g'day guys how are we going well you've just bought yourself your first camp
oven and now you're wondering how to go about
using it well in this video i'm going to show you some
very simple tips on how to use a camp oven so your next cook-up turns out to
be a cracker let's get into it okay so this video i'm
not actually going to have anything cooking inside my camp oven here um i've
got a stack of other videos throughout on the channel there where
i've you know cooked up a number of roasts and dampers and scones and that
sort of stuff check those out but i'm going to show
you some very simple tips how to use one of these
so you can get yourself a nice meal when you get out there camping in the bush
now we'll start from the top here on a few things that you sort of need
now with a camp oven you want to get yourself a trivet now one of these
things here and the idea of a trivet is it keeps
your meal up off the bottom there so when you've got
your coals on the bottom there your camp oven's nice and hot
your meal is not going to burn your roast isn't going to burn so you want
one of those and not also it allows airflow you know
hot air flow to get around underneath it so it circulates around whatever you're
cooking a lot better if you've got yourself a
trivet sit in the bottom so that just sits in there like so
and then keeps your meal up off the bottom and yeah it doesn't so it's not
going to go burning another handy tool also is one of these
little hooks um with the spring handle on it idea of
the spring so it doesn't get hot which is pretty handy
and that's just fantastic you know for got to get in there
you know you want to lift your lid off that's the thing or you want to pick
your camp oven up and move it you know to wherever you want to
put it so that's certainly very handy having one of those and then
we get into some this is this thing here well the
old shovel well you definitely need a shovel for
um when you're going to be doing a camp oven because you've got to get your
shovel into your fire there get your coals out so there's a few
simple things there you need before you get started um and the other
things we'll get into some wood selections here now with a
camp oven you want your fire to be burning for at least a couple
of hours you know to get a good coal base going but you want
this sort of size timber here you know inch and a half two inches sort of thick
sort of stuff because it's this sort of style timber
that's going to break down and burn relatively quickly and also leave you
with a good coal based side size sort of like that
about that inch sort of coal blocks that you're going to be left with in the
bottom and that's what you want you want a
stack of that but you need heaps of this so you can just keep loading your fire
on because as you're taking your coals out
you know you need to keep replenishing your fire and keeping it burning so you
need a heap of this sort of stuff about that sort of size sort of timber
you don't want to be doing a camp oven with this sort of style timber this size
timber it's just way too thick i'll be splitting that down the
middle if i was going to use timber like that it's just way too thick
it just burns too slowly and it doesn't break down
into the coals that you need to do your cooking
it doesn't break down fast enough so when all your meals all done and
if everyone's all finished cooking that's when you start throwing the
bigger ones on you know when you're going to kick back
around your campfire a bit later on throughout the night and then the other
thing too it's like when you're cooking at home
now with a camp oven it's very similar techniques to
when you cook at home but the only one big difference that your oven at home
can't produce that one of these camp ovens can reduce and
that's purely flavour the flavours that come out of a camp oven are fair dinkum
amazing so the same thing you know when you're
doing a roast at home you know you bring your oven up to temperature
you don't get your legal lamb or your pork or whatever
out of the fridge and then try it straight into a cold oven and then start
cooking it it's not the way to go and it's exactly the same
with one of these you know you gotta at home yeah you'll throw it in you'll get
your oven going up to about 180 degrees and then you'll put your oven your roast
in whatever you're cooking once you get up to your temperature it's the same
with one of these so to start out with i throw that as
close to the fire as i can possibly get right and that way
it's going to heat the oven up get it up nice and hot to where you want it to be
and i'll leave it there for oh probably about 20 minutes or so and
let it get really up to temperature so when you put your meal in it's going
to start cooking nicely now this is the next big trick you know
where do you get your coals do they go on the top do they go on the bottom
um what do you do with that so again in those videos i've showed you
some of my cooking videos i'll go a bit more detail about coals and all that
sort of stuff but so i'll get a get the shovel out i'll
get a few coals out put my coals on the ground out here sort
of thing then i'll put my camp oven on top
and then i'll put a couple of shovels of coals nice hot coals on the top there
and leave it go and then about every about every 15 minutes 20 minutes or so
just get you your hook thing in it and just give that a sort of a
about a quarter of a turn and that way it sort of keeps the temperature
evenly based around the fire there for the radiant heat that's come off the
fire it's going to keep it nice and evenly based inside in there so yes
about every 15 20 just give it a quarter turn
and that'll be you know keep that at that temperature pretty constant
temperature inside and the other trick too with
with a camp oven is you want to don't want to be lifting that lid
as as little amount as possible so when you're starting out you know you're
going to be lifting it every now and then not with that though but you're
going to lift it with with one of these yeah you're going to be lifting it
checking your meal just to make sure it's going right but
once you get the hang of using one of these and get the temperatures
sort of down pat you should only you know over sort of about a two hour cook
up for a roast you should only lift that lid
maybe two three times absolute tops over that sort of two hours
so maybe in the first 20 minutes or so you'll probably lift the lid and just
