Better setup for boiling water

[Psamathe]

Last summer I switched to a Primus OmniLite - very expensive but I really like it (only used with gas so far).

We have a rather older iteration of the Primus, the original MFS (multi fuel stove), which does gas as well as paraffin and petrol. And while it does do gas okay it is substantially less good than our pure-gas Primus Gravity, mainly because that has a dedicated gas burner with lots of holes rather than a general purpose spreader for multiple fuel types.

Thus, if you have a gas-only trip on the cards it might be worth supplementing the OmniLite with something like a Gravity as it's quieter and better for fine control. I never bothered measuring but I wouldn't be too surprised if it works a bit efficiently too.

Pete.

I have then special gas burner thingy (from Primus https://www.primusequipment.com/eu/en-g ... i-silencer) that reduces noise and has the multiple holes (in addition to the main jet). It did seem to get through gas quite quickly but then I'd decided not to take the wind shield (I purchased on in Bever but too late into the tour to know if it made much difference).

I like it but do acknowledge that it's probably overkill for boiling water for coffee. I may easily take the liquid fuel components as well next tour.

Ian

[bohrsatom]

by the time you have a larger canister and a bayonet adapter (France) the pan is getting quite high and it's all a bit unstable.

I do a lot of cycling in France and as threaded gas is so hard to find I often end up with a Campinggaz CV270 canister with a converter valve on the top. With that in mind, I'm starting to think that the gas + converter + 10cm cartridge-mounted stove + pot full of water is not going to be the most stable setup, even with a stand underneath.

Think I'll check out a remote stove, which is kinda funny because I sold my Primus spider on here for a knock down price a few years back, soon after pledging allegiance to my Trangia

[Tangled Metal]

I've seen a convertor that turns a can top stove into a remote stove. Can't remember where and don't know if it is a good system.

Trangia with meths isn't great in the cold. I gave up on boiling water and went to the pub to eat crisps and drink beer for dinner after 40 plus minutes without getting even close to water too hot for touch! Seriously meths trangia burner went through 3 or 4 refills without getting hot enough. Whereas a caldera cone easily managed it quickly in wind and cold higher up the hill than the valley campsite the trangia failed in. Get a gas kit if trangia is even a consideration.

Weight of stove isn't important if you're carrying extra gas instead heavier stove might save gas weight.

[pjclinch]

I have then special gas burner thingy (from Primus https://www.primusequipment.com/eu/en-g ... i-silencer) that reduces noise and has the multiple holes (in addition to the main jet).

Oooh, don't think that ever existed for the MFS, nice one Primus and removes my issues. Our Gravity is a bit lighter than the MFS but thanks to the Ti I think your one with the gas silencer would be about the same anyway.

Pete.

[Jdsk]

...
Trangia with meths isn't great in the cold. I gave up on boiling water and went to the pub to eat crisps and drink beer for dinner after 40 plus minutes without getting even close to water too hot for touch! Seriously meths trangia burner went through 3 or 4 refills without getting hot enough. Whereas a caldera cone easily managed it quickly in wind and cold higher up the hill than the valley campsite the trangia failed in. Get a gas kit if trangia is even a consideration.
...

(Trying not to widen this to all cooking stoves... )

Please could you tell us a bit more about that:

The problem was with heat output, not with lighting?

What fuel were you using?

Thanks

Jonathan

PS: Trangia sell a winter preheater:
https://trangia.se/en/shop/winter-attachment/

[MartinBrice]

I have found that when using methylated spirits in a trangia stove in cold weather that a quick squirt of cigarette lighter fuel on top of the meths will light immediately and after a few minutes will get the methylated spirits working very well indeed.

And the Swedish army uses a form of Trangia in the winter so it must work okay.

and I suspect that if you have a problem with the meths not burning to the correct temperature, then you may have a low quality meths and I discovered this when I was cycle touring in Spain some years ago because in Spain there is a weak methylated spirits that is sold in supermarkets to use as a form of kitchen cleaner and It simply does not burn.

