Camp coffee; thoughts on achieving the perfect brew

When it comes to drinking (and enjoying) a hot cup of coffee there’s two basic types of people in this world.   First, there's the individual who thoroughly enjoys the steaming hot beverage seemingly savoring every last sip.   On the other hand, there's the person who probably wishes they liked coffee but for whatever reason could just never acquire a fondness for the taste.

That being said, if you love coffee this blog posting is for you.   If, however, coffee drinking isn’t your bag…well, maybe your time is then better spent moving on to the next blog topic.

Truth is, for many people coffee plays a very important role in our enjoyment of the outdoors — particularly during hunting seasons when the thermometer starts taking a plunge.   My day-pack almost always contains a thermos of just regular black coffee.   No cream or additives for this coffee drinker!

Indeed, my earliest childhood memories of time spent outdoors with my dad and uncles often had a coffee component to it.   They were from “the old school” where 9:15 a.m. meant time for a fifteen minute coffee break.   That usually meant a beat-up old thermos bottle was often viewed as essential equipment for the day, much as the tackle box or the shotgun.   Oddly enough, as a young child I viewed their coffee drinking habit almost as a strange ritual — a necessary time to take a break no matter what they were doing.

As I got older I grew to develop my very own coffee drinking rituals.   One of my favorite times to reach for the thermos was after bagging a game animal.   Once the animal is recovered, I will often sit near it, pour a cup of java, and soak up all aspects of the experience at hand.   In effect, the coffee somehow serves as my catalyst to indelibly etch the details of that moment into my permanent memory.

Okay, so there’s coffee…and then there’s CAMP COFFEE.   The latter being a splendid brew simply not to be duplicated coming from a convenience store.   Nope, camp coffee is cooked outdoors, often over an open fire, but always miles away from a kitchen or some restaurant coffee maker.   In fact, by nature camp coffee needs to be cooked atop a cracklin’ campfire or perhaps a portable camp stove — no exceptions.

So, are you ready for my camp coffee recipe?   Here it goes:

Inside a 36 cup coffee boiler (that would be a coffee pot with no innards) bring the water to a rolling boil.   While the water is heating, take a separate container mixing one egg (the entire egg—shell and all), one heaping cup of freshly ground coffee, and one-half cup of water.   Essentially, you will be making a paste-like sludge mixture having the consistency much like wet potting soil.

Once the water is boiling in the pot…add this entire mixture of coffee and egg into the boiling water.   Let it boil for an additional two minutes and then remove the pot from the fire.   Finally, (and this is important) take one cup of COLD water and quickly pour it into the coffee pot.   The cold water helps settle the coffee grounds to the bottom of the pot, assuming everything was done correctly.   If there are still some grounds floating…then skim them off carefully before serving trying not to unduly agitate the contents on the coffee pot's bottom when pouring.   The result is a unique camp coffee lacking much of the bitterness (removed by the egg) but with every bit the full coffee flavor remaining.

Now, in case you’re wondering…this strange egg coffee concoction has been around for several generations.   I believe it was made popular years ago by Scandinavian women who often served it in church basements for those special social gatherings.   Still, I’d like to think egg coffee was eventually perfected by sportsmen who realized it would make the perfect camp coffee brew.