Cooking and brewing
What burns, and for how long
Everything you can feed a fire and how long one of each keeps it burning.
 Propane Canister | 45 min |
 Fuel Can | 40 min |
 Coal | 30 min |
 Kerosene | 30 min |
 Hardwood Plank | 25 min |
 Firewood | 15 min |
 Charcoal | 11.7 min |
 Animal Fat | 6.7 min |
 Pine Resin | 5.8 min |
 Firestarter | 5 min |
 Hexamine Fuel Tablet | 5 min |
 Paperback Novel | 3.3 min |
 Birch Bark | 2.5 min |
 Cardboard | 2.5 min |
 Kindling | 2 min |
 Old Newspaper | 1.5 min |
 Old Dollars | 1 min |
 Straw | 1 min |
A fire holds up to 3 hours of fuel. A stove burns the same fuel 1.5 times as long.
An unsheltered campfire in the rain has a 2% chance of going out every 5 seconds.
A lit fire warms you by 14 °C within 6 m, and a stove by 16 °C. Stand in the flames for 3 seconds and your clothes catch.
On the grill
What you can lay on a fire and walk away from. A fire has 4 grill places. Burns after is how long past done it lasts on an open fire before it chars; water never burns.
 Canned Food |  Survivor Stew | 1 | 120 s | 180 s | |
 Canteen (Unboiled) |  Full Canteen | 1 | 90 s | ||
 Corn Cob |  Roast Corn | 1 | 90 s | 120 s | |
 Dirty Water |  Clean Water | 1 | 60 s | ||
 Fish Fillet |  Grilled Fish | 2 | 70 s | 60 s | |
 Morels |  Grilled Mushrooms | 2 | 60 s | 60 s | |
 Oyster Mushrooms | Grilled Mushrooms | 2 | 60 s | 60 s | |
 Parasol Mushroom | Grilled Mushrooms | 2 | 60 s | 60 s | |
 Porcini | Grilled Mushrooms | 2 | 60 s | 60 s | |
 Potato |  Baked Potato | 1 | 180 s | 240 s | |
 Rainwater | Clean Water | 1 | 45 s | ||
 Raw Beef |  Grilled Steak | 1 | 120 s | 150 s | |
 Raw Fish | Grilled Fish | 1 | 100 s | 90 s | |
 Raw Fowl |  Roast Fowl | 2 | 300 s | 180 s | |
 Raw Mackerel | Grilled Fish | 1 | 100 s | 90 s | |
 Raw Meat |  Cooked Meat | 1 | 90 s | 120 s | |
 Raw Rabbit | Cooked Meat | 1 | 150 s | 120 s | |
 Raw Venison |  Roast Venison | 1 | 150 s | 150 s | 1 x Salt |
 Wild Mushrooms | Grilled Mushrooms | 2 | 60 s | 60 s | |
 Wild Pork |  Roast Pork | 2 | 240 s | 180 s | 1 x Salt |
Boiling makes any fresh water safe to drink.
Smoking racks
Salted meat or fish hung on a rack beside a smoky fire cures into food that keeps. Time in smoke is real minutes beside a lit fire; hung with no smoke it spoils instead.
| Meat | Raw Beef, Raw Meat, Raw Venison, Wild Pork |  Smoked Meat | 6 | 45 min | 90 min |
| Fish | Fish Fillet, Oily Fillet |  Smoked Fish | 10 | 30 min | 60 min |
One salt cures 3 pieces. The fire must be within 3 m of the rack. Cured food left hanging keeps for 24 hours.
Fermenting
Mash in a fermenting barrel becomes wash, which a still turns into spirits or fuel. Temperature is the liquid's, which follows the air slowly.
| The barrel | Holds 6 pails of mash. |
| With yeast | Ferments in 16 real hours at 20 to 30 °C, and gives back 1 jar of starter for the next batch. |
| Without yeast | Wild yeast takes 28 real hours, and only 75% of the pails come out as wash. The rest sours. |
| Too cold | Below 10 °C the yeast sleeps and nothing happens. |
| Too hot | Above 34 °C you keep 85% of what ferments, and 40 °C kills the yeast. |
| Left too long | A finished wash keeps 48 real hours in the barrel before it turns to vinegar. |
Water at camp
Getting clean water without carrying it home.
| Solar still | Turns dirty water or rainwater into clean water at 40 minutes a liter in clear daylight (7:00 to 19:00). Scorching sun is 1.2 times as fast; cloud, fog and overcast cut it to a third or half. |
| Rain collectors | Fill by how hard it rains: a heavy rain of 25 mm an hour gives a small collector 0.42 liters a minute and a large catcher 1.67. |
| Camp shower | Uses 2 waters and takes 8 seconds. |