Food & drink - camping hack or internet crap?

When it comes to eating well outdoors, the internet is overflowing with “life-changing” camping hacks, but do any of them actually work when you’re miles from home, cooking on a wobbly camp table, with kids asking for snacks every 12 minutes?

We’re putting three viral favourites to the test:

• S’mores tray bake
• Keeping burgers juicy
• Drink ring holders

Are these hacks the real deal… or just clickbait dressed as camp cuisine? We asked real campers (the ones with dirt under their fingernails and marshmallow on their sleeves) to find out. Let’s find out which ones are:

The ultimate dessert that everyone can onboard with

Who doesn’t love a s’more? It’s the unofficial dessert of every childhood holiday. One bite and you’re instantly transported back to long summer nights, smoky hoodies, and the sheer victory of getting the marshmallow just right (or setting it on fire…no judgement).

So can we improve on a s'more?

The idea: a family-sized s'more tray bake

No more waiting around to roast individual marshmallows, one at a time, this promises a whole lot more yummy-ness bite after bite.

Just load marshmallows, chocolate, biscuits and strawberries into a foil oven tray, cover with foil and place it in the embers. Leave it in for about 5 to 10 minutes, then take it out carefully, open it up and??????????

The verdict:

Delicious, melted, gooey perfection - one giant tick of approval

Keeping burgers juicy

No one likes a dried out burger from the campground BBQs, so we trialled a hack to keep them nice and juicy.

The idea: Press an ice cube into your burger while its cooking

Add your burger patties to the BBQ, then press an ice cube into the center. The idea is that you’re adding extra liquid right at the point when the burger sears and seals, trapping the moisture inside.

Top it with cheese and seasonings and then when cooked, build the burgers on the buns.

The verdict:

It was almost impossible to tell the difference between the one cooked with ice and the one cooked without it.

Storing your drinks

Drinks rolling around in your car, fridge or pantry isn’t good for your sanity, or the drinks. Let’s see if we have a hack to solve this...

The idea:

Using a 4-pack drinks ring holder groups all your cans so they can’t roll. Hint - keep a couple handy, you never know when you might need them.

The verdict:

Those cans are not going anywhere - safe as houses.

Final say

Two hacks, one crap - I'd say that's pretty good going from our camping hack testers.

Check out more camping hacks tested and tried by true campers or watch the video below: