At Overland Expo this year I spent a fair amount of time at the Tembo Tusk booth as they were constantly giving food away. I think they make a really great product! However, when we camp and cook we usually are cooking a mix of foods so I could see myself wanting two of them. That being said I couldn’t justify spending $275 each.
So I scoured the internet and found that you can buy the disks themselves pretty cheap without a hole in them. I bought These! I got 2 of them delivered for $45. Not bad.
Once they showed up the fun started. Stupid me didn’t get any photos of this step. So let me just write it out. My father in law is a welder by trade so I showed him a few pictures of what I wanted. I gave him my Coleman single burner and told him I waned it to hang just below the disk to heat them. The welding material was very reasonable and the welding itself didn’t take long. If you don’t know how to weld (I don’t) I bet you could pay someone $50 to weld up both of these.
A few days later and maybe $30 in supplies later I had two skottles. (Again, I am sorry I don’t have pictures from this step.). There was some rust spots and manufacturing marks so I used some steel wool and old sponges and got the disks all cleaned up.
Next it was time to get them seasoned up. I coated them both in veggie oil and placed them upside down in the oven. I brought the oven to 500 deg F. and let them bake for 45 minutes. Once the time was up I shut the oven off and let them reach room temp on their own. (If you do this at home be warned there is a fair amount of smoke that comes out of the oven. My wife wasn’t thrilled with this.)
I watched some video on youtube about seasoning a wok (same principle). After he did the initial seasoning he cooked some aromatics in his wok then tossed them. Something along the lines of making sure there isn’t any metal taste in your food the first time you cook in it. I did this just as an extra step but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
I need to post some better photos but you can see they are at a good height. The legs are metal conduit with screw ends that screw into the bottom of the disks. I will order a second burner before our next camping trip. Cost breakdown below!
Tembo Tusk Price: $275
Mine
- Disks $23 ($45 for 2)
- Burner $20
- Welding Supplies and Legs $15
- Estimated Welding Labor $25
Total: $83 each
So far I was really impressed with the first cook. I am excited to give these things a try when we go camping next. It might be a little while as we just sold our house and are looking for a new one. Hopefully we get settled soon!
Let me know if you have any questions. Get out and make yourself some!