Old trailer → full camp kitchen that feeds 20–30 turtles for two weeks in the dust. Open source — fork it for your camp.
Building · v1 · synced with the live inventory📐 NEW: Visual Build Guide — floor plan, cook line, boil-in-bag workflow, dish pit, greywater loop →
We're converting an old trailer into a full commercial-style camp kitchen: a propane cook line, real refrigeration with a walk-up cold box, commercial prep surfaces, a proper cleaning station, and e-track storage so everything survives the Boulder → Black Rock City haul.
Design drivers: food safety in 100°F dust, fast crew meals during build week, and a layout where the messy stuff (dishes, greywater, handwash) lives outside the trailer.
The big idea (kitchen planning doc, 7/25): we're pre-ordering fully cooked, frozen meals. The kitchen reheats and serves — it doesn't cook. Bags go into a large pot of boiling water, ~30–45 minutes per batch. The big propane burner is the workhorse; the camp stoves drop to backup duty (coffee, eggs, quick items).
Why it wins on playa: almost no cooking mess → dramatically less dishwater · no raw-prep food-safety surface → simpler sanitation · predictable service times → happier, fed turtles. 🐢
| Station | Must-haves |
|---|---|
| Reheating | Large stock pots (submerge multiple bags at once) · long tongs / slotted spoon · timer · instant-read thermometer (verify water + food temp) |
| Serving | Ladles + serving spoons · hotel pans / large serving bowls · chafing dishes or insulated containers (hold temp through service) · serving tongs · food covers vs. wind + dust |
| Eating | Plates/bowls/cups/cutlery — strong case for disposable: kills a whole dishwashing loop and saves real water. Bag trash immediately = no MOOP. |
| Cleanup | Rubber bench scrapers (scrape before wash — saves water) · 4–5 dish basins (coarse pre-rinse / wash / rinse / 30-sec sanitize — David 8/6) · biodegradable soap · paper towels · greywater evaporation — non-negotiable, nothing drains on playa |
| Safety | Class K or ABC extinguisher near the propane · heat-resistant gloves · kitchen first aid kit |
| Gear | Qty | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backyard Pro dual propane burners | 2 | Received | 150,000 BTU/hr each → 300k BTU/hr total. Ship with 10 PSI hose + regulator — no separate manifold needed. |
| Backyard Pro single burner (BREWKIT2) | 1 | Received | Comes with 40 qt / 10 gal stainless brew pot — soup, pasta water, dish water. |
| Propane, 20 lb tanks | 6 | Not bought | See tank math below — consider 40 lb or 100 lb for the mains. |
| Heat shielding | — | Flag | Stainless sheet or cement backer board on ~1" standoffs, gap open top + bottom, behind/beside each range. |
| Butane lighters | 10 | Not bought | They vanish. Buy many. |
| Gear | Qty | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| GE residential fridges (16.6 cu ft) | 3 | Ordered | Standard top-freezer, white. Daily-use boxes. |
| GE chest freezer (21.7 cu ft) | 1 | Not bought · HIGH | Garage-ready, Energy Star, manual defrost. Bulk frozen reserve — runs outdoors under shade. |
| Vegetable cold box ("the coffin") | 1 | ¾ built 🔨 | Plywood shell + XPS foam + 2× ~5,000 BTU window AC units. A walk-up cool room for produce — 12-step build guide. |
| 150 gal ice chest | 1 | Not bought | For the transport leg + ice runs. |
| Gear | Qty | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regency 2-compartment commercial sink | 1 | Ordered | With dual 18" drainboards, 16×20×12 bowls. Dishes happen outside the trailer. Anti-plug (built 8/6): outlet expanded into the basin + a bucket with drilled holes dropped in as a solids filter — empty it periodically. |
| SHURflo diaphragm transfer pumps | 2 | Received | Pressurize the wash water. Inlet side SOLVED ✅ — custom transition hose built at Tipco (Denver): 2" Kanaline + cam-locks + ball valves, to David's spec. |
| Separate handwashing station | 1 | Flag | Required by food safety — separate from dish sink, outside the trailer. |
| Steramine sanitizer tablets | 1 | Not bought | Final basin: 30-sec sanitize dunk after coarse-rinse → wash → rinse (David's 4-basin method, 8/6). |
| Greywater collection + waste pumps | 2+ | Not bought | Submersible utility pumps + float switches. Leave No Trace: no greywater on playa. Ever. |
Chef Marcus runs this kitchen. The cook line, the cold chain, the bins, the boards — if it's food, it's his call. He arrives Saturday 8/30, and everything on this page is his welcome packet.
Marcus is a full kitchen editor — anything he re-homes, re-counts, or re-organizes, the boards update to match his reality. He's the chef; the kitchen is his. If he tells you where something lives, that's the answer. 🐢💚
Camp family: Marcus · Jeremy (ops) · Shaka (the bard) · Terri 🐢 (the turtle who never forgets). Radical Inclusion — every camper, every question, no gatekeeping.
Every food supply, sourced from the real receipts (WinCo 8/24 ×2 · Chef'Store 8/24 · Bonanza Produce 8/25) + the build-week meal plan. ❄️ = cooler-needed · 📦 = shelf/dry.
The master tools list — every knife, pan, and gadget, mapped to its bin. Updates flow from the bin narrations.
The daily rhythm, so any turtle can run a meal:
This whole playbook is a gift. 🎁 The full 277-item procurement list — with vendors, specs, quantities, and live status — is in Turtle Bins 📦, and the raw data is at agent-kit/inventory-data.json.
To adapt for your camp: scale the cold chain to your headcount, redo the propane math for your burners, and keep the food-safety layer intact — it's the part that keeps everyone dancing instead of down. 🐢