I was ordering some stuff from Germany a while back and had added a 20 pack of 14g Esbit solid fuel tablets to try. I carried some on my April Cairngorms trip as a back up but I only used them once simply to make a cuppa and they seemed to work fine although I didn't investigate any further. I'd seen the Tibetan Titanium branded Esbit burners online and recently added one to an order I'd placed with Ultralight Outdoor Gear, they cost £6.98 and shipping is free.
Mine weighs about 11g which is pretty light as it incorporates a pot stand and the Esbit tablets weigh 14g each packed which makes for a very light set-up. The question was how well they would perform and how many would I need to use to heat 500ml of water.
I've started using a Cone style windshield/pot stand but decided to try a basic foil windshield as the burner itself supports a mug/pot. The windshield was pretty short to be honest as I was using a 750ml Mitymug and the results weren't all that spectacular. The 14g tablet burned for around 18 mins but I couldn't get the temperature above 96 deg C. Obviously that's close enough to boiling for most purposes but I wanted to try again with the Cone style windshield. This was much better, it took around 11 mins to reach 99 deg C but more importantly there was still about 1/4 of the Esbit tablet left.
I would rarely need to boil 500ml at a time, in fact my new pot only holds 500ml so it it looks like a viable alternative to meths. There are pro's and con's though, some that I've though of are listed below but there are sure to be things I've overlooked.
Meths
Pro's, Reasonably Clean, Easy To Meter, Reasonably Efficient, Stove is Light, Little or no smell, I can use mine in the porch with doors closed.
Con's, Fuel needs a suitable container
Esbit
Pros, Lighter than my Meths Set-up, Easy to store/carry, May not need a burner as you could prop the mug on some stones and use a flat stone as a base for the tablet.
Con's, Acrid Smell, I wouldn't want to use it in the porch, Leaves Residue on the pot.
I'd be tempted to use it in preference to Meths but for me it's important to be able to use my stove under cover if the weather is bad. I could carry a few Esbit tablets as back-up or looking at it another way I could consider the esbit set-up as the main stove and carry the meths burner and a small amount of fuel in case I needed to cook under cover.
Weight Esbit Set-Up
Burner - 11g
Fuel - 140g (10 x 14g tablets sufficient to boil approx 5.0L water)
Tibetan ti 550ml Pot - 88g
Cone - 27g
Total - 266g
Weight Meths Set-Up
Burner (inc Measure) - 23g
Fuel (inc Bottle)- 224g (sufficient to boil approx 5.0L water)
Tibetan ti 550ml Pot - 88g
Cone - 27g
Total - 362g
For comparison my gas set up weighs,
C-3 Mini Stove (same as Markill Peak Ignition/Gelert Blaze) - 89g
Fuel - 100 Cartridge - 194g (sufficient to boil approx 5.0L water)
Tibetan ti 550ml Pot - 88g
Windshield - 40g
Total - 401g
I haven't looked at my gas set-up recently but I must admit that when I totaled the weights it surprised me how close the gas set-up is, a lighter windshield or stove would make the difference negligible.
There's been a real upsurge in interest regarding solid fuel, Esbit in particular this week, in fact 3 other people have posted on the subject. In the interests of spreading the information I'm adding links to the other posts.
Darren at 'Whitespider1066'
Baz at 'Baz's Backpacking Blog'
Phil at 'Phil Turner'
