Esbit?

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'

New Cooking System

I managed to shave a few more grams by changing my cooking system again. I had been using an Alpkit Mitymug mk2 which looks identical to the Tibetan titanium 700ml mug and is marginally lighter than the mk1 version which is similar to the Vargo ti-lite mug. I used it as my cooking pot and carried a 450ml Tibetan ti mug. I'd toyed with the idea a while back of simply using the 450ml mug as I rarely need to boil more than 500ml of water at a time but in the end I decided against it.

My next experiment was using a 330ml Heinie can as a mug and to complement it I ordered a 24oz Heinie can from Tinny at MBD to use as a pot. I found that when using the 330ml can as a mug it was too hot to hold even if it hadn't been used on the stove so I ordered some wick from Tinny to wrap both pot and mug. It has to be said that the Heinie can are nowhere near as robust as the titanium pots and once you wrap then with wick much of the weight advantage is lost.

I had been browsing a few e-shops and on Ultralight Outdoor Gear I found a Tibetan ti 550ml version of the Mitymug and on ebay 'Treklite' were selling a mug to match, a Tibetan ti 375ml. I ordered both and used them when I took the Hike-Lite tent out for a trial and everything is fine. I always liked a metal mug as it gave me an extra option for cooking even if a plastic mug would probably be lighter however the next change to my system means I can't actually use the 375ml mug so maybe a plastic cup will be fine............ if I can get one that fits the 550ml pot.

The item in question is similar to the Caldera Cone. A guy on Outdoors magic, Captain Paranoia, came up with a program/script that allows you to print a template matched to your own pot/burner combination and also allows you to decide how many vents you want and what size you want them. All you need to do is download 2 programs off the net (GSview & Ghostscript) to use the template file. The template supplied suits a Mitymug but by opening the file in something like wordpad you can change the parameters, Pot height/diameter, burner height, distance between burner and pot etc. Once done the file is saved with the suffix .ps and it then opens automatically using the downloaded programs. Then all you do is print off the template, tape it to a sheet of aluminium foil and cut it out. I used 0.20mm alufoil but you could use heavier or lighter.

I haven't tried it out in the field but have tested it outside and it seems to work fine, I'm pretty confidant that efficiency is improved but regardless it combine windshield and potstand in one unit and improves stability. Obviously it only works with one size of pot so I can't use the 375ml mug on it. Storage is a slight problem although the Capt Paranoia suggests using 2 x 500ml meths bottles cut to fit inside each other as a caddy. I'm not sure if I'll use that method, I'm going to simply roll it inside my Closed Cell sleeping mat which seems to work fine.

My cooking system now comprises;

Tibetan ti 550ml pot & lid - 88g
Tibetan ti 375ml Mug - 57g
EK Alcohol Burner & Measuring Cup - 23g
Cone Windshield/Potstand - 27g

Total (inc Stuff Sack) 214g



My Cutlery comprises a GSI Long Spoon at 12g and a plastic disposable teaspoon at 2g so my complete cooking System weighs in at 228g. If I wanted to include a woodstove an Ultralight version of the EK750 based on ones built for a customer in Sweden adds an additional 89g.

For the record the 2 Heinie pots wrapped with wick and including lids weigh 104g, only about 40g difference, not as tough as the titanium set but still an option if I'm really desperate but I'd need to make another cone to suit.

Trip to the Cairngorms

Just back last night after a few days in Scotland, my plan was to do a bit of walking/camping in the Cairngorms coming in from the Linn of Dee. I'd already booked the ferry so even though the weather forecast wasn't promising I had little choice but go. The trip didn't exactly go according to plan, for one thing I decided to leave my ice axe, crampons and stiffer boots in the car to save a bit of weight (my pack was already around 19kg what with gear that isn't exactly lightweight, 4 days food and around 1.5kg of camera and lens) I didn't really have any definite plans preferring to be flexible but with the benefit of hindsight I was perhaps a bit too flexible as I wandered around a lot and changed my mind too often.

