Just gotta say, I got the new version in the mail today, and it's very nice looking! Can't wait to play with it...

George,
Hey I just got back from a trip and when I picked up my mail I had the newer version of your stove. What a great thing. I bought the 1st verson and you sent me a free upgrade, Thanks! The new design sure helps with a curved bottom beer can pot. I was having trouble keeping it lit with the single row of holes of the old design, now works like a champ.

So the stats: 2 cups of 60 degree F. water to 212 degree F. rolling boil in 9.5 min. and continued to boil for 1.5 more minutes for a total of 11 min. burn time on 0.5 oz. of alcohol. All at 750 ft. above sea level. Improved designed stove wt.= 11 gm. on my scale.

This is an amazing little stove!

Thanks again.

-Mark

Edited by markhurd on 08/14/2007 20:46:32 MDT.

Mark, that's great! I haven't had much time for testing recently, but that certainly is better than I had witnessed in the initial testing. The stove was designed to boil 12 ounces and burn for a min. of 7 1/2 minutes, but I had gotten times of up to 9:45. The fact that you are able to boil 16 ounces even blows me away. Maybe you need to test all my stoves :)!

I think I may have the older version of this stove as mine does not seem to stay lite under a keg can but it works perfectly with my MSR titan kettle. The flame pattern coats the bottom of the pot perfectly. Just what I was looking for for my up and coming grand canyon trip :)

This thread has my wife all excited. Yes, my wife, not me, the geek. I don't know what's wrong with her. She wants (me) to start building and experimenting with these on our back patio. There's something about gear that involves being outdoors that turns her into a dweeb. You should have seen the rack we ended up with when we were rock climbing. Ugh.

Jonathan,

How many rows of holes does your have. I intially sent out about 6 stoves before I caught the problem, and I thought I had sent everyone the updated stove. PM me and let me know.If it's the single row I'll sent you the updated stove right away.

Edited by hammer-one on 08/18/2007 12:32:42 MDT.

so what do i have to do to buy one of these stoves?

Do what George recommended that I do: go to his Web site and just order it online!

I got my stove two days ago and played with it a bit; it's small but looks really rugged, more crushproof than any alky stove I've handled. At 30' above sea level I got boil times with 12oz. of tap water around 6:30...I couldn't get 16oz. to a roiling boil on the standard 1/2 ounce of fuel...I'm optimistic this could be different in the mountains, but with wind, who knows. On my next trip I'm taking both my AGG Caldera Cone/Kitchen/SUL500 mug and the gram weenie to have a high-altitude boil-off!

Hats off to George for an insanely clever idea. The stove is minimal, built like a tank, hot as all getout, and a perfect fit for mugs and super-small pots. A Gram Weenie-based cooking system - all components except, ahem, except my BPL spoon! - fits inside a the SUL500 mug! :-)

Are you guys putting a row of holes around the bottom of your windscreens? If so, are they going all the way around--or just partially around? How much space between the pot/mug and the windscreen? (I'm new to alcohol stoves.)

Edited by ScottFree on 08/23/2007 23:16:39 MDT.

Scott,
The windscreen included with the gram weenie is minimal to begin with, and you probably won't be happy putting holes in it. Because of the small size of the stove it is very responsive to adjustments to the windscreen, ie; if you want the stove to burn a little hotter close the gap around the pot, and open the gap a little to cool the stove a bit. That being said, if I were going to put holes in the screen I think I'd just put them on one side along the bottom, allowing you the option to turn the windscreen around for a total windbreak.
George

Edited by hammer-one on 08/24/2007 15:48:40 MDT.

Geroge:

I too am intrigued by your stove. Can your stove bring 2 cups (16 oz) of water to a rolling boil as a matter of routine -- using a FireLite 550 pot?

Ben,
I've been playing with this stove today and using an MSR Titan pot I have gotten 2 cups of 60 degree F water to 205 degree's with 1/2 oz. of alcohol repeatedly. The elevation here is about 750 ft above sea level. I could not get a rolling boil, but 205 degrees is just fine for what I usually "cook." I've noticed a lot of folks don't post the starting temp of the water. Others start with 70 degree water. I assume that if I'd started with 70 degree water I would have gotten a rolling boil.

