Using a stove to make a brew on longer day rides

[jb]

I had a box of those ex army solid fuel stoves, but I got rid of them eventually as they were uncontrollable and uninteresting.
There's certainly a good range to pick from these days but I tend to stick with what I have (primus and a MSR dragonfly) and try to adapt it to the situation. It's mostly for the fun of it anyway, as you say a flask is less hassle.

[TimeTraveller]

I use a Stove for a coffe on the longer cold day rides, helps break the ride up and helps me takee time out to enjoy.
I use a Alpkit Mytistak larger pot (1000) and a stormin stove cone I had made to fit it.. dont weight much...and everthing I need to brew up goes inside...

[Carlton green]

I take an old fashioned paraffin stove from time to time just for the hell of it. I wouldn't use it in a bad heat wave and I'm always careful about what's around when I do light it.
Other than that it's never occurred to me about regulation issues.

I’m just wondering how much hot drink someone might consume on a long day out? A Pint flask is maybe enough for an outing and normally there’s a Cafe somewhere but at what point (how long a day) does it become more weight effective to carry a stove and source water near to a stopping point?

I use a Stove for a coffe on the longer cold day rides, helps break the ride up and helps me takee time out to enjoy.
I use a Alpkit Mytistak larger pot (1000) and a stormin stove cone I had made to fit it.. dont weight much...and everthing I need to brew up goes inside...

Simple and compact meths stove, looks like quite a workable solution to me. Maybe not cheap and I wonder about shielding the supporting surface from the burner. Something quite like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=weEw3SzwScM

[Carlton green]

I had a box of those ex army solid fuel stoves, but I got rid of them eventually as they were uncontrollable and uninteresting.
There's certainly a good range to pick from these days but I tend to stick with what I have (primus and a MSR dragonfly) and try to adapt it to the situation. It's mostly for the fun of it anyway, as you say a flask is less hassle.

The old solid fuel stoves must have worked, but the one in my link is a more recent development. The Esbit site under cook-sets also shows them: https://esbit.de/en/our-products/ . (Edit. Further on-line research suggests that they are very very slow, if still better than the folding tin box type.) Solid fuel isn’t controllable (as far as I know) and meths can be sort of controlled. It depends all what you value most but my conclusion was that gas was both controllable and easy to get hold of nearly anywhere - but I can see that a meths stove is hard to beat for simplicity and their down sides ain’t too large. (Edit. Perhaps the mini Trangia might work as a brew kit stove.)

[TimeTraveller]

Simple and compact meths stove, looks like quite a workable solution to me. Maybe not cheap and I wonder about shielding the supporting surface from the burner. Something quite like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=weEw3SzwScM
[/quote]

I use a the bottom from and old sigg bottle cut down to about 2.5cm this then provides a nice tube in which to place the burner and under that goes a small piece of aluminium foil... the other advantage to adding a sigg bottle ofcut is that I can also include a block of firedragon.. acts as sanitizer too which I can burn inside of the old sigg bottle

[PH]

One man's faff is another's ritual, you get to choose your own level. I'm surprised we've not had the likes of the Kelly Kettle yet, where gathering enough dry twigs is all part of the fun.
Time wise there's not much in it, I haven't timed it out on the road, in the kitchen it takes about two minutes to have a hot drink in my hand, maybe double that on a bench somewhere. You'll be lucky to match that in a café, plus I'm not a fan of using a café on my own, they have an unpredictability which being self sufficient doesn't, if I want to stop for twenty minutes I don't want the café to turn that into forty. Plus you can have what you want, for me that's usually plain Redbush, so no milk or sweetener to carry. Weight wise, my kit comes in at around 550g including plenty of tea bags, that doesn't include the water, I'll use what I'd be carrying anyway and replenish if necessary. I know it's possible to halve that weight, but for me the convenience of an all-in-one outweighs the extra.

[Benz3ne]

I use a the bottom from and old sigg bottle cut down to about 2.5cm this then provides a nice tube in which to place the burner and under that goes a small piece of aluminium foil... the other advantage to adding a sigg bottle ofcut is that I can also include a block of firedragon.. acts as sanitizer too which I can burn inside of the old sigg bottle

Ha, funnily my career since finishing university was for that company until around 4 months ago (coincidentally, when I took up cycling).
In the leading R&D role, I can honestly say I've tested most of the market's offerings and for a small footprint, lightweight fuel it isn't bad.
Certainly trumps the caveats associated with methyl esters or hexamine. FD was a fun one to work on/with and having it adopted (and contract renewed) by the UK MoD.

[Jdsk]

I use a the bottom from and old sigg bottle cut down to about 2.5cm this then provides a nice tube in which to place the burner and under that goes a small piece of aluminium foil... the other advantage to adding a sigg bottle ofcut is that I can also include a block of firedragon.. acts as sanitizer too which I can burn inside of the old sigg bottle

Ha, funnily my career since finishing university was for that company until around 4 months ago (coincidentally, when I took up cycling).
In the leading R&D role, I can honestly say I've tested most of the market's offerings and for a small footprint, lightweight fuel it isn't bad.
Certainly trumps the caveats associated with methyl esters or hexamine. FD was a fun one to work on/with and having it adopted (and contract renewed) by the UK MoD.

Very interesting. Thanks.

It appears to be an ethanol gel... is there any more to the chemistry?

Jonathan

PS: The Tommy cooker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_cooker

[Carlton green]

It’s interesting about the Fire Dragon fuel and the MOD. My impression is that the features that make it desirable for particular MOD applications wouldn’t be that valuable to civilian use by a Cyclist. ‘Horses for Courses’, as they say.