In any case it was an opportunity to try some new gear and some older gear in a different environment. It was my 1st real try with my new Terra Nova Laser so I was looking forward to seeing how I managed, also I'd opted to take an EK Kombi as my sole means of cooking, I'd brought my C-3 mini gas stove but decided to leave it in the car reasoning that in the absence of suitable fuel for the wood stove I could rely on the back-up alcohol burner. Most of my main meals were made up of a variety of supermarket dehydrated meals but I did take a Wayfarer and a Mountain House main meal for variety.





My kit list was as follows,

Shelter
Terra Nova Laser

In addition to the 12 supplied pegs I took
4 x Vargo nails
10 x Camcleat Y's

That added 250g

Plus a Footprint at 194g

Cooking Gear
EK Kombi c/w Meths burner
Alpkit Mitymug
Tibetan ti 450ml mug
Plastic Mug
Tibetan ti Folding Spork
GSI Long Handled Spoon
Mora Carbon knife c/w flint
Cosy for Ziplock Bags
2 x 250ml Bottles of Meths
6 x 14g Esbit Tabs

Sleeping Gear
Field & Trek Moonlite Down Bag (bit of a misnomer as it weighs over 2kg)
Highlander Thermalite Compact Self Inflating Mat (another misnomer as it's neither compact or lite, just over 1kg)

Water carrying
Aquagear Bottle
L Ortlieb Bag (only filled prior to setting up camp)

Food
I made up 4 foodpacks which consisted more or less of the following,
Breakfast - Muesli, Coffee
Lunch - Fruit/Cereal Bar, Mini Smoked Cheese, Garibaldi biscuits, Cuppa-soup*, Instant Mocha/Cappuccino*, Chocolate (Mars)
Main Meal - Cuppa Soup, Cup Pasta, Mrs Mathesons Smoked sausage, Coffee.
Night Snacks - Cuppa Soup, Coffee + whatever was left from Lunch/Main Meal.

I tend to drink a lot of coffee and eat constantly when I'm stuck in the tent with nothing to do so everything was used up, in fact the Mountain House Rice and Chili was so utterly disgusting that I couldn't eat it, that resulted in using additional fuel (fortunately using the wood stove at that time) and a raid on the next days meal. I'm definitely going for a dehydrator, one from Westfalia at £26 will be fine. I don't expect to see a massive weight saving as the only stuff that wasn't dehydrated was the sausage but at least I can make something I like in the quantities I need.

Lighting
Osram Dot-it LED light
Energizer Headlight

Clothing Carried
Gaiters
Shell Gloves
Lowe Mountain Cap
Goretex jacket
Light Trespass Overtrousers
Montane Flux
Spare L/S Sub Zero Thermal
Pair light Fleece Trouser Liners
Spare pair short Socks

Misc
1st Aid Kit
Trowel
Maps/Compass/GPS
Repair kit
Wash Kit
Panasonic SDR-S7 Cardcam + 2 spare batteries (carried in a CCS Belt Pouch)
Olympus E-3 & 14-54mm lens + 2 spare batteries & spare CF Cards (carried in a CCS Pouch clipped to the rucksack shoulder straps)
Lens Pens/cloth
Pair Highlander Trekking Poles
German Army Penknife

Clothing Worn
Chocolate Fish Merino L/S Base layer
Mountain Equipment Liskamm Trousers
Fleece Zip Neck Top (£2 at Primark)
Tacgear Windshirt
Fleece Hat
Salomon Socks
Meindl Borneo Boots



I used a Karrimor Condor 65l SA rucksac to carry it all.


