Flameless Camping Cooker Kit - No Fire No Stove Heat MRE Ready to Eat Meals and Warm Foods Fast, Collapsible in Backpack, Essential Gear for Outdoor Recreation, Survival, Emergency, No Heat Pack

My wife and I live and play in the glorious state of Alaska. Taking meals on our detecting and gold panning trips require packing in meals. We purchased the Yabul Cooker to see how well it would heat our MRE and Mountain House meals, as well as Chef Boyardee meal Cups, etc. What a GREAT COOKER! The photos attached show the cooker with an MRE pouch, which fits nicely. Believe me, it came out piping hot. In fact, I had to let it cool down a bit before eating. Our results with a Mountain House and Chef Boyardee meal were the same. Mmm Mmm, good eating a HOT meal on a cold Alaskan day! One thing to remember, Mountain House meals, and similar, are packaged in larger bags, so must be folded in half to fit in the Yabul Cooker (see photo). We put cold water in the meal package and stir the contents very well to mix in the water, then start the cooking (heating) process in the Yabul. 15 minutes or so later, out comes a very hot and delicious meal. If I have one complaint, which I must since I'm mentioning it, is how hard it is for me to connect the top of the Yabul to the bottom half. It isn't the easiest for an old man like me, but not insurmountable. I invariably must flip the Yabul upside down to seal the top to the base. If you take my route, remember to place the heat pad, minus the activating water, and the meal package in the base first. I don't recommend attaching the top in this fashion if you are heating contents that can spill out, like the Chef Boyardee meals. You can understand why. In this case, you could slide the cup meals in through the opening you must leave to add the activating water, before the final seal of the Yabul lid. But you can figure out what works best for you. Oh, before I forget, we heated 2 Chef Boyardee cups in our Yabul as you can see from the attached photo. Finally, we were (are) so impressed, we bought a second Yabul Cooker, HIS and HERs! :) Now my wife and I can eat at the same time, and I can start a second meal before she finishes her first... another story!

