Thread: camp oven cooking in the simpson

I've only ever used heat beads on the top of mine, and from memory I put about 6 of them and they last the couple of hours it takes to cook the roast.
I sit the camp oven on a small wood stove/bbq (home made "OzPig"), so I don't know how many you'd need under the oven.

I've got a camp oven book at home that shows how to cook using only heat beads. I'll have a look tonight and see if it says how many.

When you say its a lot of weight I presume you are meaning the cast iron camp ovens? If so, you might want to consider a spun steel one - much lighter. Not suggesting you buy one specially for the trip, but you might be able to borrow one...

Steve

Blaze, you shouldn't need the heat beads there. I took my camp oven last year and it was well worth it.

What I did was,
-built up some coals in a fire which didn't take long given the wood/wind there
-dug a hole in the sand at least twice the depth of the oven & pre-heated the oven on the side of the fire.
- put a good spread of coals in the base of the hole (probably an inch or more deep)
- put the camp oven with everything I wanted cooked in it into the hole
- same amount again of coals on top
- put the handles in the upright position then covered the lot with sand with just the handle sticking out.
- Leave for 2 hours or so without disturbing

The gidgee in the Simpson makes better coals and more heat than those heat beads do.

We had a few great roasts and stews using the camp oven as well as baking bread in the camp oven. Even a good camel stew.

Go without a camp oven would be a real mistake

get yourself a Cobb oven

bit on the expensive side but you can cook a whole roast and veg's
with about 4/5 heat beats...........
and if your concern about get a fire going take one of those small butane torches for the heat beats

Assuming by camp oven you mean like what we call a "dutch oven," the general rule of thumb for your typical charcoal "briquettes" (which Google indicates are the same as "heat beads") is take the diameter of your oven in inches (in my case 12), and prepare twice that many briquettes (24). When they're ready, place 1/3 of them in a ring below the oven (dutch ovens have 3 legs to raise the bottom off the ground) and 2/3 around the top of the lid. So I'd have 8 below and 16 on the top of mine. That will generally give you 350 degrees F for about an hour.

Not mine, but here are a couple shots I pulled off the Internet:



We stack them like this to save on briquettes during Scout cookouts:



In that case, you'd use fewer than double the diameter since you're containing the heat on the lid.

Do your camp ovens have the legs on the bottom and lip on the lid to facilitate the use of briquettes this way? I'm curious now....

Hi NM
Have you got a secondary tray under your bread or am I seeing things.

Thanks to all reply's
I have really only used my camp oven ontop of a big fire pot as a heat source, so to use coals or heat beads will be new to me.
I think I may buy a secondary smaller oven as well as my bigger one and take both along with some heat bead as a backup.
Thanks again
cheers
blaze

Have a look at this web site for all you need to know about camp oven cooking.
CAMP OVEN COOKING IN AUSTRALIA (COCIA®) - WITH 'THE CAMP OVEN COOK' - DEREK BULLOCK

I have seen someone in the past, using a length of thin metal strap, about 1 inch width, bent into a rough circle and with the ends riveted together, placed on top of the lids as a small bund wall to hold the coals on the lid and stop them from rolling off. The diameter of the fit was about an inch or so from the edge of the lid.