I think the only thing apart from the 1st aid kit that didn't get used was the spare base layer top, the fleece trouser liners I wore once at night. Of the other stuff I could probably manage without,

Folding Spork
Plastic Mug
Mora Knife (retaining the Flint)

That would save 172g. I won't take the TN wire skewers again, they're light but compromised, instead I'd take 6 Camcleat Y's, 4 Vargo Nails and 6 Blacks Alloy Skewers for a total weight of 249g. As it turned out I was glad to have the TN Wires, I accidental left the EK Kombi Windshield support rods behind after stopping for lunch on day 1 and had to use 2 TN Wires that evening, actually picked the 2 rods up again on the way back!!

Of the rest I'm not sure where to make a saving, the sleeping bag is sorted as I'd already ordered a PHD bag at around 900g, a saving of over 1kg, I should and probably would have taken a smaller camera but for the fact that my wife had taken it with her to Spain. That would save 889g (E-3 + Lens 1418g, C5050 529g) As for the sleeping mat, well I could have taken an Alpkit Wee Airic or gone retro with a Karrimat Extreme strapped to the outside which incidentally I had to do with the Thermalite. Either option should save about 500g although I'm considering a Pacific Outdoors Ether Thermo 6 at 623g. It seems pointless saving 100g but all the 100g here and there add up and at 10st I can't afford to carry any unnecessary weight.

Although the trip was a bit shambolic due to poor planning and indecision everything worked pretty much as it should, the Kombi performed flawlessly, used 3 times in wood stove configuration, once with an Esbit tab simply to see how it performed and all cooking that was done inside the porch was done using the meths back-up as a stand alone stove. I had no problems with stability as a skewer through the baseplate kept it rock solid.

The Laser was mainly fine but I have to say there are a few areas where I feel that a compromise was accepted in an attempt to save a few spec sheet grams. It seems to be extremely prone to condensation, even with the ends vents hiked up, that wouldn't necessarily be a major issue if the inner and fly could be separated easily but they can't so by the time it was packed and bagged the entire tent, inner and outer was saturated. I have to say that once pitched it does offer a comfortable amount of space for 1 especially if you're sitting out bad weather as I did in Glen Nevis when it rained constantly from arrival late afternoon Tuesday until I left late morning Wednesday. I'll post a few thoughts on the Laser comparing it with the Phoenix Phreeranger/Phreeranger EB but that'll keep for another time.

Of the clothing I used everything was fine, the Liskamm's were warm, pretty windproof and water resistant and dried quickly, the Montane Flux was fine but I expected that as I'd almost worn it out when I got it, the Tacgear windshirt did what it was supposed to do and was pretty cheap, my fleece cost £4 from Primark (zip neck, shockcorded hem, elasticated cuffs, 2 handwarmer pockets) and did what a fleece is supposed to do and the Chocolate Fish Merino top worked away in the background keeping me dry, warm and socially acceptable.

The biggest problem I had was my rucksack, for some reason I couldn't get it comfortable, it seemed to press on the belt of my trousers or cut into my shoulders, never had a problem with it before, the only thing I can think of is that since I last carried that amount of weight in it I've had a bad RTA on a motorbike, a few broken ribs and a broken shoulder blade among other things resulted in my right shoulder being 1-2" lower than the left, either that or my wife is right, I've just had too many birthdays :-)

All in all not exactly how I imagined it but I'm looking forward to a return visit with a lighter load and some idea of where I'm going. Perhaps the weather will be a bit more predictable next time!!

Tent Pegs & Minimalist Cooksets

Left to right,Pencil (not a tent peg) Vango Y Peg, Camcleat Y Peg, Vargo Nail, Phoenix Phreeranger Alloy Channel (Bulldog Brand IIRC) Terra Nova Laser ti Wire Skewer.



