I have a question for you all. What pot have you found to be the best? I really like the snow peak 450, I think it will have just enough volume for my boil-in-bag meals. My question is do wider pots, like the evernew .9L, work better with this stove? It seems that a wider pot would be more fuel efficient, but does it really make that much of a difference?

as a side note, those of you who use the titanium wing stove with a snow peak cup, what do you use for a lid and how did you get/make it? Thanks

-Stephen

I've used both the snowpeak 450 and 600 cups with the titanium esbit stove with excellent results. I always have part of the esbit tab left over after the water boils.

That's one of the things I like about esbit. I get much better results than with alchohol stoves when used with these narrow pots.

Dan

Same experience as Dan's. Esbit works well with narros pots. Alternatively, tea light/insulation alcohol burners seem to me to work better with small pots than most over alcohol stoves.

Daniel, did you find the 450 to be big enough for boil-in-bag meals? I usually use about 400 mL, so it sounds perfect, but in practice I am not sure if it will boil over. any comments from your experiences?

The 450 cup is not quite large enough for lots of the mainstream backpacking meals (mountain house, etc) that typically seem to need at least two cups of water or more. The 450 cup fits just shy of that, and as you guessed that's to the brim. I usually fill mine to about 1/4 inch from the top to prevent the boil over and that works good.

I like the Mary Jane Farms backpacking meals, and lots of these only need 3/4 to 1 cup of water. The 450 cup works great for that. It kind of depends on your appetite of course.

I'm currently using the BPL 500 cup (the one without handles) which is even lighter than the 450 cup and has slightly more capacity. I'm pretty happy with it, and it has a proper lid. There has been an issue with some lids not fitting well, but mine seems ok.

Cheers

Dan

I have switched to the 1.5 L. JetBoil pot. It has the neoprene cozy and "Flux Ring" heat exchanger on the bottom, both of which seem to make it more efficient than my 1.5 L. Backpacker's Pantry alumuinum pot.

With the BPL Ti wing ESBIT stove I also always use the REI aluminum windscreen & acompanying ground reflector disc.
Works great for me.

Eric

Edited by Danepacker on 03/16/2007 22:24:32 MDT.

>I have switched to the 1.5 L. JetBoil pot.


What is the weight of the pot, and also separately the two plastic covers? It felt rather heavy. However it might save much more weight of alcohol if it significantly improved efficiency. I'm hesistant to pay that much to find out...

Edited by Otter on 03/16/2007 23:45:59 MDT.

The Jetboil system, although heavier than most setups, is very efficient... boiling water is very quick which conserves fuel. You can have water hot enough in about 2 minutes for coffee or most anything else that requires hot water. I really like mine and so far it has performed flawlessly in the field. It's a great system.

>The Jetboil system, although heavier than most setups, is very efficient.


Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was referring to the JetBoil GCS 1.5L cooking pot, available separately for $50. I'm trying to decide whether the extra weight of this pot is worthwhile for use with my alcohol stoves. I have a JetBoil PCS already, but that pot is very narrow. I suppose I could run some tests of my RedBull Cobra stove on that pot v. a Snow Peak Trek 700 Ti, which is about the same size, to see if there is a noticeable difference in efficiency. I do like the JetBoil PCS; my rule-of-thumb for it is 2 cups, 2 minutes, 0.2 oz of fuel.

Edited by Otter on 03/17/2007 14:14:40 MDT.

Stephen,
I have used the wing stove in conjunction with the Snow Peak Ti solo cook set (830 ml). It measures 3.75" dia. and has scorch marks all around the sides where the flame laps beyond the base, which means that energy is being wasted. Recently I acquired a lighter aluminum pot from Anti Gravity Gear that is the same capacity but shallower and wider - 5" diameter - and it does boil quicker. IMHO the wider the pot, the more effecient use of energy. Some folks even go with a shallow but even wider tea kettle, such as the aluminum one from GSI.

If you're using the wing stove... presumably you are using Esbit... probably the typical 14g cubes. Altho' the flames do lick up the sides of my beer can pot a little bit (I'm not using the wing... but a custom setup... flame about 1" from can bottom) this doesn't bother me since I always get a boil anyway. Also, a windscreen that comes up the pot a ways helps to trap some of that energy and funnel it around the pot. Maybe, if I used a wider pot I could quicker boils and use half cubes... but I doubt that any pot would give you an esbit boil with just half a cube... and I'd end up with a significantly heavier kitchen. My current setup is 1.7 oz before fuel. For a weekend trip with 2-3 boils... the extra efficiency would actually be much heavier. I'd probably have to be out for a farily long trip before the efficiency of a wide pot would pay off.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... sure... a bigger pot might be more efficient... allowing you to carry less fuel... but Esbit is pretty light to start with (0.5 oz per cube) and even if you could use it more efficiently... it's not exactly an easy fuel to portion. It's easier just to use a whole cube each time. Maybe for a thru-hike I'd want to look for a wider pot option and switch to 4 gram cubes that would make fuel portioning easier.

Stephen
My take on the pot size is that it should roughly fit the flame size. Not very scientific but it works for me. I use the Esbit Tommy stove and a cheap aluminum 4" pot and lid from Target. It's real light and with an aluminum wind screen, I have no compalints. I love the bear can pot too.
I Like the Tommy because the side walls hinge in and out which changes the the available pot size easily.
Here is a great web page with another twist on the sove and Esbit tabs
http://www.kzpg.com/Backpacking/Stove/Howard's_Esbit_Stove_3.0.html

John

Edited by jbaird on 03/18/2007 16:15:33 MDT.

David,
I checked out the photos of your homemade stove and was quite impressed! Your system is more than half the weight of mine, and since I use the pot for water boiling only, a narrow, deep beer can may be just the ticket. However, it's probably too narrow to use on the wing stove - such was the case with the snow Peak solo pot as it just barely caught the ends of the stove's wings. So, I'm going to attempt a beer can pot as per your directions in the spirit of fairness and open mindedness. One question though: did you ever try making the stand out of the Ti rod you used for the handle? There are several Ti bike frame builders here in Seattle, and perhaps they can weld the rod if it's not too thin.

Hey Monty,

Thanks. I've been pretty happy with my final design. You're right... the beer can is too small to be stable on the Ti Wing. Some people have bent the legs... but I've never been happy with the result. It's pretty sketchy. But my stand + v8 can bottom doesn't weigh any more than a Ti wing anyway. In fact... it's lighter.

WRT the stand... I am in the process of getting some stainless steel mesh to remake the stand... so I won't get heavy metal offgassing from heating up the galvinized mesh. Plus... the stainless will last forever. I have thought about making a stand from Ti rod... but I think it would have to be welded... and I don't think I have he ability to do that. I don't think a "Z" stand would be stable enough made from that tiny tiny rod. And beside... I really love the way all my parts pack up right now... and changing anything would ruin that. McMaster Carr sells 1/2" spaced Ti welded mesh... but it's $100 / SF. Yup... $100 for 1 square foot!!!!!

BTW... the stove is pretty expensive to make as spec'd. You can make it a lot cheaper by using oven liner for a windscreen and a coat hanger or rubber thimbles for a handle / gripper. It will be heavier though of course... and the aluminum windscreen will not pack up as nice and neat as the Ti foil. With an aluminum screen... I would probably just roll it inside the pot... not try to roll it up with the other bits... as shown in my video.

Edited by davidlewis on 03/19/2007 15:39:21 MDT.