Stealin' Time

Looking West from Colin Top
I had to go into the town yesterday afternoon and as we had sleety rain all morning I hadn't done much except footer around in the garage. As I left the village I glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed snow on the hills, a closer look and I asked my wife if she had her mobile phone with her. She got the picture immediately and asked if I was phoning in to work to book the next day off (Should have been starting my shift on Wednesday) Less than 2 miles after leaving the house the job was done and the die cast.

I decided to take my old Telemark skis in the off chance that there would be sufficient snow, not entirely a wise decision as I haven't skied in over 10 years and I wasn't all that good anyway. Set off this morning and was on the approach through the forest by 10.00am but as sods law would have it the snow cover was thin and icy!!. I ended up carrying them most of the time as any attempt at downhill running resulted in being forced to adopt the 'Luge Style'. They came in handy on the uphills though once I put the skins on so it wasn't a total waste of effort. Seems that there were 2 temperature ranges today, too warm and too cold but a good day all in all. I used the Minibull GWK again and it works well.



I invented a lightweight compact teaspoon last night too, searching for a plastic teaspoon at 1.00am I could only find a double ended medicine spoon. I cut a slit across the small end and it now clips/slips onto the handle of my GSI long spoon. It isn't robust enough for anything other than spooning coffee/sugar/etc and stirring but thats all I need it for anyway so I'm happy enough with the result. I've included a pic for clarity.



Loughgarve

I think this about sums it up though. ;-)

Corinna, Maine to Glenariffe, Co. Antrim

Sometimes I actually make it out of the workshop/garage. We had snow start to fall Monday past and as I knew it wouldn't stay around too long I took a day off work on Tuesday with the intention of heading to the hills. I wanted to try out my woodstove but there was more snow than I expected and I couldn't find wood that was even remotely likely to burn. I had taken my MBD Gramweenies kitchen too so I used it and the included MBD Mini Atomic stove. It worked no problem apart from the fact that I had nothing to set it on except for the backpad from my rucksack. Still, a lesson learned. In the end it was worth the effort as the snow had completely disappeared by Thursday.

But in Practice there is!!

"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is"

I'm not sure who said it apart from me just now but it's true.

I've been convinced that 'Performance Cookware' was the way to go and that titanium was a poor material to make cookware from due to it being a poor conductor so it was with great expectations that I ordered a Primus EtaPower 1.0L pot to use primarily with my own design woodstove and back-up MBD Blackfly #4. I've been out in the garage testing various combinations and the results are interesting to say the least (well interesting to me)

The set up was the MBD Blackfly #4 (a meths burning wick stove)my woodstove which I built specifically to accept the Blackfly #4 and 500ml of cold tap water. I'd previously tested the same with an titanium Alpkit Mitymug and it took 11.43 to achieve a rolling boil in an ambient temp of 11deg.

I had used a 20mm high potstand with the Mitymug but due to the heat exchanger on the Eta pot I used a 30mm high potstand. The ambient temp tonight was 8/9deg.

The box the Etapower pot came in states,

"Increase Stove Efficiency with 50%" and "With Primus EtaPower pots your stove becomes 50% faster and 50% more efficient"

It does say they can be used with any existing LP gas or multifuel burner on the market but doesn't mention meths burning wick stoves.

I tried it 1st with the 30mm pot stand, time to bring 500ml to a rolling boil? 14.43!! Obviously something wrong there, rather than being faster it was actually 3 minutes slower. I wanted to prove to myself that the Eta pot was in fact better so I switched to the 20mm pot stand, this time a rolling boil in 10.43, 1 minute faster than the previously tested Mitymug. Not IMO significant. I noticed that the Eta pot started to produce steam very early, as early as 3 minutes so I wondered if the lid was a poor fit. I tried again this time using a lid from a Tibetan ti 900 pot which was a much better fit. This made no practical difference (10 seconds) Still desperate to prove my theory correct I re-tested the Mitymug as it was slightly colder in the garage than the previous night (only 3 deg but I was desperate) The Mitymug time was within 15 seconds of the previous test at 11.58, totally insignificant. Finally having accepted that the EtaPower pot didn't even come close to living up to the hype with my stove I tried a further 2 pots, both part of the Gelert Ascent 2 kit, the larger 1.0L pot managed 11.54 and the smaller 500ml pot 11.03

The times were as follows,in each case the pots were filled with 500ml cold tap water, the Blackfly #4 was the source of heat.

