Camp Braai Review; stepping up our campfire cooking
There’s a lot of camping gear on the market. Like, seriously, more than you could possibly ever need, and that makes it hard to know what is worth buying and what isn’t. We are always on the lookout for new gear that does something better, or different to what the rest of the market offers.
I love seeing improvements, and when we stumbled across the Camp Braai, by Oz Braai we added it to the maybe list, for down the track.
After seeing people use them for a while, and really rating them (and our love for camp fire cooking exploding) we made the purchase. We were going to get the Oz Braai fire pit too, but the freight was ridiculously expensive, so we purchased a Darche 450 Firepit from Snowys instead (with free freight!).
Like with all our reviews, we like to be honest about who paid for the product. This is not a sponsored post, and we paid for the Camp Braai with our own money.
What is the Camp Braai?
The Camp Braai is a stainless steel mesh basket that is designed for cooking over a fire. You can use them in several different orientations, including on the 3 tiered rack. You can use them for cooking anything from bread to meat, vegetables and seafood.
The mesh contains your food well enough that it doesn’t fall out, but allows the full flame and smoke to penetrate into your food which gives it a taste that nothing compares to.
You can use it for slow cooking, or getting a bit of crisp. People use them as stands to put kettles and other items on too, so they have quite a few applications
Size and weight
The Camp Braai folds up, and comes in a neat little fabric bag. It’s unexpectedly light weight, and when packed away only takes up about 45cm x 30cm x 10cm. At only a couple of kg and that size, its not going to break the space or weight budget, and can be packed almost anywhere.
I wouldn’t stack heavy weights on it, but having it bounce around a bit isn’t going to kill it either.
What can you cook on it?
What can you not cook on it?! Seriously, unless you are cooking something with small bits, or lots of sauce you’ll be able to use the Camp Braai. Common items include fish, chicken, steaks, sausages, seafood, bread, toasties, bacon, toast and the list goes on and on.
For us, we wanted it mainly to cook chunks of meat, and vegetables. Anything cooked over an open flame tastes so much better than doing it in a frying pan. Seriously, next time you head to the shops pick up a pack of the cheapest sausages you can find.
Cook a couple on the stove, and a few over an open flame and try them side by side. The difference is staggering, and it makes up for the additional difficulties of cooking on fire!
You will need gloves
Like many of the portable fire pits, the Camp Braai gets quite hot, and even with the long handle you’d have a hard time picking it up without gloves. The best option is a set of welding gloves, which we always carry in the Reconn R2. These are used for the camp oven, portable fire pit, weber occasionally and adjusting the fire without cooking our fingers and hands!
Why not just use a grill?
Now, I can see a few of you are going to ask why you’d bother, and not just use the grill on a portable fire pit. The answer is simple; you can move your food around without touching the food itself. We’ve done skewers, and fish, and other meat on the grill, and it works fine, to a point. If it sticks, you end up with pieces falling off, and its a bit annoying.
The Camp Braai allows you to turn your food, take it away from the heat and move it around easily, without upsetting the food itself, as its contained within the basket.
What does the Camp Braai cost?
In Australia, you can get these for $159, plus postage (which isn’t always cheap). It’s decent value, and you’d struggle to knock anything up remotely decent for anywhere near that price.
Is it actually any good?
There’s a stack of ways you can cook over a fire. Whether its a fold out grill, a camp oven, firepit grill or something else you won’t have a shortage of potential cooking gear. Unfortunately, a lot of it isn’t cheap, or light weight and that’s when things start to get a bit more difficult.
The Camp Braai is relatively small, as light weight as you’d get, and it is surprisingly useful. We did find it a bit of a learning curve to get the heat from the fire even, and to place and use the Camp Braai, but we are getting better at it and the food that comes off it is always delicious.
For its cost/weight/size we’ll be carrying it with us from now on, and hope to do some more epic meals.
In our experience, after more than 12 months on the road travelling full time this is the best camp cooking tool you can get, and it easily competes with a camp oven (although they’re two very different things). We’re super happy with our Oz Braai Camp Braai, and its cooked a huge number of meals in its life already.
