Review – Using the TK Wide and insulated Food Canister from Klean Kanteen

When I first held Klean Kanteen ‘s TK Wide at the ISPO exhibition this year, I was full of ideas what I could do with it. Big excitement, when the TK Wide and insulated Food Canister arrived at my front door for a test review.

Klean Kanteen a Californian company founded in 2002, brought out their first non-toxic, BPA free bottle n 2004. Since then, they have been creating reusable products to keep single-use waste from trashing the world. TK Pro, the first 100% plastic-free bottle made from stainless steel and silicone, won the Ispo Gold Award in 2019. The new TK Wide shares a similar TK Closure™ design using different lid materials and has a wide mouth opening. It is marketed with outstanding performances in keeping fluids hot or cold.

Do I need a thermal flask in summer?

We prefer to travel on our road trips as light and simple as possible. No fridge, no cool boxes, no electricity. The foodstuffs must hold up to 1-2 days. Meats, fruits and milk, must be able to survive heat up to 50°c in the blazing heat or else, we will have to go without it.

Whipping up a good meal outdoors off our MSR stove goes along hand in hand with our road trips. Leftovers do happen. And I hate wasting food. I store them usually in a pot under my sleeping bag to keep them coolest for a long time. Hmmm yes, it had been a creative but messy affair. A solution had to come by.

Features

The newly released TK Wide, is paired with a TK Closure™ and Climate Lock® double-wall vacuum insulation promising to keep drinks and food warm up till 22 hours and cold for 75 hours. There is a rounded lip at the opening for a better drinking experience. A wide-mouth opening simplifies cleaning and filling up the bottle with either fluids or food.

The TK Wide is coated with Klean Coat ™, a chip-resistant finish making the bottle 4x more durable while you do your adventure. The 18/8 stainless steel inner wall is electro-polished, BPA and toxin-free. It does not retain or impart flavors.

The TK Wide in action

With all this in mind, I filled up the TK Wide with a cold apple juice from the fridge and locked the doors as we left for a long weekend out to the sunny side of the Alps. The weather promised us 33°c as we pitched the tent in the blazing heat. 15 hours passed, I opened the TK Wide that has been since standing unprotected in the sun. The apple juice was chilled and cold. Opening it allowed some hot air to fill in the empty space of the bottle. So I closed it quickly. Another 18 hours passed. It was time for climbing. I stuffed the TK Wide inside my climbing pack. After a sweaty ascend up the crags, it was time to check on the apple juice. A refreshing sip came to my lips. The juice was still cold even though it was refrigerated some 33 hours ago! The rounded rim made it easy to drink directly out of the bottle.

The next days, I filled up the bottle with a chilled juice from the supermarket and diluted it with ice-cold water. I used to replace juices with syrups coz they would turn sour too quickly in the heat. Now, it was one problem less.

I wanted to improve my hydration habits. Therefore, a smaller version wasn’t an option. Most of the time I was drinking too little because I didn’t quite enjoy what I was drinking. TK Wide helped change that.

The Food canister in action

The evening came, there were leftovers from our dinner. In this heat, it would ‘ve been impossible to keep any of it until the next evening without inviting a chance of salmonella infection. I filled the insulated food canister with the leftover poultry /tuna and screwed it tight. I made sure the food had cooled down in the pot before transferring them to the canister. It was already 12°C at night.

The next day at noon, I opened the insulated Food Canister. It had more or less the same temperatures as I packed it in the night before. Worked definitely better than the pot. And no worries for staining my sleeping bag with sauce. The lid was leakproof.

Back at home, I used the Food Canister for packing in chilled Cherries, Melons, portions of food for the lunch breaks, etc. The double-walled insulation delivered good results and I surprised everyone at the crags every now and then with a chilled cherry or two.

Cleaning

Cleaning these two bottles was an easy game. The openings were so wide, I could easily use a normal sponge to clean the inner walls with my hands. (Note: I do have small hands) No bottle brushes were necessary. Simple and perfect for road trips. The caps are dishwasher safe – however, dishwashers aren’t usually an option for road trips. 😉

Handling and Taste

The 18/8 stainless steel bottle is robust and its inner walls are electro-polished for easier cleaning. Regardless of what you put inside – juices, smoothie, coffee or just plain water, it did not leave any taste influences after a good soapy wash with warm water.

The bottles weigh 567 g (including cap) and 372 g respectively. Not a lightweight, but neither is it the heaviest, comparing to my usual thermos bottle. Day trips are fine to take the TK Wide along. The swivel loop handle on the TK Wide cap makes it easy to carry the bottle as you go. When not in use,  just click it back in place. The 946 ml bottle is too fat and too bulky to fit in one of the outer mesh pockets of a back-pack. So it’s better to pack it inside instead. You can exchange this cap with a Coffee Cap if you are a coffee lover or a Straw cap for shakes and smoothies.

The verdict

The TK Wide became one of my favourite outdoor gadgets for this year’s summer. The insulation worked extremely well. I was amazed to still find my ice cubes swimming in there the next day. I have yet to test this in real winter conditions, so a small update will be posted later.

The 946 ml flask is the second last biggest size available. It is still ok to hold in my small hands but it needed a firm grip so that you don’t lose or drop the bottle on a hill while drinking. A silicone or nobbed grip design outside might help?

The TK Pro in this size could be the better bet for tea or coffee since it comes with a cup (and allows your hot beverage to cool down to the right temperature) Then again, with the smallest version of the TK Wide, combined with a coffee cap, you have a perfect coffee-to-go mug for the day.

For the future, I’d love to see those lids manufactured like the TK Pro to make the TK Wide 100% Plastic-free too one day.

The TK Wide and Insulated Food Canister are not one of the cheapest on the market. However, they are durable, sustainable and a better choice than using a single use-and-throw plastic product daily. In the long run, you do your environment better and keep the oceans a lot less from plastic trash. What more, Klean Kanteen is 1% For the Planet members. They have contributed more than $2 Million to environmental organizations that are dedicated to preserving and restoring wild places.

Klean Kanteen products are available directly from their online store or other online distributors in Europe.

Their Motto: #Bringyourown
Let’s do this together.

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[Disclosure: I have received product samples for my time and efforts in reviewing this product and creating this article. I am under no obligation to give a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own ]