Dutch Oven Beef Stew Over a Campfire: Our First Off-Grid Cooking Adventure

One of the things we love about RV travel is that there’s always something new to learn.

Sometimes it’s figuring out how to repair something on the trailer.

Sometimes it’s learning how to boondock.

And sometimes it’s deciding:

We’re going to cook dinner over a campfire like the pioneers did.

Well…sort of like the pioneers.

I’m fairly certain they weren’t starting their fires with cardboard and egg cartons.

But everybody has to start somewhere.

While we were boondocking in northwestern Montana, Ed and I decided to try cooking in a cast iron Dutch oven for the very first time.

Our experiment?

Beef stew cooked completely over campfire coals.

We had no idea exactly how many coals we’d need, how well we’d be able to control the temperature or even how long dinner was going to take.

What could possibly go wrong?

Why We Wanted to Try Dutch Oven Cooking

Ed and I both love history.

Being out in places like this naturally gets us thinking about how people lived and traveled during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Cooking over a fire seemed like a fun way to experience a tiny piece of that.

There was also a very practical RV reason for learning.

Propane.

We wanted to make things like beef stew, but running the RV oven or stove for several hours meant using propane.

If we could learn to cook some of those long, slow meals outside over a campfire, we could save our propane while boondocking.

We already had wood available.

So our first Dutch oven experiment began.

Starting the Campfire

Building a campfire wasn’t new territory for Ed.

Years before our RV travels, he used to take two-week vacations and go tent camping in the wilderness of northern Ontario.

He had plenty of experience building fires.

Dutch oven cooking was the new part.

He started our cooking fire with cardboard and very small sticks.

The idea was simple: the small material burns quickly and creates enough heat to ignite progressively larger pieces of wood.

We’d collected firewood around the camping area and sorted it by size.

The little sticks were useful for starting the fire, but what we really needed were the larger pieces.

Those would eventually produce the hot coals we needed for cooking.

We Needed Coals, Not Flames

This was probably the biggest lesson of our first Dutch oven cooking experiment.

We weren’t trying to cook the stew over roaring flames.

We needed hot coals.

The little pieces of wood burned quickly and mostly turned to ash.

The larger pieces produced the coals we needed.

Ed kept feeding larger wood into the fire as it became established.

Our Montana firewood was primarily pine, which burned fairly quickly. Ed thought a harder wood such as oak or cherry would have produced better, longer-lasting coals.

But pine was what we had.

And free wood was still free cooking.

Our Two-Fire-Pit Experiment

Ed had already rebuilt the existing fire ring at our campsite, making the sides higher to help contain the heat and protect the coals from the wind.

Then he built a smaller cooking area beside it.

The plan was to use the main fire to continuously produce fresh coals.

As those coals became ready, he’d move them into the smaller area where our Dutch oven was sitting.

That gave us some control over the temperature.

Too cool?

Add more coals.

Too hot?

Remove some.

At least that was the theory.

Remember, neither of us had ever done this before.

Preparing Our Dutch Oven Beef Stew

We kept the stew itself simple.

It had the ingredients you’d expect in a traditional beef stew:

• Beef
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
• Water and cooking liquid
• Beef stew seasoning

Everything went into our cast iron Dutch oven.

The pot had come preseasoned, but we’d also seasoned it again with canola oil before using it.

Then it was time to see whether our campfire cooking experiment would actually work.

Getting the Dutch Oven Onto the Coals

By the time we’d built the fire and created enough usable coals, we’d already been working for quite a while.

We’d started preparing everything somewhere around 10 or 10:30 in the morning.

It was around noon before we finally had the Dutch oven settled into the cooking area with coals underneath and around it.

So lesson number one:

Cooking with a wood fire takes preparation time.

This wasn’t like turning a knob on the stove.

We first had to build a fire, burn enough wood to create coals and then establish a cooking temperature.

But once the pot was in place, things started getting interesting.

How We Managed the Temperature

Since this was our first attempt, we didn’t have a precise formula for the number of coals to use.

We were aiming for something similar to a slow cooker—a low, steady simmer.

So we watched it.

And checked it.

And watched it some more.

A digital cooking thermometer turned out to be extremely useful.

After about an hour, we opened the Dutch oven to see what was happening.

The meat was already beginning to cook and brown.

The temperature was around 158 to 160 degrees.

That was encouraging, although we wanted it a little hotter.

So Ed added more coals.

Then We Got Plenty of Heat!

Once we started adding more coals, things changed quickly.

At one check, part of the pot was approaching 295 degrees.

Okay!

We definitely had heat now.

We stirred the stew and continued adjusting the coals.

As the afternoon progressed, we got better at maintaining the temperature we wanted.

At another point, the stew was running around 203 to 205 degrees, which was much closer to the slow-cooking range we were trying to achieve.

For a couple of people who had never cooked with a Dutch oven over a campfire before, we thought we were doing pretty well.

Keeping Fresh Coals Available

Ed continued maintaining the main fire throughout the afternoon so we’d always have fresh coals available.

