Brian Green Esbit Tray BGET

[Dan Yeruski]

Gary, I'm almost certain you'll get a cleaner burn/pot bottom by doing what you said. Make a pot support and use one of your DIY BGETs surrounded by a clone cone. Change the distance from platform to bottom of pot. Use this chart for reference:

Borrowed from KJ's link

edited for spelling

[Dan Yeruski]

Read what John B. Abela has to say about the Brian Green Esbit Tray at Hikeliter.com

http://hikelighter.com/2013/01/11/1-66-gram-esbit-tray/

I quote his final thoughts:

As a hiker who highly values the gear that is within my backpack, and as a hiker who has been (is?) known to be OCD about counting grams, the BGET has absolutely become my go-to esbit tray. I still have all of my other ones, I still pull them out at times, but when my cook kit goes into my backpack, the BRET is the one that makes it in.

I want to say a huge thank you to Brian Green for sending this out to me. It has already gotten a lot of usage and hopefully in the next few years it can get the kind of mileage and use that my TDGC has gotten over the years!

edited to correct spelling of John B. Abela

[Kenneth Jacobs]

Dan

You rock! Thank you. Just shoot me an email at djf8less(gmail) when you're all done. I'll take pictures of the soot results and email them to you after I run my tests. Your little storage condiment cup idea is great. After the JMT last year, I was getting tired of curling the aluminum ground plate around my Gram Cracker and weaseling it into a little Ziploc all the time (getting the little crystal powder all over my hands in the process. Hmmm…now that I think of it…will the 0.75" height BGET fit in that cup still? Either way, I'm looking forward to finding out how the stove height affects soot deposit on the bottom of the pot.

Midwest GGG is going on May 1-3 (inline with MW Tenkara Fest 15 mins away), so bummer you can't make it…but Utah…HELL YEAH! Hope you have a blast!

KJ

[Monte Masterson]

The diameter of a cup/pot also makes a difference in determining the optimum distance above the Esbit cube. My experiments have shown that the Evernew EBY-265 with it's wide (3.62") but shorter dimensions heats more efficiently when it's a little closer to the cube than compared to the Evernew 300 ml ti cup with a 2.8" diameter (with the same amount of water).

[Gary Dunckel]

I looks like we are on the same page with this. I want to thank you for your explanations, and also for making the BGET available to the non-MYOGers, with Brian's generous blessing.

[Bob Gross]

"the BRET is the one that makes it in."

What is that?

–B.G.–

[Dan Yeruski]

Bob said:

"the BRET is the one that makes it in."

What is that?

–B.G.–

LOL, I knew Bob would say something about that when I read it on John's site.

Spelling corrections must be one of his duties here at BPL :-)

[Dan Yeruski]

KJ, the new size BGET you want is too tall for the condiment container so I went to the local grocery store deli department and they had 6 that will serve as a storage container for it. I made the increased height version and will ship it tomorrow. I'll send you an email to get your address. This is what it looks like compared to a well used original:

[Kenneth Jacobs]

Dan

Awesome! Thank you so much!

KJ

[James Marco]

Dan while these look good I kind of wonder how they will actually perform in the field. It seems to me that moving the cube height is kind of backwards. The goal is to achieve a fixed distance between the Pot and the Cube.

Since that is the goal, the more direct approach would be to build one with the pot stand directly attached to the tray. I would use smaller right angle corners to support both the bottom and top. This would result in a fairly sturdy pot stand at 1.75" (or whatever you guys decide is optimal) under almost any conditions (though a smaller base at about the size of the cube.) I tried this out of soda can aluminum and it does indeed support a Titan pot with 2 cups of water adequately. Needless to say, the aluminum quickly looses temper and degrades. I would guess that ti or stainless would work better. The smallish box under the cube kind'a acts as a insulator and the right angled corners increase the burn time to about 12-15 minutes. Three or four holes cut with a hole punch allows heat to disburse along the upper long sides.

Anyway, I could still not get 30oz (around a liter) liter to boil (three 12oz cups for coffee) so I dropped this a few years back.

[Dan Yeruski]

James, Kenneth Jacobs has a clone cone as his pot support. Making another clone would take a lot more effort than raising the esbit tray. It's nice to have a one piece tray to change the distance instead of making a whole new cone clone. Trail Designs Cone system is the ultimate in cook kits…windscreen and pot support all in one. That's why so many DIY'ers choose to "clone the cone"

Your idea is logical. I have some small stainless steel containers and will try my hand at making what you did with an aluminum can. I'll incorporate the BGET for it's efficiency and containment of the liquid esbit.

After reading about the BGET in other threads it was clear that the design worked well. I was inspired to contact Brian Green and ask if I could manufacture and make them available for purchase. Brian graciously agreed….thank you Brian :)

Tip Of The Day: Those of you that make the DIY version of the BGET, put a drop of Super Glue in each of the four corners of the tray to prevent liquid esbit from escaping.

[James Marco]

James, Kenneth Jacobs has a clone cone as his pot support. Making another clone would take a lot more effort than raising the esbit tray. It's nice to have a one piece tray to change the distance instead of making a whole new cone clone. Trail Designs Cone system is the ultimate in cook kits…windscreen and pot support all in one. That's why so many DIY'ers choose to "clone the cone"

Yeah. I made several back when. A small clone could be constructed of lighter al foil though. I think that would lead to an overall weight savings despite using more in the modified BGET. Close to a wash, I think. Just another methode.

[Dan Yeruski]

James, how would you make a cone with an incorporated BGET???

[James Marco]

James, how would you make a cone with an incorporated BGET???

