VargoTitanium BOT Series | 1 Liter (34 oz.) Ultralight Water Bottle Cooking Pot Weighs 147 grams (5.2 oz.) | Backpacking Camping Multipurpose

I just can't say enough good things about this bottle pot. If you take your adventures and preparedness as seriously as I do, you should really consider this very versatile pot set. I've had a few chances to use it on various stoves, and to pack a very versatile kit with it, so here are the pros and cons based on my personal experience with it:Pros:- Titanium, so it's strong but very lightweight for its size- Has a threaded lid! This is very hard to find in a pot you can cook with (don't cook with the pot lid screwed on!)- Cook with it, or carry water/food/gear with it- Fits in any bottle holder that would fit a 32oz Nalgene bottle- Holds a ton of cook gear and makes an excellent backup water carrier in a pinch- It just looks cool- The lid flips over to be a small cup/bowl, and is used upside down as the pot lid- It's taller than most cook pots, so you can carry non-folding utensils inside- It won't rust. You can clean it with steel wool and not have to worryCons:- The threading is tricky, but if you put the lid on carefully every time, you won't cross thread. After using for a bit, the threads catch better, get smoother, and track better- I wish it was slightly more narrow so it could nest in the same cups that a Nalgene could nest in. I did find a Keith titanium bowl that this pot nests perfectly into, though- I really wish it had folding handles on the side so I wouldn't have to carry a pot holder- Doesn't disperse heat as evenly across the pot as aluminum does- Some have issues with tightening the lid too much when the pot is warm or at higher altitudes, then having it get suction from the pressure change and they can't get the lid offSo there's an easy fix for when the lid gets stuck on the pot due to temp/pressure change. The suction of the pot can be released within 2 minutes by sliding a credit card corner underneath the edge of the visible airtight/watertight gasket. Put the corner of the card between the pot and the gasket just enough to deform the gasket, then let it sit for a minute or two and the pressure will regulate so you can unscrew the lid again. I have yet to have this problem, but when the pot is empty I don't screw the lid down completely snug. Just tighten it enough for the gasket to just touch the pot, then stop. You'll keep your contents inside of your BOT, and never have a stuck lid.I have been evolving the kit that I store in the BOT, and at this point here is my list of gear that I have inside:- BOT itself- Small Toaks titanium gasifier wood burning stove (their larger stove won't quite fit inside)- Vargo titanium pot lifter- BCS micro titanium stove- 4 Esbit fuel cubes (could hold much more)- 10,000 strike ferro rod and steel striker- Light My Fire titnium spork- Still room for more small items such as more fuel cubes and even an alcohol stoveI carry the BOT and a small canister of stove fuel inside of a molle-equipped bottle carrier. In the outer pouch of this carrier, I have a scrub sponge, small bottle of soap, and a folding windscreen. This kit allows me to start out using fuel with the stove/canister, but if I am stuck in an extended situation where I use up all of the fuel, I have the titanium wood burning stove as a backup so I can cook anywhere. If I need to use the pot to carry water, I just dump the contents of the kit into a pocket on my pack and fill it up.The BOT is truly a versatile piece of equipment that should be the part of any survivalist's or backcountry adventurer's kit. It can take a beating, won't corrode, will hold enough water to actually be useful, and it holds a ton of gear.

What are you gonna do, dump your water out to cook in this?But, I can fit my whole man-hand in it, which is convenient for cleaning. So it's a good water bottle - it's not a pot.Get a titanium water bottle, get a nesting titanium cook set *with lids*. The water bottle needs to be metal so you can purify it over a fire. The leads are necessary to store heat in the pot while cooking.And, hey, if it ever HAS to be a pot, it can be.You need a titanium cookset. You want a titanium stove.

So I have had one of these for a few years and recently bought another. It's not a perfect product for me. I wish the threads on the screw lid were more pronounced so that you wouldn't jump threads as easily. I wish it had built-in handles of some sort. I wish it wasn't as tall. But for all of my wishes, someone else is happy with the current configuration. The only universal complaint people generally have is that the lid can be hard to screw on and off and even downright impossible if air pressure builds up internally. Vargo provides helpful tips on how to deal with that on their blog. So if it's not perfect, why do I give it 5 stars? Because there's nothing else like it in the marketplace right now and because the product works well enough that it's replaced all of my other pots. I probably have cycled through 10 other pots that are widely used and highly revered among campers/hikers. Some of them I would rate 5 stars as well, so if this is the pot I choose over all of them, it certainly deserves a 5 stars mark as well.I believe that part of a product is also the company and the warranty and customer support that comes along with the product. I damaged my 2nd TI BOT -- it was due to the air pressure build-up that is a known issue with the BOT, but it was also due to human error for not properly taking the steps to de-pressurize -- NOTE: YOU HAVE TO RELEASE PRESSURE FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE O-RING, NOT THE TOP-- AT THE TIME OF THIS REVIEW, IT WASN'T NOT CLEAR ON THEIR BLOG, BUT I BELIEVE THEY ARE GOING TO CLARIFY THAT. By damage, I mean I crumbled in the walls of the BOT. The BOT is very, very well-built. It's hard to crumble in the walls. That's how tight the lid was. A couple of Home Depot guys were trying to open it with a strap wrench and exerted so much force that the BOT buckled. An email from Vargo later explained why I wasn't depressurizing it correctly; once I applied the proper technique, it only took a few seconds to open the BOT with a credit card. Maybe it was product design that caused the intense pressure buildup (not necessarily a flaw, because maybe they had to make it that way to achieve the metal on metal closure). Maybe it was my fault for improperly opening in. Regardless of whose fault it was, Vargo never blamed me and offered to replace the BOT. That's a company you don't mind paying a few extra bucks to buy from. Since I bought it from Amazon, I actually ended up processing the refund through Amazon directly, but it's nice to know that Vargo stood behind their products as well. The product alone warrants 5 stars in my book, but their customer service and warranty really puts them over and above. Buy Vargo products. They generally have good designs, good quality builds, light products, and great customer service. Despite my issues with the BOT, it is actually my favorite Vargo item because there's nothing else quite like it.

Titanium is expensive, nobody is expecting this to cost 10 dollars. But it's insanely expensive compared to competing pots and other cookware from other vendors. I love this pot's idea, I'm experimenting with using it as my second water bottle (that I can also cook with). Knock $20 off and it'd be a no-brainer. At $100 it's definitely a luxury item.Functionally it's pretty good. I wish the the screw threads were polished - it makes a TERRIBLE grinding noise when you screw it closed. And given that it's a non-standard O-ring size I feel like a product this expensive should at least come with a spare O-ring, since that's a wear item. But otherwise it does what it's supposed to do.