Campfire Ovens And Canadian Gear

Ever dreamed of pulling a bubbling lasagna or a crispy pizza from a campfire on day five? We sit down with Denis from Kid Product to unpack the gear that makes real backcountry cooking possible: a reflector oven that turns radiant heat into even baking, a twig stove rigid enough to hold cast iron, and smart fire tools that simplify the whole routine without adding weight.

We start with the reflector oven, a compact, fold-flat design that sits in front of your fire and works like a home oven by reflecting heat and moving air. Denis shares trail-proven meals—from shepherd’s pie to a four-pound roast beef in roughly ninety minutes—that prove you don’t have to settle for bland boil-in-bag dinners. Then we dive into twig stoves across materials: value-minded coated steel, rust-proof 316 stainless for year-round abuse, and ultralight titanium at about 140 grams for long carries and winter missions. Built with interlocking plates and no hinges, the stoves assemble easily with thin gloves and shrug off hard use. Yes, someone stood on one. It held.

We round things out with fire-starting that actually helps: ferro rods that spark in any weather, telescoping blow tubes to stoke embers from a safe distance, and a new jute tube that lights like an oversized match for steady flame. Along the way, we preview a hot tent trip to Mew Lake with a two-tent setup plus the so-called “circus tent” where stories and steam rise together. The throughline is simple—choose Canadian-made gear designed for durability, packability, and ease, then cook meals that keep spirits high deep into the trip.

If camp cooking matters to you, this conversation offers practical tips, tested gear insights, and menu inspiration to elevate your next adventure. Listen, subscribe, and leave a review to tell us the first meal you’d bake in a reflector oven.

www.kihdproducts.com

Transcript

Host Intro And Event Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good day, eh, and welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Tim, and I'm flying solo today. So when I mess things up, uh it's not Pamela's fault, or at least I can't blame her for that. Uh we're from supergoodcamping.com. Uh we're here because we're on a mission to inspire other people to get outside and have camping adventures such as we have as a family. Today's guest is Dennis from Kid Products, uh, which I own. So just saying, just full disclosure. Uh I love my reflector oven and I camp pizza on day five is so amazing.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Just saying.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

How are you, young man?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Oh, not too bad, not too bad. You sell.

Hamilton Adventure Expo Highlights

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Good, good. Microphone probably wants to be closer to cut down the background noise. All right. Um, so we're here at the Hamilton Adventure Expo. Uh, year number two, day two of year number two. Uh, how's it been going for you guys so far?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Well, so far, it has been a fantastic show. We've been busy yesterday, like we couldn't have been stuck for lunch. It's just like go, go, go, turn every two minutes, so it's like a customer after a customer after a customer. Like, you know, if you have a chance, come and visit it. If it's at this year, next year, it's fantastic. You can't miss that show. Like, you know, it's probably one of the best shows for the beginning of season.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Cool, very cool. Glad, glad you guys are enjoying it. Uh, sales are good.

Why Canadian-Made Gear Matters

SPEAKER_01 1:24

The sales have been fantastic, you know, like people are really nice, like they like Canadian products, so they come and see your stuff and they buy your stove because like it's made in Canada, and they go, well, you know, very hard to find product that we manufacture and make in Canada 100%.

Reflector Oven: How It Works

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, so so tell us some of the price. I mentioned the a reflector oven, which is for a campfire. Uh actually, why don't you explain exactly how it works? Because I know, but I don't know how I put it in words.

Real Meals In The Backcountry

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Well, basically, you know, we got stick stove, we have reflector ovens. You're we got basically an interior oven coming with you when you go camping. You got like, you know, your cookware, you got your stick stove, that's basically your element on top of the stove. Your reflector oven is basically just your oven that you would have at home. It works exactly the same ID, reflects the heat, reflects the air going through. So basically, when you build your fire, you put your actual stove in front of it, you don't put it in the fire, just put it right in front of it so that you have enough heat coming in, and then you can start cooking and baking. We make pizza, lasagna, you name it, you've made we made it. You know, it's fantastic. We go out and we don't starve, and that's the only product that we use, it's our own made product. And we make like I made a shepherd's pie for last September's camping trip uh two years ago. We made a four-pound roast beef, an hour and a half because we eat. Uh, you know, it's just a fantastic tool to have, and it's compact, like it folds, it can go in your gear bag, you don't even know what's there. So great, great, great tool to have.