Interestingly Trangia meth’s stoves we’re heavily used by the Swedish Army and and I believe that the Swiss also used a meth’s storm cooker too ( https://classiccampstoves.com/threads/e ... -50.28410/ ). I’m not inclined to ditch my flask but if I did do so then something similar to but cheaper than TimeTraveller’s set-up would appeal to me most (maybe a Trangia mini plus a home made windshield).

One man's faff is another's ritual, you get to choose your own level.

Absolutely, use what you enjoy and what works for you.

[TimeTraveller]

I have a ebay (china) titanium stove and windshield stand and also trivet, I use with the smaller (800ml) Alpkit pot works good I think I only paid about £22 quid for the stove, stand and trivet (I will check)
Seems a good option now that Stormin Norman (Cone maker) is no longer with us

[Benz3ne]

I use a the bottom from and old sigg bottle cut down to about 2.5cm this then provides a nice tube in which to place the burner and under that goes a small piece of aluminium foil... the other advantage to adding a sigg bottle ofcut is that I can also include a block of firedragon.. acts as sanitizer too which I can burn inside of the old sigg bottle

Ha, funnily my career since finishing university was for that company until around 4 months ago (coincidentally, when I took up cycling).
In the leading R&D role, I can honestly say I've tested most of the market's offerings and for a small footprint, lightweight fuel it isn't bad.
Certainly trumps the caveats associated with methyl esters or hexamine. FD was a fun one to work on/with and having it adopted (and contract renewed) by the UK MoD.

Very interesting. Thanks.

It appears to be an ethanol gel... is there any more to the chemistry?

Jonathan

PS: The Tommy cooker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_cooker

Very welcome - there’s a gel and a solid. The gel is reasonably run of the mill (but quite concentrated with respect to ethanol content).
The solid is a bit more involved and uses a couple of thermal co-polymers to get it solid. That’s also why it ‘melts’ when it’s ignited. They’re still very concentrated in terms of ethanol content however, so burn quite nicely. It does hold a global patent so you could probably find that with a little dig around on the internet.

[Benz3ne]

It’s interesting about the Fire Dragon fuel and the MOD. My impression is that the features that make it desirable for particular MOD applications wouldn’t be that valuable to civilian use by a Cyclist. ‘Horses for Courses’, as they say.

Interestingly Trangia meth’s stoves we’re heavily used by the Swedish Army and and I believe that the Swiss also used a meth’s storm cooker too. I’m not inclined to ditch my flask but if I did do so then something similar to but cheaper than TimeTraveller’s set-up would appeal to me most.

Absolutely, use what you enjoy and what works for you.

Not strictly true. It’s the field ration cookers/fuel contract that has been awarded to the company for FireDragon so their use is just that, heating dehydrated meals and making hot drinks. The sanitising aspect is a bonus, but it was mostly down to cook times and by-products from burning (ie emissions) benefits that ousted hexamine fuels (such as Esbit) from the contract runnings.

Interesting about the Swiss - I’m aware that they separate it up a bit more into factions, such as cold weather and ‘regular’ divisions. I know that generally speaking for colder weather exercises (regardless of nation) there’s a tendency towards the petrol distillates powered pressurised stoves such as the MSR Dragonfly mentioned earlier. Otherwise, most are now going down the hexamine route given solid fuels are less hazardous to carry in backpacks, especially from a puncturing perspective.
I should also mention that though it’s not strictly “allowed”, a lot of soldiers just buy themselves stoves on preference. Usually Jetboil type stoves win out in that regard.

[Jdsk]

Ha, funnily my career since finishing university was for that company until around 4 months ago (coincidentally, when I took up cycling).
In the leading R&D role, I can honestly say I've tested most of the market's offerings and for a small footprint, lightweight fuel it isn't bad.
Certainly trumps the caveats associated with methyl esters or hexamine. FD was a fun one to work on/with and having it adopted (and contract renewed) by the UK MoD.

Very interesting. Thanks.

Very welcome - there’s a gel and a solid. The gel is reasonably run of the mill (but quite concentrated with respect to ethanol content).
The solid is a bit more involved and uses a couple of thermal co-polymers to get it solid. That’s also why it ‘melts’ when it’s ignited. They’re still very concentrated in terms of ethanol content however, so burn quite nicely. It does hold a global patent so you could probably find that with a little dig around on the internet.

Thanks

Jonathan

[leftpoole]

I've started to like the idea of bringing my gas stove and titanium mug with me on longer day rides, with the intention of stopping in a picturesque spot to make a hot brew.

However, a bit of googling suggests most public places explicitly forbid naked flames, even the larger national parks like the Peak District and New Forest. Most of the rules seem to focus on BBQs but camp stoves are also mentioned in the small print - I find this funny as US/Canada national parks allow butane stoves even when strict fire bans are in place.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to make a brew in the great outdoors, so what do others do? Just find a nice out-of-the-way spot and do it anyway?

Yes, I know I could bring a flask of hot water instead, but the extra weight doesn't bother me too much and I'd rather make the drink with freshly boiled water

Fortunately we do not live in America. Secondly use your stove and enjoy your cycling brew. I’ve not been challenged ever even whilst talking with New Forest Ranger. I loved for many years close to New Forest and am speaking from personal experience, not just fir the sake of it!
Any stove that suits you. By the way Bys shelters are pretty useful.

[jb]

Bus shelters may be useful, but it misses the point. I want to sit on the grass or a rock and contemplate the scenery not look at the number 37 as it blasts me in diesel smoke or alternatively the local housing estate in the other direction.

Having said that there was one in Ireland that was in the middle of nowhere and was a gutted out Commer van.