By not using it to support a pot. Use the modded BGET as the pot support.

[Dan Yeruski]

Ok, I integrated a pot support using a version of the BGET and boiled 3 cups tap water using one 14gr esbit. I used a 12cm aluminum pot with a capacity to hold 4 cups.

Stove weighs 33 grams.

James, why not use a straight wall windscreen instead of cone?

[James Marco]

Dan, ????
Let me see if I still have a couple in the gear room….that is not even close to what I was describing.

Sorry, must've tossed them.

Let me draw something up…

[James Marco]

OK, try this for the stove:

and this is the pattern:

I used a doubled side for these, since, I was using the aluminum from an old can. If you use Ti or Stainless, it'll be a lot stronger and the doubled side is likely not needed.

It weighed about 18g. As far as a cone or wind screen/heat shield, it really doesn't matter. Aluminum foil works. Like I say, my cup is 12oz, so 3 cups is about 30oz or about 4oz less than a liter. This is the max I can fit into a grease pot with heat exchanger built into the bottom without spilling. Since I often cook (macaroni w/butter/pepper, rice, stew, soup, breads/muffins, dumplings, etc,) a larger pan works better.

[Dan Yeruski]

Ok, got it now! Thanks for the detailed drawings and explanation, really appreciate that.

I did 7 tests last night with the modified BGET(bread pan corners). I'm confident using one 14 gram and one 4 gram esbit tablet, I would able to boil 4 cups of water in a grease pot consistently in the field. I used 55 degree tap water, the stainless steel pot support and aluminum windscreen. The test were to determine energy given off by the set-up to determine fuel needed to do the 4 cups.

The BGET burns the esbit completely to a fine charcoal type ash, easily removed from the tray. The deposit on the bottom of the pot is the same type of residue…soot is a good word to describe it. Easy to remove. So I can say the pot support is not at the optimum height from the esbit.

Previous to the 7 tests I used the original BGET and found that the corners leaked. The ones that I have sold were given an application of SuperGlue in the 4 corners. I hope that will hold up well. But from this day forward, I will do the bread pan corners to make sure there is no leakage. We want to consume all the fuel for efficiency. I'll have to search for the name of the individual that came up with the idea of bread pan corners and give credit here.

[James Marco]

Never really thought about the bread pan corners. A drop of superglue seemed to work for me. You mentioned this somewhere, too. Soot and smell with the Esbits is bad. Stay upwind and never cook under your tarp. The smell comes from two primary chemicals: formaldehydes and cyanides. Both are poisonous if breathed. Most of the "soup" you are burning is the byproducts since hexamine will sublime while burning, not melt.

Four cups will fill the grease pot. No room for boiling. 30oz is the max that will fit and still boil. As a standardized temp for the starting point, a pitcher of ice water is around 32-33 degreesF (0-1/2C) everywhere. It takes some sort of mineral content to change this. Simple to do for home experiments. In the field, water temps can change a lot, though.

The energy density for hexamine, is about 30MJ/kg. This is roughly the same as ethyl alcohol, except alcohol is usually diluted to 90-95% with water. ~13500-14000BTU/lb for hexamine and 12000-12500BTU/lb for ethanol…~10% difference. WG is a mixture so numbers can vary a bit between about 19000 and 20000 BTU/lb. Canister gas can vary a bit between 20000 and 21000BTU/lb depending on the makeup. All is not equal when discussing fuels. Diesel or Kerosene are roughly the same as WG, give or take.

Hexamine is hygroscopic. It will absorb moisture right out of the air. So a .5oz cube can weigh almost .55oz after a day if you break it out of the pack. It will get crumbly and harder to light. Between the soot, smell, and lack of control for cooking I never use esbit.

[Dan Yeruski]

I did 7 boil tests today using esbit in the BGET Brian Green Esbit Tray. I used a 32 ounce Conquistador pot in the Trail Designs Caldera Keg-F system. The supporting ridgeline positions the pot 1-3/4" from the ground. The BGET sits on the ground. Starting water temperature was 55 degrees out of the tap. I have well water. A slight breeze in my garage for all tests. I used 1 full size 14 gram esbit and one 4 gram esbit. All 7 tests produced a boil and continued for at least another 2 min. I boiled 4 cups every time for the 7 tests. The BGET esbit tray works really well in a cone.

[James Marco]

Good duty!

[Dan Yeruski]

James, when I did the tests with the Kmart grease pot I filled it with 4 cups and when it started to boil vigorously I removed the lid and let it boil to it's hearts content. Object of the test was to determine ability to boil and fuel required. Water boiled over the top but had no affect on the esbit inside the SS pot support.

The product remaining after the chemicals sublime seems to burn well also. The bread pan corners retain all the "soup" to be completely incinerated only to leave a fluffy ash. The odor of the soup reminds me of paraffin.

My online store will be closed while I'm on vacation beginning tomorrow. I'll return in 3 weeks.

I'll be using esbit as my fuel. A carbon felt sheet will be my on-off valve while camping in the western states ;) In one of the videos I did for the mini esbitmizer I used a sheet of carbon felt to snuff out the esbit tablet….works well.

Edit to include:

It was Rod Braithwaite that came up with the idea of using "bread pan" corners when making a BGET. See his comments:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=99066&startat=20

[Aaron Sorensen]

I would really like to see a 2X 4 gram version for the 600ml and under folks.

[Ken Thompson]

The product remaining after the chemicals "sublime" seems to burn well also

Where's Bob…

[Dan Yeruski]

Aaron, I can make one up for you when I get back from vacation. What are you currently using?

[Author]

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