Olive Oil Non-Leaking Travel Container

[beauregard]

I always take a small container of olive oil when I go hiking, but plastic containers ruin the taste and all the glass ones I've tried always leak, no matter how tightly I screw on the cap.

Does anyone know of a non-leaking container?

[Blether]

Plenty of choice of innocuous oil-holding glassware at the pharmacy, isn't there ? You just need a reason to go on a baby oil rampage...

[Alex]

"I always take a small container of olive oil when I go hiking..."

Now, if that doesn't exemplify "eGulleteer," nothing does. I love it.

Echoing Blether, I also would look at supermarket jars, e.g., artichoke hearts. You also can buy specialty travel containers like this one.

For a belt-and-suspenders approach, you could put your container in two layers of resealable plastic bags (but I suspect you already do that).

[beauregard]

Hey Alex . .

"I always take a small container of olive oil when I go hiking..."

Now, if that doesn't exemplify "eGulleteer," nothing does. I love it.

Thanks! The full truth is, I'm a rock-climber and I always bring bread & olive oil (Taggiasca) to the crag. I was outdone one day by a French couple I was climbing with ~+~ she pulled out a quich she had made that morning.

The supermarket jars haven't worked. I've been using a pomodoro in olive oil jar, but it leaks, and two layers of plastic bags, exactly as suggested by Blether always end up with olive oil in the inside one. Very messy.

Thanks for the link to the hair products site. I'll call them and grill them about leakage in topsy-turvy conditions.

~ beau

[Joe Blowe]

I've always had good luck with glass baby food jars when carrying my olive oil out and about

[paulraphael]

I don't think polypropylene has any effect on the taste. Most of the whitish squeeze bottles and capped bottles are made out of that (look for the recycling symbol ... should say 5 and PP). I've seen them at outdoor stores and at restaurant supply stores. If you use one of the squeeze bottles, forget the little red cap on the tip. Just put some plastic wrap over the opening and screw the large cap over it.

I always bring olive oil on climbing / backpacking trips, especially in the winter. A big dollop does wonders for a freeze-dried climber's entré. I'm not interested in having a glass bottle in my pack.

[jgm]

I often buy wine for cooking in the small, individual serving bottles. They're strong for their size, and the caps screw on tightly. I've transported olive oil in them, and have never had a leak, but I've also not transported them under the conditions you're talking about. I would definitely put them inside a resealable bag under those conditions. Just an idea.

[Blether]

... and two layers of plastic bags, exactly as suggested by Blether...

Hey ! Don't blame me for the plastic bags !

[beauregard]

I must have been having an, er, cognitive discontinuity when I put up this post. I just remembered that for a brief time I used an . . . olive oil bottle I filched a small, perhaps 6 oz, bottle of some cheap oil from my daughter, emptied it, and filled it with the good stuff. Wrapped it in a couple of layers of duct tape and for the couple of weeks I used it, before losing it, it didn't leak. The top was metal with a plastic insert.

I'll spring for another bottle and report back in a week or so.

With chagrin

Beau

BTW, at one point I thought I was clever by using a Stanley Tools metal hip flask, but the seal just couldn't keep the thing from leaking.

[djyee100]

I emailed my friend Carole Latimer, who was a wilderness outfitter & gourmet cook (also a cookbook author, http://books.google.com/books?id=uu1dw0FZDTsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=wilderness+cuisine&source=bl&ots=pWTYWlT_c1&sig=o46Eedbbbp_GcFbKgAqZ4ljJqJE&hl=en&ei=m-U0TNXUFs3nnQer4dyABA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false). This was her reply:

"Yes, there is a leak-proof way to carry oil. Use a Nalgene bottle and give

the lid an extra twist to make certain the lid is screwed down tightly. That

will probably do it, but I also then slipped the entire bottle into a zip

loc bag for 'leak insurance.' You could double-bag it to be sure and I also

sucked all the air out of the zip-locs. It's important not to fill the

bottle too full. Give it at least a couple of inches from the top. Also, if

you are going to a higher elevation that can cause any liquid, including

oil, to be forced out of the bottle. So at the trailhead open the bottle to

let out the expanded air and repackage as before."