[PH]

If you put the Planet X in your watch list you’ll get an offer of £27 + p&p Total £31

I’m tempted

I passed that on to someone I know was thinking of a stove - They messaged my back this afternoon saying al PX camping kit is currently 50% off and they've bought one for £24 inc postage.

[Tangled Metal]

...
Trangia with meths isn't great in the cold. I gave up on boiling water and went to the pub to eat crisps and drink beer for dinner after 40 plus minutes without getting even close to water too hot for touch! Seriously meths trangia burner went through 3 or 4 refills without getting hot enough. Whereas a caldera cone easily managed it quickly in wind and cold higher up the hill than the valley campsite the trangia failed in. Get a gas kit if trangia is even a consideration.
...

(Trying not to widen this to all cooking stoves... )

Please could you tell us a bit more about that:

The problem was with heat output, not with lighting?

What fuel were you using?

Thanks

Jonathan

PS: Trangia sell a winter preheater:
https://trangia.se/en/shop/winter-attachment/

Lighting was not an issue but it simply didn't heat the water. It did once get close to boiling with a small number of bubbles forming on the bottom of the kettle as the at first full burner spluttered out, then by the time I had refilled the water had cooled down.

I've years of meths experience since but it took me years before I went back to trangia and then I got the gas kit and that's what we used van camping now.

My meths burner experience is with ul kits like whitebox stove, caldera, AGG cookies which had a can burner with preheat tray. Imho UL meths burners are better than trangia burners and kit. Less thermal heat used up by the burners due to mass perhaps or simply better optimised in the case of WBS and Caldera Cone stove. I also had a remote reservoir meths burner, the result of winning a competition, I think you could refill that while it's burning if needed but it was a furious, fairly windproof flame so I never needed to do so.

IMHO the cottage industry, UL backpacking sector especially from USA has some very innovative cooking stoves and even portable ovens! I used to like meths for that light and forget while you put your tarp up knowing you'll be setup just as your brew is boiling. Then it's mug for drinking and enough to rehydrate your dinner. Loved the UL ways!

[Tangled Metal]

The Swedish army trangia is no close relative to the standard trangia I believe. It's a better design that's optimised for cold. Or that's what I've read from people in the know about such things and army surplus kit from Europe armies. You might as well compare mini trangia with the 27 or 25 trangia. Different product and performance.

PS don't buy a mini trangia, they're not good at all. If you most get a clone version as they're actually better made than the trangia one!

If trangia is your thing then look into the UL alternatives with a similar but 2 rings of jets and a lighter windshield design. Can't remember the brands now but they're better burners I once read.

Oh, that awful failure of the trangiai had was with meths bought from cotswolds outdoors. At the time a decent outdoor shop so I don't think dodgy meths applies.i think I used the test up in another meths stove years later without issues. I'm not one for throwing things away and my next meths use was on a can type burner from AGG which has always given good performance.

[bohrsatom]

To imagine what things would be like with the Soto Windmaster, I did a trial run of the skyscraper setup: CV270 gas + campinggaz to threaded gas converter + pocket rocket stove and the titan kettle on top. It was very unstable on grass and although a canister stand helped a bit, this made the whole package even taller which made shelter from the wind even more important. The Soto burner is around 2cm taller than the pocket rocket so I came to the conclusion that this wasn't going to work...

Instead I went for a remote stove: the Fire Maple Blade 2. Essentially the Alpkit Koro as recommended by iandriver but with a newer generation burner. Whilst not as compact as the pocket rocket it still packs away small and fits into my titan kettle. Everything feels much more stable and a nice benefit is being able to use the canister inverted which I find makes the stove more efficient when running low on gas.

[andrew_s]

...
Trangia with meths isn't great in the cold. I gave up on boiling water and went to the pub to eat crisps and drink beer for dinner after 40 plus minutes without getting even close to water too hot for touch! Seriously meths trangia burner went through 3 or 4 refills without getting hot enough. Whereas a caldera cone easily managed it quickly in wind and cold higher up the hill than the valley campsite the trangia failed in. Get a gas kit if trangia is even a consideration.
...

