Cowboy Coffee

A great start to have a good day is a good cup of coffee. I need it to get going in the mornings and if I skip it I feel sluggish all day. Making coffee at home is easy with a coffee maker but I don’t have electricity for the coffee maker when I am camping.  We use to take the kids camping a lot when they were young and my husband and I would be stuck drinking instant coffee that we made with hot water we heated up over the camp fire. That is until we discovered how to make campfire coffee. We have been making this campfire coffee or some people refer to it as cowboy coffee for years now. It sure beats the pants off of instant coffee. We enjoy this coffee so much that we sometimes make it outside over the campfire or when were cooking with Dutch ovens on the weekends.

I have two sizes of outdoor kettles; one holds about 6 cups and the other holds 24 cups. Today since it was just my husband and I that were in need of coffee I used the 6 cup kettle. The outdoor kettle that I have is made of enamel and has a percolator so that the boiling water is pushed through the small vertical tube up to the coffee strainer and the hot water seeps through the coffee grounds making the coffee hot and robust. Make sure not too boil the coffee too long or it will have a burnt bitter taste just like an electric coffee maker does when the coffee has been sitting out a bit too long.

I pour in fresh cold water. I assemble the percolator and add my desired amount of coffee into the coffee strainer. The amount I add is one tablespoon per cup of water. You might add less or more depending if you like weaker or stronger coffee.

I put it on top of the hot coals or on my tripod above the campfire. When I think the coffee has percolated sufficiently I pour it into my cup and enjoy. You will notice that there are some coffee grounds that will escape the coffee strainer and settle to the bottom of the coffee pot, but that is okay because that is all part of the campfire or cowboy coffee experience.

I make the coffee on top of the chimney starter if I'm using charcoal briquettes.

I also use my tripod to hang my coffee pot on top of the camp fire. This is my favorite way to make coffee.