of the day (though the tea usually does not last that long .) Your typical winter dayhike it stays nice and steaming hot.

Brian

 

[Pete_Hickey]

I have one, and used to use it all the time. For some reason, since I've started hiking with other humans, I haven't brought it with me. Heavy, yes, but a nice hot coco on a summit really hit the spot. Once or twice I've brought soup.

I've found that tea's taste changes, in spite of it staying hot. One thing I do when I want tea, is to bring the thermos full of hot water, and make the tea on the spot. Much better taste.

 

[skidoc22]

I've generally kept my vacuum bottle in the car for the trip home but lately I've brought it along in my daypack. To me it is worth the 1.1 lb or so for 25oz. of hot liquid on a cold day. I keep it wrapped inside the interior of the pack for trips of any length or in an outside pocket for shorter walks in the woods if it's not too cold. Even warm coffee or hot chocolate tastes good on a cold day.

 

[Woody]

I use my thermos all the time on winter hikes. It keeps drinks hot on even the coldest days. I do try to bury it in my pack on the real cold days to keep it away from the wind. I like to have hot cider at the summit or with my lunch.

 

[TomD]

I have a small steel vacuum bottle made by Liquid Solution. It holds about 18 oz and if you preheat it and put it in a cozy it will keep tea hot all day long. I made a cozy out of a piece of the ubiquitous blue sleeping pad and some contact cement.

 

[Maddy]

Zojirushi Toughsport Vacuum Bottle sold by REI looks very good. I will explain to them that they will get it back if my chili is chilly in 4 hrs.
The one from Campmor looks decent also, and a little cheaper. I don't know how they are about returns if you are unhappy with their merchandise. REI is wonderful.
I thought my large mouth was a vacuum seal but it perhaps it is more like food jar quality.
I bought it at IMS a number of years ago. Some of you might remember them. They had the nice outer jackets with a snowy mountain scene, tents and snowshoes. They featured them during a XMas season. It's an EMS brand, made in China.
I also wondered, if you don't have it filled (it's a 1.2 Liter) if the food would bet colder much faster.
Thanks for the info.
Cold stew on a blustery cold night in VT just doesn't do it for me and I hate spending money eating out over and over again.

 

[Mongoose]

It sounds like I should pick one up then. Hot water is always nice to have. It could be handy in an emergency too if someone is getting hypothermia.

 

[sapblatt]

They are really great - warm drinks often stay in my pack all day, but when you are forced to stop they keep you warm. Last week I did not open the thermos until we got back to the car, but the hot cocoa can keep you going - lots of warmth, lots of calories.
FWIW - I did not empty out my thermos until Monday night (from a Saturday hike) - the cocoa was still warm to the touch.
I fill mine with boiling water before I go to bed the night before a hike and then dump it right before I fill it in the morning - the preheating may keep it hot longer.

 

[Dugan]

Zojirushi Toughsport Vacuum Bottle sold by REI looks very good. I will explain to them that they will get it back if my chili is chilly in 4 hrs.
The one from Campmor looks decent also, and a little cheaper. I don't know how they are about returns if you are unhappy with their merchandise. REI is wonderful.
I thought my large mouth was a vacuum seal but it perhaps it is more like food jar quality.

My widemouth is a Stanley steel thermos. It too has this problem, regardless of whether it is preheated and quantity of food inside. It's great to hear that a regular thermos will keep drinks hot, but that's not particularly useful for those of us who crave a steamy hot thick chunky stew.

If these are wide mouth versions you're looking at, please let us know how they perform. If they work, I'd like to upgrade to something dependable.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

the preheating may keep it hot longer.

Preheating means when you put in the target contents (coffee, stew, soup), it does not immediately give up a few degrees to bring the bottle up to its temperature. I think you can safely say that preheating WILL keep it hotter longer.

And leaving it overnight allows it to cool below the boiling point, so you're probably better off to preheat just long enough to get the bottle up to temp. As I noted above, these instructions are printing (stamped no less) on the bottom of my REI stainless bottle.

delta-Q = mc delta-t

Tim

 

[sleeping bear]

I have a little "Nesters" brand stainless thermos and I love it. I took it on the 10 day trip a couple weeks ago instead of an insulated mug and never regretted that decision.

One major problem of thermoses on a longer trip is that they tend to gunk up and be difficult to clean. Those "push button" tops tend to get nastier faster, so I prefer the screw down type that pours from the sides.

 

[Orsonab]

I got a cheap Christmas gift set of a stainless steel thermos with two travel mugs from Target (their brand) for about $10 last winter (and i think i saw them on sale again this winter). Very sceptical the thing would work but certainly keeps my hot coffee piping hot for at least 12 hours so I can't complain. And I love having something hot at the summit.

 

[Grumpy]

I have two older narrow mouth and a wide mouth quart-size (finished ugly green on the outside) Stanley stainless steel vacuum bottles that have been in regular use for at least 30 years. They are bulky, and heavy, but will take (have taken) a lot of abuse. The narrow mouth versions keep coffee hot for 16 hours and drinkably warm for 24, but a lot depends on how often I open the bottles, and whether I use the screw-on top as a drinking vessel.

The screw on top cap (in addition to the stopper) is an important part of the whole insulating design – at least that is what I remember reading in the literature that came with the bottles. The wide mouth version does not keep food piping hot for more than a few hours (4-5), in my experience, and definitely does not keep stuff hot once it has been opened. I think the stopper and top on the wide mouth are less efficient as an insulator than those on the narrow mouth bottles.

A few years ago I received a sleek stainless steel half-liter REI vacuum bottles as a gift. It is lightweight and compact, and just right to slip in my daypack. I don’t think it holds liquids hot as as well as the old Stanley jugs, though.

My practice is to fill the bottles with scalding hot water and let them sit for a while to warm up before refilling them with whatever goodies I plan to take on the go. This is a good trick that really does work.

G.