Hope that helps. I don't recall nalgene bottles as having that blah taste that one can get from regular plastic bottles. Any outfitting store like REI carries a wide selection of nalgene bottles.

[chococat]

Maybe you could use an inexpensive stainless steel flask (the kind used for sneaking drinks during boring family functions)? As long as it's got some sort of silicone seal, it should be leakproof and crushproof. It might be hard to clean, but if you only used it for oil, it might not be an issue. If you're hiking in the mountains and you'll be doing some significant altitude changes, you might need to stop every few hours to "burp" any airtight container to release any pressure from expanding headspace to prevent leaking.

[JimS]

How about a good old backpacking staple, the SIGG bottle? They're aluminum and some models are gasketed...shouldn't leak.

[paulraphael]

I like the nalgene bottle idea better than the aluminum bottle idea, just because those aluminum bottles (originally designed for fuel) are practically impossible to clean. The opening is so small. You definitely won't get off flavors from a nalgene bottle. Nor will you get them from the small polypro bottles (for what it's worth, every restaurant kitchen I've seen, including high end ones, uses polypro squeeze bottles for oils and vinnaigrettes).

None of these options should leak, although I try to remember to put my oil bottle in a zip-lock just to be on the safe side. I'd consider nalgene if you need a big volume, or a generic pp if you don't.

[beauregard]

OK, here's what I came up with.

I bought a $4.75 bottle of Colavita, emptied it (I can always use the oil for cleaning, or, in a pinch, as motor oil), washed it, wrapped it in two layers of duct tape, and filled it with good Taggiasca oil.

I carried it on a rock-climbing weekend, in a single plastic bag in my backpack, and it didn't spill a drop. I'll continue to keep it in a bag, just because vegetable oil bottles always get a little oil on the outside over time.

For water I switched a long time ago to metal from nalgene because the water always tasted so bad after just a day in plastic. It'd be interesting to do a blind tasting of oil that's been in a glass container for a month and in a nalgene container likewise. It's hard for me to believe that the nalgene bottle wouldn't impart some plastic taste.

Thanks everybody for your comments.

[paulraphael]

I can't speak for the new formulation of nalgene bottles, but the older polycarbonate ones don't impart any taste. I'd put money on any blind taste test. Polycarbonate is one of a number of plastics that's been used for years for food storage and prep, all the way up to the highest levels of restaurants. I suspect added flavors come from water getting brackish, and maybe from slimy residue from bacteria clinging to the plastic. At least the wide mouths make them easy to clean. Like most people, I probably don't clean mine as often as I should.

Most food grade plastics are much less reactive than aluminum (though I doubt you'd have trouble with metallic flavors in oil, unless the oil is particularly acidic. I wouldn't dismiss the importance of an easy to clean bottle, especially since you seem to like nice quality olive oils. Oil residue in any bottle will eventually go rancid and spoil the flavor of whatever new oil you pour in.

[beauregard]

Hi Paulraphael ~

>> Oil residue in any bottle will eventually go rancid and spoil the flavor of whatever new oil you pour in.<<

That's another reason to use glass, and since I always decant olive oil I sterilize the bottles once a year (I think olive oil at room temperature doesn't spoil for two years), but that won't work with my now duct-taped bottle. Next time I'll find something removable to wrap the bottle in.

~ beau

[thock]

Beau,

If you can find a can cooler (huggie, whatever you want to call it) made out of neoprene, you can probably make it fit the bottle with judicious use of a pair of scissors and some Shoe Goo. I use two, stacked, on my Klean Kanteens to help protect them from dents. I imagine that it would also protect the glass loads better than duct tape.

[beauregard]

Finally, a satisfactory solution.

I use a round, screw-top 6-oz steak sauce bottle, wrapped with 1/2-inch thick foam plumber's pipe insulation, then wrap the insulation with heavy-duty clear packing tape. The foam makes a nice soft cup which can be removed for cleaning. The foam also greatly reduces the danger of breakage in my backpack.

Other notes:

• The duct tape idea was a bad one: the bottle can't be sterilized in boiling water

• Chococat, I tried a qood quality stainless steel hip flask, made by the tool company Stanley, but it leaked. I think oil lubricates the plastic O-ring seal so much it loses it's effectiveness.