For much of the cooking time, he added new coals around the Dutch oven approximately every 15 to 20 minutes.

That was another thing we hadn’t fully appreciated before starting.

Cooking this way requires attention.

You can’t simply put the pot on the fire and walk away for four hours.

The fire changes.

The coals burn down.

The temperature changes.

And somebody needs to keep an eye on all of it.

Adding More Water and Seasoning

After about three hours, the stew was looking very good.

It was also getting thick.

We decided to add nearly two more cups of water along with additional seasoning.

The potatoes were already nearly cooked through, so we were confident we were getting close.

One thing we were cautious about was adding cold water directly to the very hot cast iron pot.

We heated the additional liquid first rather than pouring cold water into hot cast iron.

That small saucepan was essentially the only propane we needed for the entire meal.

Not bad.

Campfire Safety Was Always Part of the Project

One thing Ed emphasized throughout our experiment was fire safety.

We never left the fire unattended.

In fact, while sitting outside watching it, we saw several embers escape from the fire pit that needed immediate attention.

We were fortunate to have a 47-gallon fresh-water tank in the back of our truck with a pump and hose, so we had plenty of water immediately available if something got out of control.

You don’t need a setup like ours, but you do need an appropriate way to extinguish a fire.

Campfire rules and restrictions also vary tremendously by location and conditions.

Just because fires were permitted where we were camping at that particular time doesn’t mean they’re permitted there—or anywhere else—today.

Always check current fire restrictions before building a campfire.

Four Hours Later…

At around four o’clock, our stew had been cooking for approximately four hours.

During the final hour, we stopped adding as many fresh coals because everything was essentially cooked and simply needed to finish.

Then came the moment we’d been waiting for all day.

We brought that very heavy Dutch oven inside.

And it really was heavy.

Cast iron isn’t exactly lightweight to begin with.

Add three or four pounds of food and liquid, and you’re carrying quite a load.

But we had done it.

We had cooked our first Dutch oven meal over a campfire.

No RV oven.

Almost no propane.

Just cast iron, wood, hot coals and a whole lot of experimentation.

So…How Did the Beef Stew Taste?

This was the important part.

After all those hours of building fires, moving coals, checking temperatures, stirring stew and wondering whether we knew what we were doing…

It was fantastic.

I’ve made a lot of beef stew in crock pots over the years.

But I had to admit it.

This was the best beef stew I’d ever made in my life.

I don’t know whether it was the cast iron.

I don’t know whether cooking over the open fire gave it a different flavor.

Maybe it was a combination of everything.

Whatever happened in that Dutch oven, the stew tasted wonderful.

That alone made our experiment a success.

What We’d Do Differently Next Time

We learned quite a bit during those four hours.

The biggest thing Ed would change was the placement of our cooking area.

He’d built the smaller Dutch oven pit right beside the main fire.

That seemed logical when we started because it made transferring the coals easy.

But it also meant that every time we needed to check the Dutch oven, we were working right beside a very hot fire.

Next time, Ed said he’d position the cooking area a couple of feet farther away.

We’d still be able to transfer coals easily, but checking and stirring the food would be considerably more comfortable.

We’d also learned more about how quickly our available wood burned and how frequently we needed to replenish the coals.

That’s the great thing about trying something for the first time.

The second time, you aren’t starting from zero.

Was Dutch Oven Cooking Worth All That Work?

For us?

Absolutely.

This was not fast cooking.

We spent a good part of the day tending that fire and watching our stew.

But we were boondocking in Montana.

We weren’t in a hurry.

Sitting outside, tending a campfire and experimenting with an old-fashioned cooking method was part of the fun.

And at the end of it, we had plenty of delicious beef stew to eat and save for additional meals.

That was exactly what we’d hoped for.

Why Dutch Oven Cooking Works for Boondocking

Learning to cook this way opened up some interesting possibilities for us.

When you’re boondocking, propane and electricity are resources you have to manage.

If you’re camping somewhere that legally allows a wood fire—and conditions are safe enough to have one—a Dutch oven gives you another cooking option.

Instead of using propane for hours to cook a stew or another slow-cooked meal, we could use the campfire we might have built anyway.

And there were plenty of other recipes we wanted to try.

After the success of this first experiment, we were excited to see what else we could cook.

Our First Dutch Oven Experiment Was a Success

We started the day with absolutely no experience cooking in a Dutch oven over campfire coals.

Four hours later, we had one of the best beef stews we’d ever eaten.

There was definitely a learning curve.

We had to figure out the fire.

We had to learn which wood produced useful coals.

We had to experiment with temperature.

We added water and seasoning as we went.

And Ed spent a good portion of the day tending the fire.

But that’s exactly what made it fun.

RV life has given us opportunities to try things we’d probably never have bothered doing when we lived in a regular house.

Sometimes the experiment works.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

This one definitely worked.

And we couldn’t wait to try it again.

We’ll see you down the road…and Over the Hills.

Continue the Journey

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