The Quest For the Perfect Cup of Coffee 

      This post isn't about using a drip coffee maker at home, or a coffee press, or even an espresso machine.  No, I'm talking about that most elusive of the coffee species - a good cup of camp coffee.  Making good boiled coffee takes a special skill set. 

      I spend about ten weekends a year out in my tent (or my wigwam), and have done so for about twenty years.  I know that for some people's standards that's not really all that much, and for others that's "like really hardcore, man."  I camp at places with as little as ten camps (or lodges) set up, and at places where there are about 300 camps.  During my time I have tasted a LOT of coffee. 
      At all the places I camp, everyone is so friendly, that I can't walk twenty feet without some one calling me out from my "walkabout" to say, "Hey, come on over here and sit down for a while, ... Get up kids and let this guy sit in that chair, you're young enough to sit on the box, or on the ground, ... let this guy sit there,..." Then they pour me a cup of coffee and we sit and chat for a while.  And I do the same thing to them when they get out and about. 
      Sometimes the coffee isn't really all that good, but I love it anyway, because I really enjoy the camaraderie, and the people who have offered me the coffee.  Some people make decent coffee, some make good coffee, and a few people make great coffee.  So what's the trick?  How can you make a great cup of coffee when you're cooking it over a wood fire. 
      The first thing is - Don't be stingy with the coffee.  Weak coffee isn't much more than hot colored water.  When my brothers and I were kids our grandparents, great uncles and great aunt used to take us out camping a couple times every summer.  Of course it wasn't in wigwams or even white canvass tents, but it was like living in a brochure for the Coleman Company.  Coleman stoves, Colman lanterns, Coleman coolers, and even the tents were Colman.  And of course we had to use that Coleman gas, and then to use anything we had to pump up that thing forever and a half before we could light it, and pump it two more times while we were cooking.  Their coffee was lousy though.  They had a stove top percolator (which was also Coleman), but they never used enough coffee.  They were too stingy with it.  There wasn't even enough coffee to mask all the weird flavors that would get into the water.  There was the taste of the aluminum from the percolator, the taste of stagnancy in the water (for the first couple of days because we always brought about ten gallons with us from home), or the taste of iron (we did most of our camping in way northern Minnesota - up beyond the Iron Range, and sometimes the local water was just orange from the high iron content), and there was sometimes a faint taste of the fumes from the Coleman stove.  Their coffee at home wasn't very good either, though.  It was really just hot, colored water. 
      Then there's the method for brewing.  I find that there are more methods for brewing coffee than there are people out there brewing it.  Some folks take the whole bean approach.  They just throw in a handful of whole beans and boil them for three days or so.  Many people who use this method just don't use enough beans to begin with.  Then a lot of folks just keep adding water all weekend.  They say that it still has a lot of flavor, but compared to what?  That's like trying to reuse tea bags, or like someone trying to reuse snuff.  I'm pretty sure the flavor's mostly gone after the first use.  Besides, using the whole bean defies the logic of brewing coffee.  When it is ground up, there is more surface area to come in contact to the hot water. 
      The thing is, a lot of people don't like getting the grounds in their mug, cup or flagon.  they don't like the "prize" at the bottom.  I think that avoiding grounds in their cup is why some people use the whole bean method.  Others use the egg method.  when the coffee is done they will crack a raw egg into the coffee pot to coagulate all the grounds away.  You'll never catch me doing that.  Egg is hard enough to clean out of things.  besides, after sitting for a few hours in the sun, or next to a fire, and there are lots of little bacteria that just love to feed on that high protein albumen. 
      There is the cold water approach.  Make the coffee a little stronger than you really want it, and when it's done, pull it off the fire, and pour a little cold water into the pot.  The grounds will instantly settle to the bottom.  My friend Barry, "Papa Bear/Noos Makwa," (who I camp with most of the time - he's like a second father to me) finally beat the grounds by purchasing a strainer from Backwoods Tin. 

                                   Barry

      Then there is the method of cooking the coffee.  Butch, the Honey Man, used to have a complicated process of sorts.  He said, "Start out with an extra cup of grounds, then boil it till it boils over (that's why all the extra grounds) and almost puts out the fire.  Then add an egg and follow that with cold water." 
      The main idea is to get all the "go juice" out of that coffee, as well as to get all the flavor out.  You heat it slowly over the fire, and then when the grounds form a shell of sorts on top watch it carefully, so that it doesn't boil over.  Raise it higher from the heat and let it simmer a a low roll for a few minutes.  Pull it from the heat (set it on the ground next to the fire), and the grounds will settle.  Then pour it carefully and slowly. 
      Another way is to heat it up and watch it.  When the grounds start to form that covering and it looks ready to blow (boil over), stir it quick with a metal spoon, or even your knife.  The grounds will drop right then.  Then allow it to simmer, for a few minutes, and put it on the ground to cool, etc. 
      I have to say though that the following method makes the very best coffee, but it takes all night to brew it.  Twelve years ago after getting super cold at the fall events (and the evenings at the spring events aren't all that warm either) I finally bought myself a "two dog" wood stove for my tent.  (I use a fire pit inside the wigwam)  While I was at it I also bought a heat exchanger to go with it.  With the heat exchanger I have that air opening barely cracked and it gets quite comfortable in there.  I only have to refill with wood once, and not until about 4:30 to 5:00 am.  The heat exchanger gets pretty hot to the touch, but I can touch it without leaving a piece of burnt skin stuck to it.  That, as it turns out is the perfect temperature to brew a pot of coffee.  I fill the iron coffee pot with cold water and then throw in the grounds.  I put it up on top of the heat exchanger and go to bed.  It never gets hot enough to boil.  It basically steeps all night long.  When I wake up it is not only warm and comfortable enough to crawl out from under the blankets, but I have a delicious, strong, yet mellow tasting cup of coffee waiting for me.  And the grounds are sitting at the bottom of the pot.  It's a great way to wake up.