High altitude cooking

Thunder Mountain wrote:
Not trying to belittle your post, but I don't understand. The altitude at Teton Village is roughly 6300' according to Google Earth. That hardly qualifies as high altitude in my experience since we live at 8200' in Colorado and have for 25 years. The only issue we have is baking. You always use less fluid and more flour. We routinely camp at 10000' using crock pots, grilling etc. with no issues. Water does boil at a lower temperature and that difference is noticeable when approaching 10K feet.

Couldn't agree more - we live at 6,000 ft in Colorado,and have no issues cooking anything and use crockpot all the time, both at home and when in the higher mountain areas. We often have a crockpot running while travelling - using an inverter - just leave the crockpot in the sink. We also use Dutch Oven in the camfile at times - make some great peach cobbler! :)

We also have an electric pressure cooker which is far quicker and easier to use than one that would sit on the stove top.

Mountain Mama wrote:
OP here... I just knew I didn't have luck with crockpot before..and being from 600' elevation, CO, MT. & WY is high elevation for us.

For cooking purposes, many boxes of prepared dinners have instructions for "high altitude", which in many cases is anything over 4000 feet. As OP stated, they are at 600 ft...in that case, western Kansas would be "high altitude"!

We've cooked for a number of years using a crock pot. As others have stated, just make some adjustments to fine tune the cooking. We always use the low temp setting and are usually back at the trailer for the last hour or so, to check on the progress.

We've also used the one pan method, a la, hamburger or tuna helper type meals...of our own making. Chili is also a good one pot dinner and can be cooked inside on the stove or on an outside stove.

Do a Google search for "one pan meal" and you'll find a lot of suggestions.

We use a Ninja sometimes instead of a regular crockpot. It can be used as a crockpot or used as a small oven. It holds more also. We also have learned due to fire restrictions, mainly out west, we rarely use our charcoal grill and instead depend on our electric grill outside.

OP here... I just knew I didn't have luck with crockpot before..and being from 600' elevation, CO, MT. & WY is high elevation for us.

No issues cooking at elevations up to 10K' although we don't do much crockpot meals when camping as we prefer using a pressure cooker for stews and such.

Campground which you speak of is relatively mild elevation for those of us who live and camp in the Mountain West. Most of our boondocking trips are well over 8K' and we cook whatever we want without hesitation.

We live at a mile high and camp at closer to two miles up. Water boils at a lower temperature so cooking times are extended. Give your crock pot some extra time to do the job and you will be fine.

Not trying to belittle your post, but I don't understand. The altitude at Teton Village is roughly 6300' according to Google Earth. That hardly qualifies as high altitude in my experience since we live at 8200' in Colorado and have for 25 years. The only issue we have is baking. You always use less fluid and more flour. We routinely camp at 10000' using crock pots, grilling etc. with no issues. Water does boil at a lower temperature and that difference is noticeable when approaching 10K feet.

Mountain Mama wrote:
We're going to Yellowstone/Grand Tetons this summer and I'm planning ( at least in my head). I know @ Fishing Bridge there are no outside fires allowed so that leaves out grilling. I've tried to cook in a crockpot in Colorado before & that didn't work. What suggestions do you have for cooking dinner meals ? I'm sure we'll be out exploring during the day & am planning on taking lunch meals with us, but I know my bunch. They'll be hungry in the evenings!

Pressure cookers work well at altitude. Crock pots don't work well because water boiles at a lower temperature at altitude. Pressure cookers allow you to cook at higher temperatures and thus quicker than regular pans. Get a small pressure cooker and a good pressure cooker cookbook. Stews work really well in pressure cookers.

Just a suggestion: There is another sub-forum here entitled "Camp Cooks and Connoisseurs ". You might receive better feedback there.