I do a lot of hiking, snowshoeing, etc., sometimes in pretty poor conditions. Normally on my adventures I use the extremely competent JetBoil Flash system which has served me well for years. My primary uses are heating water for beverages or dehydrated meals and alternatively I use the system to heat something like an MRE to a high temperature to make the food more palatable. I occasionally venture into areas with fire bans which precludes my use of open flame systems like JetBoil. For those reasons this system really piqued my interest as a flameless option to heat up meals. I have used MRE heaters for years but anyone who has used them knows that at best they will get your meal to a lukewarm temperature. They are worthless for getting things "hot"... so something like this is pretty exciting.I ordered the Yabul cooker kit and 20 of the heater packs to evaluate the system. I would have ordered fewer heater packs but they are extremely expensive (more on that later) so I wanted to reduce the cost per use of the system as much as possible.To test the system out I set it up in current weather conditions (13F) put in a heater pack and put in a reusable zip-lock bag filled with about 16 ounces of water. I then poured about 7 ounces of cold water into the system and watched it go. Immediately steam began pouring out of the unit and it became extremely hot to the touch. The bottom of the unit was extended by the amount of heat being generated which caused it to become a little bit unstable when on a completely flat table. I don't think it's in any danger of tipping over or anything but it would have been nice if the bottom was at least a little bit reinforced. After 15 minutes I carefully removed the top which was still very hot (be careful not to get steam burns) and I checked the temperature of the water in my bag with a digital thermometer. It was at an impressive 165F and possibly could have gotten a little hotter if I had left it in a bit longer. It actually got so hot that the reusable zip lock bag I used to test it with got permanently warped from the test. Definitely the heater will serve its purpose for heating up something like an MRE with no use of an open flame.The biggest weakness of the system, in my opinion is the size/weight and lack of function of the cooking unit itself. It is a basic silicone container that should sell for $5 not $25. It has no way of separating the heater pack from the item being cooked which means you can't use it to directly heat water or food you will have to carry additional items like zip lock bags, etc., for heating things up unless they are already packaged for preparation like an MRE. If heating up a dehydrated meal you can probably carefully prepare the meal in its bag and then put it in the Yabul for heating but there is a very real risk that if your food item isn't very tightly closed it could spill out and become ruined due to the lack of separation between the heating pack and the item you are warming up.It is difficult to securely attach the lid to the unit securely as it keeps wanting to slip off. You can get some pretty high quality camping cookware at the $25 price point so it is inexcusable to me that Yabul sells a cheap silicone tray with a cover for this price. Honestly a person might be better off getting a generic high quality plastic food storage container designed for use in a microwave that has the ability to vent steam and just purchase the heating packs. You can fold/roll the Yabul unit to reduce the footprint but realistically if you have a small square or rectangular container you're just going to use it to store other things in your pack so the space savings is not that big of a deal (and with the Yabul you will have to carry the heater packs anyway).As previously mentioned the unit is not particularly stable when "cooking" which again is disappointing at the price point. The lid is not securely attached so you will want to make sure it is really on good before you carefully pop the corner to add water or you might end up wasting an expensive heater bag.Let's talk about two final things... weight and cost.When the package with the Yabul and 20 heater packs arrived I was surprised at how heavy the package was. I put the Yabul on a scale with four of the heater packs and it weighs in at a hefty 24 ounces, or basically 1.5 lbs! Compare this to a JetBoil Flash with a gas canister good for probably more than a dozen uses and the JetBoil only weighs about 20 ounces (the Jetboil also doesn't require use of extra packages or containers to heat food as the unit itself is food and water safe). If you want to use the Yabul system on a 2-3 day backpacking trip in cooler weather you can easily count on lugging 3+ lbs of weight around at the start of your adventure. If you need to pack out your trash (which is typical) then you'll be lugging that weight the entire time.Let's talk about cost. The Yabul system is not insanely expensive but on a per use basis it is kind of pricey. The heater packs, if purchased in bulk (I bought 20) are about $2 a piece. That is very pricey compared to gas canisters used in other cooking systems. In the same 2-3 day scenario described above you might go through one $7 fuel canister but you would go through about $10-$14 worth of Yabul heating packs. I also don't know what the shelf life of the Yabul heating packs is. Since it's a chemical reaction system I assume that over a long enough period of time the packs will degrade and start losing effectiveness. How effective will they be if you store them for a rainy day and don't need them for a few years? They are individually sealed so it's hard to say but I don't think they will be as effective for long term storage as other options.So what's the final word? Well, this system absolutely has its application. It is stupid easy to use and can be used with no reliance on a fuel canister, can be used regardless of wind conditions, etc. so it absolutely has value for certain outdoor activities or if you needed to heat food in an emergency where you can't use other means. It is also so easy to use that you could comfortably trust a child to use it as long as they understood the risk of being burned... all they have to do is put a heating pack in, put a food item in, and pour water in to make a hot meal.For other applications this system finishes behind other popular options. It is very expensive on a per use basis (I am cracking up reading reviews of a mother that uses this to heat up lunch for her kid every day, give me a break)... It has no way of directly heating a food item safely and it is burdensome to use it for heating water as you will have to use an intermediary container to heat the water up. I would recommend to Yabul that they consider, for example, offering a modified version of this at a lower price that fits something like a standard Nalgene water bottle so that water could be directly heated.... a Nalgene will also comfortably fit an MRE (just roll it up and stuff it in). In fact you could put an MRE in a Nalgene bottle, put your water in, close the top and after heating it you would have a hot MRE/meal AND you would also have totally safe to drink hot water that could be used for a beverage. Consider this as an option Yabul!This isn't a bad option to have available to you as long as you understand the limitations and the high cost. I would very much look forward to a version 2 of it or a 3rd party option that could make use of the excellent heating packs in a more practical way.

It’s a simple product that does what it’s designed to do. Flawless in my opinion because the process is repeatable with pretty similar results so far after a week of use. There was no concern of leakage at all. Take a moment when you get it to feel how the lid goes on, it almost comes naturally; you’ll see. Super easy to use, to clean, and to pretty much store anywhere. Good quality, durable material as well. Recently I cooked 2 mre packs at the same time with one Yabul warmer instead of the FRH they came with. After about 25 minutes, both were steaming hot. Had to let it cool off first, what a nice change that was! Definitely worth it in my book.

I used the product my first time today and it works great! Food heats good and it is easy to use. I recommend it! I hope to find reusable silicone bags instead of plastic bags to make it more environmentally friendly. I bought some today, but they did not fit. Thank you and God Bless...Revelation 21 KJV

Must-have item Backpackers , campers Preppers, just need a hot meal when you can't get to a stove or propane gas all those combustible materials just add water and wait 15 minutes and done it's awesome pick you up a few you going to need them we live in the Revelation times blessed day !

I bought this ahead of Hurricane Dorain because I thought it would be an easy/less expensive alternative to buying a grill. I just need to heat up some canned goods and get hot water. The description says heat pack included but there was NO heat pack in the package and it's crossed out on the box.

Amazing product... I tested it out yesterday...it’s going to make traveling and camping a breeze!

Works as expected