I got my Vargo Nails and ZeRo+ guyline today from team io, top service, they only got the order yesterday as I ordered it really late on Monday night. I bought 4 which together with 4 Camcleat pegs and the standard Laser ti wires should hopefully cover most bases. The ZeRo+ guyline is strange stuff, it's almost wiry, if you coil it it stays coiled. At 1.5mm it's even thinner than the Laser guys but it also comes in 1mm!! must look like thread. The nails look really tough but I've so far resisted the temptation to hammer them into a piece of wood. I'll have to wait until I finish my shift before trying the Laser with the new/extra guys. I also need to make a groundsheet protector from a thick poly bag just to finalise the shape and in case the Coated Ripstop I ordered from Point North doesn't arrive on time.

ZeRo+ Dyneema, 1.5mm 195kg b/load

On a slightly different note, I was messing around again with meths burners and I might just have a really light set-up that should work for me. I reckon I can easily get away with about 300ml of water for a main meal which at present is basically a Bacheleors 'Cup Pasta' with some Mrs Matheson's Sausage added (No dehydrator yet) I have a Tibetan ti 450 mug and a poly mug with the handle cut off which fits into the ti mug or onto the base of my Aquagear bottle. My burner is simply the Tealight style burner and 4 section welded ire pot stand that comes with the EK Kombi. It together with a 0.1mm foil windshield fit into a small plastic food container which in turn fits the 450 mug. The whole set weighs 60g, less if I made a mini stuff sack for the burner set rather than the plastic container and takes up virtually no space. I've already tried using it in the Laser porch but with the Mitymug and it worked fine. It's pretty stable and if need be I can put a tent peg through the eyelet in the burner base plate. The burner has a magnet on the base so it doesn't get tipped easily and as i demonstrated in the EK Kombi vid isn't prone to spillage even when lifted and tilted from side to side. Depending on the ambient temp and how well sheltered it is 20ml of meths will heat 500ml until it's too warm to drink even if it isn't strictly speaking a rolling boil. A few more trials need to be done at the weekend.

Stability.

I was curious to know how stable my Mitymug sized woodstoves would be given the fairly small footprint, the EK750 is pretty short but the new model I've been working on is a bit taller so stability on uneven ground was likely to be a concern. I've previously used the old "tent peg through an air vent trick" but wondered what I could do if I couldn't get a peg in on rocky terrain. I came up with this,





I reckon that if you need more stability than that you're going to need a hanging stove.

Einzel Kocher

Time for a bit of shameless self promotion. I've decided to try my hand at selling lightweight and compact backpackers Wood Burning stoves. I'm calling them Einzel Kocher and I've got 2 different models available. The 1st (EK900OB)is designed to fit the Tibetan Titanium 900 pot and is the most basic design. I've listed 5 on ebay at £15 each plus £3.50 shipping 1st class Recorded, The second model (EK750OB)is designed to fit the Alpkit Mitymug and while it's essentially the same design it has a few extras, I haven't listed it yet but I'll probably need to sell it at £17 plus £3.50 shipping as it's a bit more difficult to make. I'm supplying both stoves with a Ripstop stuff sack. I have a 3rd model built to final prototype which is a bit different than the others, it'll also fit the Mitymug as long as the mug lid is fitted upside down (the stove is about 5mm taller than the mug) There's more information on my website if anyone is interested.

www.einzel-kocher.webs.com


EK900OB


EK750OB

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.

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

Woodstove #1 Final Design

I finally got my Tibetan ti 900 pot and finalised my design for a woodstove to fit. I ended up with an open base design which means I can store a meths burner as a back-up, unfortunately it means that the ash falls through onto the ground. A tin foil ashtray or similar solves that problem. I also managed to get some welded wire mesh and I've decided to use it for the pot-stand. All in all I'm happy enough with it but I've got a few other ideas to try
Regarding the Tibetan ti pot, it's quite nice with a matt finish but not as nice as a Snow Peak pot. The lid is a pretty loose fit as it sits on the pot rather than in desipte the flared section at the top of the pot. If the lid did sit in the flared section then the stove would need to be shortened so I'm not too concerned. The stove weighs in at 133g, stove and pot weigh in at 260g.

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 ;-)