give it a quick check see how it's going and if you're happy with it
well then you shouldn't have to lift it again for sort of about half an hour 45
minutes later for the mid-range checkup and then maybe you know about 15 20
before it's going to be cooked you might lift that lid again just for a
final check up and see how it's all going
then i suppose the other thing that you know some people are a bit unsure about
when you're using a camp oven you know for the first
few stages is how far away from the fire should you have it
yeah now for me if i've got a leg of lamb that's
maybe going to cook up you know for probably two three three people maybe
four people i'd have my camp oven sort of sitting out about here
i'd have a good coal base sitting under the bottom of it and
sort of that sort of distance so what are we there sort of about three or four
hundred away from the fire you're still going to get nice radiant
heat coming off the fire there too for your camp oven and as i say you know
keep turning that quarter turn um so that's sort of the distance that i
would sort of keep my camp oven sitting about there
again depending how big your fire is too but somewhere around that sort of size
sort of about three or four hundred away from the fire
is certainly a good good sort of distance away
but if you're going to do like over a really slow cook up
maybe over sort of four to five hours which i've i've done a few of those and
it's magnificent way of cooking if you can do a nice slow cook up over
sort of that four or five hour period for a
legal lamb or a roast of some sort it's magnificent well then i'd probably take
it away from the heat just that little bit further again
and the reason for that is you don't want so much direct heat coming away
from the fire there to to cook whatever you've got going on
inside so you're really now relying on your coal base and when
i'm doing a slow cook up like this well then i could
generally replace my bottom coals as well as well as the top ones do those
both together so put another couple on the bottom a
couple more on the top and that just keeps a nice temperature
there and then you're all you rely on is just the heat from those coals which is
cooking that nice and slowly over the sort of four
five hour sort of period there for when you're going to cook something
but but you know if you have to just stand and cook up like you do at home
you know roast at home sort of 1.45 two hours i'd have my camp
oven sitting about there and they'll still turn out absolutely
beautiful but fair dinkum you can't beat a slow cook up
when you're doing it over a long long period of time because
the meat just falls apart and just comes off the bone really really nicely
and just another tip here look if you're cooking anything that's
got a marinade in it or might be a stews or casseroles or that sort
of thing well again you want to have a trivet in the bottom
so you still want your trivia in the bottom there so keep that in the bottom
there like so but then grab some tin foil right and
line the bottom of it with tin foil because if you just
put your your marinated whatever it is roast in there
or your stews and your casseroles all the goodness all the juice is going to
fall through the holes on your trivet and end up in the bottom
and that's not what you want you want to retain that goodness so just grab some
tinfoil like so and just line line the bottom of it like
that maybe another one and then that way
whatever you're cooking the marinated whatever it is you've got cooking
you stew your roast or marinated meat your casseroles all that sort of stuff
well it's all going to stay retained inside that
that tinfoil little little basket in there and you're going to
retain all the goodness for all the juices and whatever
you're cooking in but if you're just doing like a normal roast um that sort
of thing you don't want to be putting tin foil in it because you're pretty
much just going to stew it so you want to take the tinfoil out for
just a roast or something like that but anything marinated
anything casserole stews that sort of stuff put the tinfoil on the bottom
there and uh it'll turn out absolutely
magnificent so there you go look camp oven look
they've been around for for donkey's years you know
we've been using these things for ages and and when you get the hang of them
these are just such a really amazing thing to take
away you know to cook up meals for the family and
and everything else in one of these because there's exactly the same pretty
much same cooking temperatures same things what you do at home same
times that sort of thing but you just can't replicate the same
flavors what come out of a camp oven to what goes into your oven at home so
there's a couple of little tips there make sure you get your wood right have
plenty of it a couple of couple tips there with the
with the hook make sure you've got yourself a trivet make sure you've got a
shovel so you can get into your coals um but check out those other
videos you know i'll put some links in the description panel down below with
all the other cook's up cook-ups that i've done
and i'll go into a fair bit of detail there too about cook-up times and
and how i'm going about it a lot more when i've actually got some meat going
but i thought we'd just do this one no meat
no meal going cooking in it and just explained some simple tips on how to use
a camp oven because fair dinkum they are pretty
basic but um yeah once you get the hang of it they are just amazing because
you know quite a few people are a bit nervous about these and they panic and
kind of burn and this sort of stuff well even you know if you're a bit
unsure you are starting out well keep your your camp oven away from the
fire you know a bit more even and really just till you get that
control that confidence about you know about cooking it and then once
you get your times down pat and your temperature's down pat will then you
then you can move it in a bit closer and that sort of thing so
there's some pretty hot tips there on how to use a camp oven successfully
and make sure that whatever the next meal is you're going to cook up it's
going to turn out to be an absolute cracker
so there you go guys there's my camp oven tips let us know how you go if you
put any of them into place because i'd be
really keen to uh if any of them work out for you guys
so you go guys we'll catch you a bit later on