is there a hack out there to stop the base of your mess tin going black when you are cooking over an open fire?
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Use a fuel that does not produce soot?
Flames with a yellowish tint usually produce soot …
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Not a hack to stop the discolouring, more how to get rid of it after the fact. From past experience you get soot and sometimes a brownish residue from whatever you are burning (hexamine fuel/hexi cooker), a wet teabag is very good at removing whatever is on the bottom of your messtins. Typically this would be leftover from you making a brew.
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I was just going to say that; not that at HQ level I would stoop to having to make tea on a hexi stove using a mess tin - we had kettles for Pete’s sake!) but more a reflection of my time in a TA Infantry Battalion, who took life very seriously and blew the cobwebs off me in no uncertain fashion, which I’m sure was good for my military soul - though it didn’t always feel like it at 2 in the morning digging in on Sidbury Hill(!) But “Yes” a teabag makes a useful short-term scourer for said problem.
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Or if you’re like me you paint the exterior with black engine hot paint which you cure in the oven.
Cures to flat black tactical finish - no shine.
Mal
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I used sand and a bit of water.
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Only cook over a blue flame?
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Scrub with steel wool?
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No. You have to save your steel wool for soap dish charges.
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Yeap, sand or soil will get it back to a nice shiny state…that’s all I ever used
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Actually, overall blackened would eliminate reflective surfaces. The “enemy” won’t spot you when you’re chowing down! 
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David, I’ve got to ask? Just how tactical are you??!! Do you mot have access to Fairy Liquid and some steel wool?
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Indeed, though the paint does wear off to a degree over time.
Regarding cleaning there was a small piece of green polypad issued with NZ rat packs to take care of that.
Mal
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fairy liquid and cleaning things are best described women’s work. 
I’ve never used mess tins so I’d thought I would ask the experts. I did hear stories of coating the bottom of the tin with a thin layer of mud or using cold wet ash from a fire to clean the bottom of the tin.
@Biggles50 @Maximus8425 @Johnnych01
the used cold wet tea bag is very interesting and I’m wondering if the tanine in the tea leaves has something to do with it? this was the same remedy that was suggested to me to deal with severe sunburn when I was in Cambodia.
I took a look around the house back in June and realised that everything is powered by electricity and prolonged power cuts would be an issue. we have gas for the old style air flow heating system and i recently had the boiler serviced.
I’ve already purchased a small butane stove and additional gas canisters and I’ve made some additional buddy burners and hobo stoves. I’m not trying to build a peppers paradise but I have additional food in the house and car incase I got stuck at work.
This was from initial training back in '85 when all you used was issue kit hence the hexi stove. I remember the training staff showing the tip about the tea bag and not having to put filthy black mess tins into your kidney pouches which then proceeded to make everything else black. Jump forward a few years and Coleman, Calor and Jetboil stoves pretty much made it a non issue. Amazing how the little things stick in your mind even 41 years later. I remember the Lance Jack in charge of our section, a bloke called Zachewicz was killed in a motorbike crash a few years later.
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Scrub the outside with wet sand from the nearest stream to remove some of the soot. You also just need to learn to live with the “sinkers” and “floaters” and realize that no matter which side of the fire you sit on, the smoke is going to blow into your face…
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I think I used mess tins for about 8 months then went straight to black metal mug and a gas burner in a spare water bottle pouch.
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Basic Training and AIT - Mess Kit
SFQC - C ration cans tossed into a fire, water heated in canteen cup
SF early- Predominate use of mutli-fuel stoves to heat water for LRRPs
SF later - giving away MREs for better food
SF FID missions - going to restaurants armed to the teeth
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MSR XGK Multi-fuel and a Bundeswehr mess kit. Drop my ruck on the tail of my skis and sit on it while cooking on the front of them. I could probably still spark that thing up and boil enough water to make a mocha in less than 5 minutes…
But seriously, who really cares how dirty the outside of your cook pot gets? It’s like a Gallager skit: “Who cares? You can’t cook and eat on the outside of your canteen cup!”
The trouble is, as I found out (through a rare tactical phase of my military existence) is that the QM doesn’t keep commercial gas cylinders; he does, however, maintain mountains of hexi.
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