Twig Stoves And Materials

SPEAKER_00 2:59

And super light to carry around. It's not you're not lugging it at all. It's excellent. Um, what else? You got you got twig stoves?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, we we got the twig stove, we got uh different metals that we use. We got like old rule steel, we got stainless and titanium. Varies in price, like the basic, usually regular price goes for about$72. That's the entry point uh model, and we get the basic plus at$85.95, and then we go to the deluxe model that's your stainless steel. That one goes to starts at 124. And the thing is the stainless steel will never rust, it's a 316 as stainless. You can leave it outside, you don't have to worry about like oh it's it's in the snow, or there's salt, road salt, it's never gonna rust. And then we got our uh workhorse at the ultimate titanium, 140 grams, less than a cup of water, and again, those like you know, they go for 196. But if you have the stove for like 10-20 years, it costs you less than 10 bucks a year to uh have the stove, like and it will not degrade, they will not get disrupted. There's no disruption. Like I got mine for the last like 10 years, it's like old rose steel, still use it, a little bit of rust on it, just to win it's a tool. If you don't like the rust, a little bit of oil, and it's gonna keep ever steam.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Cool, and I I vaguely recall it's one of the testing processes was being able to stand on it.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, one of the partners stood on it. It was about at a time that got 185, 190 pounds, and just opened that buckle. Like uh you can put a center block on it, and you can actually use a castar own pan on it, and it will be nice and sturdy.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That's also really Canadian to go about testing it like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Oh, yeah, you know, like we're gonna go to the extreme and see how badly we can treat the product, and uh because technically at the end of the day, we're still using the product ourselves, so we don't want it to fell while we're in the middle of the woods because we kind of would look a little bit silly.

Fire Tools And New Jute Tubes

SPEAKER_00 5:00

That's true. Uh I also noticed you've got some like ferru rod uh fire starters, and then the the telescoping tube so that you can sit back in your chair and blow on the fire.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, we got like blow tubes, we got uh the uh this year we added uh at the end of last season, we added the jute tubes. Basically, it's a tube, it's it's jute in a tube, and you actually use that with your uh flip for a striker, and basically once and it's actually gonna spark and light up like a candle, and then that's the alert, and you can light up your fire, you can uh do anything with it. For me, when I go camping, I I like to smoke the pipe once in a while. I used to use a bit lighter, and then with the flame going back up, it's not too good for your thumb. So, what I do, I actually use a juttube knob, flare it up, and I use it as a uh basically like a matchstick, just light up my pipe and off you go. So it's actually very very versatile. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Very cool. Uh so you mentioned that you're tripping, you take your own stuff on trips and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Excuse me.

Winter Hot Tent Trip Plans

SPEAKER_00 6:06

No, no, all good. What's what's the next big one for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Well, the next big one coming up is in two weeks. We're gonna do our uh yearly winter camping. So uh we got our hot tents ready, we're gonna be to going to Mew Lake for a couple of days. It's gonna be me and go help four Kit Product guys. Kenuhan's gonna be joining us for the trip and a couple more of our friends. So we'll be about like 10 people this year at the trip. That sounds fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, I think uh sorry, Keith was saying two slightly smaller tents and then one bigger tent. Yep, right on.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

We can circus tent and the other guys will bring the uh circus tent.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

That's a great that's a great moniker. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Hey, yeah, it's a big brass bowl in the middle, so we'll leave that to your imagination.

Where To Find The Gear

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yes, I don't think I want to know. No, you don't know. Especially if you get into some whiskey or something. All right, Dennis. Well, I I uh uh I appreciate you dropping by. Is it is it kidproducts.com or kidproducts.ca it's kidproduct.com.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

All right, because the dot com actually is uh more international, so when you go on the website, it pops up. I hear you usually on the four or fifth uh first or second page usually. Um and reflector oven actually comes up on the first page of Google.

Simple Design And Cold-Weather Use

SPEAKER_00 7:22

So that's awesome. Well, it's I can't I've seen a couple of other ones. I can't I I am so in love with mine. It took me ages to get around to going, okay, just just bite it, just just buy it. And I'm so glad I did.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

It's I just and what I want to mention about our stove and everything that we make, we try to make it very simple for people to use. Uh the stick stove is all interlocking, so there's no part that's gonna break. And the other thing too is what I like about it is uh if you go into a camping, you can have a thin pair of gloves on and still put your stove together.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Oh, I see, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

So you just rub the plates and put them in, and you still have your gloves off so you don't get the cold hands.

Thanks And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_00 8:06

That's excellent. Well, thank you very much for joining us today, Denis. Uh get back to selling your stuff, man. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Very cool, man. Have a good day. All right, brother. Bye. Be good.