It sounds to me like you were using a mini trangia, or maybe a trangia triangle, and that the wind was blowing away the relatively small (compared to hydrocarbons) amount of heat that you get from meths.
A proper full size trangia 25 or 27 should be very similar to the caldera cone.

Not all trangias are the same.

[andrew_s]

If you can't do that, standing the cannister in a couple of cm of lukewarm water

That doesn't work the same.

Brucey's explanation:
viewtopic.php?p=1368280&hilit=butane#p1368280

Have you tried it? I have and it works fine for me, the time to boil .5l water is as consistent with a Jetboil stood in a little water as it was with my alpine stove.

Have you tried it from startup with a nearly empty canister?
If you've got one hanging around, you can leave it down the end of the garden overnight and try it if you like. You can even try standing it in a pan of water (out of the cold tap). If you want warm, use the gas stove to warm it, and include the water warming time in your boil timing.

Warming the canister doesn't change the fact that you'll run out of propane well before the canister is fully used up, and you'll be back to what Brucey says about pure butane - " 'almost completely useless' in cold weather".

On Brucey's graph, 100% butane at 10° is 1.5 bar absolute (= 0.5 bar gauge), and 100% propane is 6.5 bar.
The partial pressures of the gases from a fresh 70/30 mix canister are 1.5*0.7 = 1.05 bar of butane, and 6.5*0.3 = 1.95 bar of propane (which adds up to 3 bar, minus the 1 bar to revert to gauge, matching the 2 bar for 70/30 mix gas on the graph). That means the gas being burnt when the canister is fresh is 65% propane, 35% butane. This doesn't vary much over a realistic temperature range (0-20°).
The rate of excess propane use goes down as the proprtion of propane goes down, but so does the contribution of the propane to generating a usefully high pressure to run the stove with.

[PH]

Warming the canister doesn't change the fact that you'll run out of propane well before the canister is fully used up, and you'll be back to what Brucey says about pure butane - " 'almost completely useless' in cold weather".

I'm surprised anyone thought the explanation needed any clarification, it seemed concise enough to me with a clear conclusion which matches my 20+ years experience. What it certainly didn't need was quoting out of context, I'd suggest anyone interested reads it, or better still tries it for themselves.

[Jdsk]

...
Trangia with meths isn't great in the cold. I gave up on boiling water and went to the pub to eat crisps and drink beer for dinner after 40 plus minutes without getting even close to water too hot for touch! Seriously meths trangia burner went through 3 or 4 refills without getting hot enough. Whereas a caldera cone easily managed it quickly in wind and cold higher up the hill than the valley campsite the trangia failed in. Get a gas kit if trangia is even a consideration.
...

(Trying not to widen this to all cooking stoves... )

Please could you tell us a bit more about that:

The problem was with heat output, not with lighting?

What fuel were you using?

Lighting was not an issue but it simply didn't heat the water. It did once get close to boiling with a small number of bubbles forming on the bottom of the kettle as the at first full burner spluttered out, then by the time I had refilled the water had cooled down.

Oh, that awful failure of the trangiai had was with meths bought from cotswolds outdoors. At the time a decent outdoor shop so I don't think dodgy meths applies.i think I used the test up in another meths stove years later without issues. I'm not one for throwing things away and my next meths use was on a can type burner from AGG which has always given good performance.

Thanks

Which model of Trangia was it, please?

Jonathan

[Bmblbzzz]

I'd suggest the OP either uses a concertina type windshield with the canister-top stove, or gets a remote canister stove. The latter will also need a windshield of some sort, not only against wind to prevent lighting tall grass. Some kind of ground plate can be useful for this too. Canister overheating with a concertina windshield is not going to be a problem with a small gap left, which is needed anyway to access the regulator, particularly if boiling water for a brew or to rehydrate a dried meal. If boiling potatoes or pasta, I would look for another solution anyway.