Ruta Locura Sale/ New stove setup

i never had any interest in jet boil, leave it up to ruta locura to change that. i'm going to have to think about my stove addiction for a minute, before these sell out. always making great stuff ruta locura

That's creative, Josh. VERY creative. You are the master at tweaking titanium, and for generally thinking outside the box. I hereby nominate you for the 2015 BRS-3000T mod of the year award.

How does the stove connect to the Jetboil pot? Can you lift up the pot with stove and canister attached like a normal Jetboil?

I don't think so, John. It looks like the support arms were bent a little to allow them to slip in between the fins of the pot. This results in the proper flame-to-pot distance. The pot just sits on the burner support arms.

What has me nervous is how close the titanium reflector is to the canister. Maybe there's enough exhaust above the reflector to prevent excessive heat from overly warming it and sending it down to the canister.

Whatever–I still think that it's a creative modification of the BRS to lighten the JB setup.

It looks like there is an optional titanium heat shield between the stove head and the canister.

Ok, so ….how efficient is the stove compared to the jetboil stove? And boil speed differences? Sorry, I'm not familiar with the brs-3000t

The other differences are that we lose piezo ignition, and it simply rests on the pot instead of connecting…?

Like Gary said, the pot supports on the stove are bent to fit in between the fins on the flux ring of the Jetboil pot. So the pot is just sitting on the stove. It is far more secure than a pot sitting on a regular canister stove, but not as connected as the stock Jetboil setup. You pick it up with 2 hands, one on the pot, and one on the canister.

With the heat shield in place there is no heat transfer to the canister, it runs cold just like the stock Jetboil. Without the shield some radiant heat can be felt on the top of the canister.

Boil times with 2 cups of water are within 10-15 seconds of the stock Jetboil. Sometimes faster, sometimes longer. So it is very comparable.

An example real world burn:
Water: 2 cups
Starting water temp: 34*F
Air temp: 56*F(outside)
Burn time to rolling boil: 2 mins, 38secs

The efficiency comes from the heat transfer of the Jetboil pot flux ring.

Ok, another question. How hard is it to get the heat shield in "storage" position? I assume you have to bend or overlap the circle a bit to get it in there? Or is it loose enough where you can just kind of push it underneath there?

Also, would you need the orange cup on the bottom of the jetboil to ensure the heat shield and stove stay in place?

I'd be curious to see a pic of the folded stove nestled in the flux ring recess for storage. The fins on the ring are pretty delicate, so I wonder what the fit of the stove in there is like. Even setting the pot down on the stove's support arms over and over could mash the fins up. It's a cool concept taking advantage of Jetboil's pot system and getting rid of some of the superfluous bits.

Dan

The heat shield goes in easy, and is pretty secure, as the stove does not weigh much. There is a slit in the shield for attaching it to the stove which makes it possible to slip it into the base of the pot. You would not need the cup. A light weight bag might not hurt though, and there is another reason for a bag. With the stove in the bottom of the pot, you can now fit two canisters inside the pot. But to do this you have to flip the carbon fiber lid over so it clears the threads on the second canister. I just use rubber bands which are light and hold the lid on, and make sure the heat shield can not come out of the bottom of the pot. But a bag would be one better.

Philip

The flux ring is actually pretty tough. Its hard to bend the fins because of the structure of the bends. I do place a piece of towel(used to clean my spoon) in the base with the stove. But this is more for noise reduction. When you set the stove on the bottom of the pot, the fins in the flux ring are not taking any load, the pot supports sit in between them, and support the bottom of the pot.

Thanks for the quick and thorough explanation (and accompanying pics). :^)

Dan, a couple of weeks ago I tested my JB aluminum Sol cup on the BRS-3000T. I just set the cup on top of the stove as best I could. It of course sat about an inch higher above the flame than it would with Josh's stove leg mod. I was getting consistent 3-3.5 minute boils, consuming 4-5 grams of fuel.

Some earlier tests I did with my various Jetboil setups (10-year old PCS, aluminum Sol, and a MiniMo) were amazingly consistent–every test consumed 4 grams of fuel to achieve a boil in 2 minutes (+/- a few seconds). So I believe that Josh's setup would be VERY comparable to the Jetboil efficiency. I expect that a more optimal burner-to pot distance, as what Josh's design would achieve, would reduce boil times from what my tests produced.

I think that the key to all of this is the Jetboil flux ring and the insulating cozy. Probably any reasonably efficient stove placed at the proper burner-to-pot distance would achieve similar results, in both boil time and fuel efficiency. So why not use the very lightest stove available? That would be the BRS-3000T.

Good work, Josh!

Apparently you have a firm grasp of the amount of fuel you burn, so you know about how much fuel you save compared to a non-JetBoil rig. Based on the fuel weight savings but also based on the weight of this rig, you probably have a net savings of overall weight _after_ so many days of use. I don't know if you assume two or three or four boils per day. I think everybody has standardized on 500ml or two cups as the amount of water to be boiled, but nobody has standardized on water temperature or the stove elevation.

So, when does this prove in?

–B.G.–

Gary

I figured someone else had to have tried this. When I got the first stove and set the Jetboil pot on it I was a little disappointed, because as you know, it works, but just not quite. So I crossed my fingers and took the pliers to it :-) When you get the pot down where it needs to be, that's when you need the heat shield.