I had posted my first test of this stove here and did get a rolling boil that one time, but have not been able to repeat my original results.

Hope this is helpful.

-Mark

Thanks for the feedback, Mark!

Ben, the gram weenie was designed to boil 12 ounces of water, and that it does well. I never expected 16 ounces to boil, but as Mark pointed out, it will under optimal conditions. I'm also in the camp that if I can get the water temp. close to boiling that's good enough for me, as I mostly reconstitute dehydrated/freeze dried meals. Unfortunately it's a tradeoff b/c if I made the stove taller to gain more fuel capacity it would lose stability and gain weight. While the stove works extremely well with a keg pot, it really does shine under the firelite 500 pot. I have to say, the more I use it the more I like it!

George:

Thanks for the feedback. Your stove is both imaginative and impressive! :)

Ben, Mark & George:

I've been playig around, making a few of these stoves and have been getting consistent 8:20 roiling boil times on exactly 1/2 ounce of fuel using measured 2-cups of cold tap water. I am also now getting total burn times of 11 minutes flat! (I live at 200' above sea level)

Here's how: The trick was to simply use a hammer and with a couple of quick blows, flatten down the rounded inner bottom portion of the base so that it doesn't stick up into the chamber.

That effectively gained me the extra space needed for the 1/2 ounce of alky and I didn't have to extend the height at all!

Steve,
I am a little confused about the modification.

As I see it there are two parts to this stove: the BASE which is a cylindrical cup cut from the bottom of the bottle and what I would call the INSERT which is the top of the bottle inverted into the BASE. So given this terminology which part do you hit with the hammer? Do you do this prior to assembly or after assembled?

I have no problem putting in 1/2 oz and in fact can get about 0.1 oz more if careful.

Finally, and most importantly what is the starting temperature of the water you are boiling?

Thanks,
-Mark

I just can't get a boil after more than a dozen tries (fiddling with the windscreen between tries.) I've got small bubbles on the side of the mug (Snowpeak 600 with lid) and I'm sure it's hot enough for my uses, but I'm jealous that everyone else is getting a boil and I can't. On my last attempt, I used 12 oz of tap water at 71 degrees. Still night at about 1800' above sea level. The windscreen is about 3/8 inches from around the cup. From the time I lit the alcohol until it went out was 6 minutes and 45 seconds. I'm using S-L-X denatured alcohol from Lowes. I'm wondering if the extra mass of the Snowpeak 600 is holding me back. Do I need the Firelite 550 or beer can in order to get a boil? Anyone else have success with the SP600?

Scott,

I'm using S-L-X alcohol and the MSR Titan pot which is slightly larger than the Snowpeak. A wider pot bottom is pretty important for heat transfer from what I understand. I doubt the mass of the pot has much to do with it (see Roger Caffin's article at http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_StovesTech.htm#CO for a great education on stoves). My own experiments with a 24 oz beer can pot and the gram weenie stove showed that I could only get the water up to about 180 to 190 with 1/2 oz. of alcohol. But the same stove with the MSR pot got up to 205. I think mainly it is due to the surface area of the bottom of the pot in greater contact with the flame. However, I am definately getting a longer burn time than you, but I've been doing it in my kitchen and not in the field.

You might try a wider pot just to see if that changes the temps you get.

-Mark

After lots of frustration trying to use narrow pots (snow peak 450/600/firelite500 etc) with alcohol stoves, I've reverted to an old standby: The Evernew 0.9L Pot. It's only disadvantage is the larger size/packability, but weight wise it's extremely light, especially considering it's capacity. My pot with the handles removed and without the lid weights 2.1 oz. That's lighter than a SP600 with the handles removed. Add a pie tin foil lid and the complete setup is only 2.2 oz. That's the same weight as my firelite 500, and the larger size and capacity is much easier to deal with. If you use the stock lid, it's still only 3.3 oz (handles removed).

Additionally, I have been consistently getting full rolling boils with 20 ml of alcohol, (something I've never achived with narrow pots-excpet with the caldera cone) which actually weighs under 0.5 oz, so lighter than ESBIT (which I am a big fan of).

Edited by dag4643 on 08/28/2007 20:48:55 MDT.