EtaPower 1.0L = 14.43 (30mm stand)
EtaPower 1.0L = 10.43 (20mm stand)
EtaPower 1.0L = 10.33 (20mm stand, Tibetan ti lid)
Mitymug 750ml = 11.58 (20mm stand)
Gelert 1.0L = 11.54 (20mm stand)
Gelert 500ml = 11.03 (20mm stand)

What conclusions should you draw? well your own of course :-)

Based on my intended use with my stoves my conclusion is,

The EtaPower pot isn't worth the extra weight over the Mitymug or the extra cost over the Gelert Ascent 2 cookset. There's way too much steam produced by the EtaPower pot for reasons that remain unknown to me for me to want to use it in a tent. Titanium seems to work just as well as aluminium in spite of it being a poor conductor. The smallest pot you can get away with is probably the best and last but by no means least,

The Blackfly #4 is a fantastic little stove.

Gramweenies Kitchen Pot Cozy

I was pretty busy today but in between jobs I made a pot cozy to fit the Ziplock Pot that holds the Minibull Design 'Gramweenies Kitchen'. The Ziplock container is tapered but I used a program to calculate the size and shape I needed to cut out of the foil sheet. I noticed that even though I've got pretty big hands (size 10-11 gloves) that it was pretty slippery to hold so I made a hand strap from a belt that came with a pair of Columbia trousers. The strap is adjustable so should fit regardless of whether I'm wearing thin/thick/no gloves. I use a GSI long Spoon and it doesn't fit into the Super Pot but I discovered that it can slip behind the hand strap similar to the way the Jetboil Utensils can be stored in the optional PCS Cargo Cozy . I'm quite pleased with the way it worked out.

Minibull Design

I've just received my order from Tinny at MBDC, I haven't had time to try it out the stoves yet apart from filling them up and giving them a burn. I like the look of the Mini Atomic but any of them will easily store in my Woodstove as a back-up. I ordered a Gramweenies Kitchen set which is nice and light, 330g all in including one bottle of fuel. That said my Woodstove set-up is pretty competitive weight wise at 258g although that doesn't include fuel or the foil windshield.



The Blackfly #4 fired up.



Gramweenie Kitchen c/w Mini Atomic

Own Design Woodstove c/w Tibetan ti 900 pot

Thoughts on Pots!!

I was reading Tinny's (MBDC) blog recently and his findings regarding the Jetboil and Primus ETA pots got me thinking about cooking pot design. It seems that when the Jetboil burner was used with a Heineken pot the results were pretty much the same as any run of the mill stove. Tinny also noted that the Primus ETA pot worked well with a meths stove so the conclusion has to be that the technology used in the pot is at least as, perhaps more, important (but less glamourous) that that used in the burner.



I happen to have a Jetboil GCS pot that I'm unlikely to use but I think an experiment is in order, how efficient will my woodstove be if I use the GCS pot rather than my usual pots?



It's strange to think that although MSR came up with the XPD Heat Exchanger way back in the late 80's that the only development since has been the Jetboil, the Primus ETA and of course the MSR Reactor. I think that's a pretty poor show to be honest. Given the number of Cookware brands out there you would think that someone could think outside the box rather than simply producing the same old, same old, sometimes with nothing more than a change of Brand Name to distinguish one from the other.



http://www.minibulldesign.com/

http://www.msrgear.com/

http://www.primus.se/

http://www.jetboil.com/

What's this then??

A work in Progress.

New gear Ordered

I've just placed an order with Tinny at MBDC. I ordered Blackfly #4 wick stove and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. I also splashed out on a Tibetan ti 900 pot from Trek-Lite which I hope will hold my Mini Woodstove. I think I'll call my woodstove the "Einzel Kocher", nice and pretentious don't you think ;-)