Very nice! I have two of these stoves and a spare JB cup…..time to get out the torch and bend some ti!

"So, when does this prove in?"

I don't know what you mean there, Bob.

You are right about the "testing standards" being so variable, based upon available water temperature, elevation, and also things like ambient temperature, wind conditions, and likely relative humidity. All I know is that I boil 2 cups per test, my kitchen tap water is 55* F, and my patio table surface is 5440'. I suppose that the best we can do is to just list our testing conditions and let others interpolate how that might translate to their own situations.

As for the other things you alluded to, I think fuel efficiency is fairly critical, but I don't really care too much about speed of boil. A couple of minutes either way doesn't matter to me. The main things I look at when I do my own testing is to see how efficient the stoves are under various conditions, such as wind and ambient temperatures. These seem to be the two variables I have to deal with when I'm in the woods.

Dunno if this has been covered anywhere and is slightly tangential to the topic, but does anyone know how much fuel is lost when you disconnect the burner from the canister? I'm thinking it is really only that amount of gaseous fuel between the canister valve and the regulator valve in the stove, so a tiny amount, but each time I disconnect it the PSSssst! of escaping gas annoys me. I also worry a little about the stove threads or something going wrong at the interface from screwing it on and off and possibly losing more fuel. I generally just leave my Jetboil burner attached to the fuel canister the whole trip unless I need to swap canisters when one runs out since the canister and attached stove both fit inside my pot. This stove is so much smaller it would fit inside the SOL pot even better without canister removal. You would just need a chunk of foam to protect the pot/stove.

So, if one were to use the Ruta Locura modified stove with a Jetboil aluminum cup, would it be safe to cook food (as opposed to just boiing water) with it? I'm assuming so based on what I read on the Jetboil site about the Ti cup not being safe for cooking but the aluminum ones being safe for cooking food.

@ Josh: I have to come out of the closet now. I woke up this morning thinking I had to try this for myself. I'm not all that creative, but I can copy an idea with the best of them. And I wanted to be like you, Josh. The setup worked great.

I got 4-5 gram boils consistently, and they averaged roughly 3:00 minutes per boil. I set the flame level at medium-low for best efficiency. This was without using a reflector. The temperature this morning was 50* F. There was a very slight breeze, which caused the stove to sputter a little, so I placed a windscreen to block the minor wind, and the sputtering stopped. This seems to be a moderate weakness of this stove–wind susceptibility.

Then I made a titanium reflector that only a mother could love and I tried that. I did something wrong, I guess, as it seemed to reduce the available air supply to the stove, and it sputtered erratically. Without using the reflector, I didn't notice any warming of the canister, so I quit using it. Also, I found that the reflector prevented me from lighting the stove from underneath while the pot was on the stove, and I didn't like that much. So you have the reflector design down, and I apparently don't.

I am convinced that your setup works well, and that everyone should buy one from you.

@ Bob: Do you remember my Snow Peak Giga with integrated windscreen from a few years ago? That setup, with a SP 600 pot/4Dog lid, a 110 gm. canister, and a cuben bag weighs 15.1 oz., and it has been my go-to stove for several years now. I get 5.5 gram boils (on average) in 3:25 minutes. It has been very dependable, and I love it.

This "Josh setup" with a JB aluminum SOL pot, a borrowed lid from a BPL Firelite 550 pot, a 110 gm. canister, the BRS-3000T stove, and its cuben bag also weighs 15.1 oz. It boils 2 cups slightly quicker, and it does it with 4-5 grams of fuel.

So I think this Josh's BRS idea works slightly better than my beloved SP Giga stove. The only question I have is whether the relatively untested BRS will prove to be as reliable over time as the proven SP Giga-100. We'll see…

@ John: There's no need to use a torch to heat the titanium stove support arms, as the metal bends rather easily. Use two pair of pliers, one to hold it, and one to do the bending. If you happen to mess it up, just buy one of Josh's.

How many arms need to be bent in order to get it to fit between the fins? And the severity of the bend?

My 550ml Ti pot + lid + reflectix cozy weighs 2.7oz
BRS-3000T stove weighs 0.9oz
Total: 3.6oz

Jetboil BRS-300T: 6.2oz

My setup weighs 3.6oz (or 102 grams) less. It obviously uses more fuel. But even if it uses 10 grams/boil vs 5 grams/boil, I will have to go to 20 boils for the extra weight of the Jetboil version to be made up. Maybe on a long trip, my starting weight would be less with the Jetboil version (could carry less fuel weight). But at some point, my normal setup would be lighter. This is a very interesting idea – I'd have to make some plots, and of course, compare to my Esbit stove

Do you have a scale for a few test boils? I for one would be interested in the real fuel benefit of the heat exchanger on the jetboil.

Also your setup would be less wind resistant… Though from what I'm hearing the brs and jetboil is less wind resistant than the stock stove.

Final question…. Do you keep your reflectix cozy on during boiling? Could you take a pic?

I plan on recording how many boils I can get out of one canister when backpacking this summer, so that will give me a "real-world" fuel estimate. If it's super windy, I will usually just boil water in my tent vestibule.

The reflectix cozy comes off for boiling. I just use it to keep hot drinks hot. It's similar to the ones form AntiGravity Gear:

http://www.antigravitygear.com/shop/cozy-collection/antigravitygear-pot-cozy/