Don't get too excited just yet. You still need to receive the top piece with the spout and fire chimney that needs to be attached at the top of the kettle. For some reason it ships in a separate package.

I got a bit confused as to how the kettle operated until I received the top piece in the mail 2 weeks later.

Edited by dag4643 on 04/02/2011 21:52:53 MDT.

Now I understand why my is only 7oz
Franco

I'm #168(or169?)! Got it as a surprise gift from my Dad two days before a 3 day trip in Oregon. It rained the entire time (yeah Oregon!), and so spent a lot of time under shelter in the morning and at night. I went with some backingpacking beginners that wanted to try to make a fire. That didn't go very well, as I only had a RAT Izula with me for splitting wood, but it made PLENTY of wood for the Boiler! I was a little nervous about using it in such wet conditions, but finding some fresh deadfall wasn't to bad. The efficiency of the boiler was awesome. Boiled 4 cups with just a small section of a 2" branch. I used my knife to baton the wood into quarters, which made getting the wet bark and moss off much easier. I made some feather sticks to be my kindling, and used a tiny piece of a PJ soaked cotton ball (which I keep inside short segments of straws with the ends melted) to get it going.

Only downside is the smell in the pack, but I didn't notice it passing on to anything else, though this was a short trip.

I had a gigastove with me, and it's much more convenient in the rain, but I had more people than I anticipated that I was boiling water for, so having the boiler with me was nice insurance. I had both stoves going at the same time!

#023 has landed. Testing shall commence promptly.

I have been doing some preliminary tests with alcohol.
So far I am at getting boil of 500ml in 6 min and a total burn of 7:30 min with 1 oz .
Of course I only want boil but if I reduce the alcohol to 3/4 oz it just misses the boil.
I might get my snuffer working on that.
This was with a Pepsi type burner.
The White Box almost got a boil in 6 min but run out of fuel and something like that with the 10-20 stove too.
Will do some more fiddling with it...

This is my "emergency alcohol" kit. I have 4oz of fuel in there, I think that I can get about 6 maybe 8 oz with
the larger version of that foil container, still to fit inside the BB down to the std stored size.
Franco
(note: no kids around me when hiking...)

Edited by Franco on 04/06/2011 16:03:23 MDT.

Got the BCB out last weekend for its first burn, and did a HD video of it. The sweetness.

Devin,

I hope you don't mind me using your image to make this!

You all are so rock and roll. :)

I particularly like the alliteration, Callahan! I need to blow that up and put it on my wall. :)

Just found that inside the kettle was a good place to put some tinder / wood for next fire ... but i read this thread completely to check and indeed Devin had already posted this :)

My second idea was to cut in about half ( heightwise ) the stopper, it would save about 8g, any reason not to do this ????

My last question is what about the durability ???, i really enjoy using this on day or week end trips, but would it be insane to have it as your only mean to heat water ( not the fact about using a wood stove, i have used a bushbuddy and a titanium nimblewill for a long time ) but thats my first wood stove in thin aluminium, even if the water inside is supposed to protect it .

Hi Fred - right on on the kindling. There would be nothing at all wrong with cutting the stopper in half, other than cosmetics, as long as it stays large enough so it doesn't fall in. :)

It should be solid on the durability front for normal use- I've used my 6 oz (considerably thinner) first prototype for almost 2 years now without a hitch. Local trips, checked luggage, the Sierras. Just use it according to the manual and it should be just fine!

I wondered if anyone had tried a top down fire:

ie build layers of parallel twigs then light fire on top, so burns gases from twigs below: ie how you would build fire in bush buddy style stove (see UK TGO magazine Eddie meechan article)

I recently had a chance to fiddle around with one of Devin's boilers... GREAT KIT! Details here:

Boilerwerks Backcountry Boiler

Edited by donmeredith on 04/22/2011 08:12:20 MDT.

Zelph has been experimenting with this sort of thing in a Kelly Kettle, and it seems like it works quite well. The two kettles are similar enough that I think it ought to work well for the BCB, since the main difference (other than that the BCB is a lot ligher) is the size and shape of the firepan.

Thanks for the video, Hendrik! Good quality work.

As if I didn't want one bad enough already!