Sunday, July 14, 2013

Cooking setup part 2 (Evernew Titanium Mug Pot 500 and MYOG solid fuel stove)



A while ago I explained how I went from the idea of taking a lightweight alcohol stove to just going with a gas stove. After a bit of research I bought me a Fire Maple 300t stove and ordered an Evernew Titanium Mug Pot 500. The pot came too late for the trip I planned so I had to use another pot instead, which was heavy compared to the Evernew (73g, or 2,6oz, including lid on my scale).

Evernew pot
The pot comes delivered in a mesh bag which is in a carton, this gives it a nice and almost luxurious look. The pot itself looks nice, a single piece of titanium with spot welded pieces added to attached the handles. The folding of the handles is not too loose, so you will always know where they are when grabbing for it. The lid fits perfect and with the rubber around the handle it is safe to handle when hot.

Although I couldn’t use the new pot during this trip and I didn’t have the time to go on a next, I took it for a test drive under stable conditions in my kitchen. I weighted the gas canister before doing the test and measured the room temperature: 14 °C or 57,2 °F.


I did the same test with the gas opened about half way and with max power. Room and water temperature were the same in both tests. And the results were somewhat surprising:


Half power: 7 grams of gas and a rolling boil in 4 minutes and 45 seconds.

Full Power: again 7 grams of gas but a rolling boil in 3 minutes and 50 seconds.


Like expected the full power test was quicker to a boil but the exact same gas usage was a bit unexpected. Probably just coincidence.
Note that the volume of this pot is 500mL but approx. 450 (15oz)  is usable if you want to use the lid. So, just under 4 minutes to boil not even half a liter of water is not fast but really, what else are you going to do? 

Since you have time on your hands (apart from the bad weather hurries once in a while) you might as well take some more time to prepare your dinner; as I expected when using solid fuel to cook. And because I was still not at enough peace with myself to start on a new can stove for use with alcohol, I started with making a "Brian Green Esbit stove".


MYOG Esbit stove
Brian made a nice, easy to use template which I printed, cut out and taped to a piece of cut open can. Using a needle I poked holes where the end of each cut would be; this prevents the aluminum from tearing once you start folding, so do not forget this if you try it yourself. Which is kind of the goal with a MYOG project...and you already know you want to, am I right?

I made the cuts with an old pocket knife which I sharpened. Just place the tip on the hole you made with needle and make nice and easy cuts, shouldn't be to hard if the knife is sharp. After you cut out the entire stove, you can take of the paper template. Using a ruler you can trace the bends and after this, the real fun starts: bending right on the marks in a perfect 90 degree angle and with the nice Z-fold, this should keep you going for a while. Don't forget the tiny strips that have to be bend underneath the "feet". It actually went quite well for me, because I happened to have a pair pliers that fitted nicely.

And there it was: my first-try-went-well-MYOG-esbit-stove. No rips or anything, just a little crooked. First thing I did was put it on my scale, speaks for itself:
I need a more accurate scale...


Of course, the piece of Esbit fuel did not fit exactly into the stove but it still went well for my first try. So it was time to test the stove. First thing I noticed I have another MYOG project coming up to make something that can hold back the wind as well as hold up my pot. So I used my barbecue for this run:
The numbers are quite good: the cube burned for over 16 minutes, of which the first 15 minutes was actually useful. But since I wasn't paying attention I put my pot above the stove at already 2 minutes in....and it didn't come to a full rolling boil. I believe that if I bring the pot down some more (now 40 - 50mm or 1,5 - 2 inches) and put it on from the start, I will get the full pot of water to a boil easily.


Steps to take next
The next project will have to wait for a little while since the Walk of the World is next week. A nice time to see if my feet are still up to the challenge. A small pack will be all to carry during this walk, about 2.500g (88oz) excluding any snacks and water.
After this it is time for my summer holiday so I will have some new stuff to blog about then.

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