Sterno Inferno model 70138 High-tech Sterno?

[DAN-Y]

The fins on the pot work very well. The air intake is just right on the pot support also. The price was right. I purchased 4, so off they go to Philmont, New Mexico with me in the fall.

Thanks for your test results. I still need to do more, weather has changed for the better, cooler and dry.

[Bob Moulder]

Not being able to leave well enough alone — because well enough can often be better! — I thought I’d play with this a bit and make it “respectably UL”.

The pot itself you can’t do anything with, but it is not terribly heavy for a HX pot at 4.46oz (126.6g) without the stock lid, which is a thick plastic behemoth weighing in at 2.0oz (57.0g). The stock pot stand/windscreen weighs 1.85oz (52.5g), and that’s without the plastic legs, which I didn’t bother weighing since there’s no reason to use them with an alcohol setup.

I thought I could do better with the pot stand and lid, so I made a straight-sided pot stand with .005″ Ti, which weighs 0.46oz (13.1g) and used a lid that Dan/Zelph used to sell, which I call the Dinty Moore lid, that weighs 0.34oz (9.5g). One huge advantage with the Ti stand I made (besides being 1.4oz lighter than stock!) is that it also fits completely inside the pot. (CAVEAT: Sterno says don’t do this so you’re on your own if you decide to try mods like this.)

The pot stand I made is 3-1/4″ tall. The circumference of the pot where it rests on the stove stand is 11-11/16″, to which I added about an inch of overlap and about another inch for the folded tab that fits into a slot. It is extremely stable. I made the holes with my brand spankin’ new hole punch kit with which I have already fallen deeply in love.  ;^)

The modified combined pot/windscreen/stand and lid weigh 5.26oz (149g) compared to 8.33oz (236g) for the stock bits.

I did another boil test with the Simple Groove Stove and it did not quite boil (rolling boil, of course!) 2 cups of 61°F water in 4:00 using 20ml of DA. However it did boil in 4:22 with 23ml of DA, which is still pretty darn good. And with the original-model Starlyte it actually boiled 2 cups with 20ml DA in 6:02 and kept boiling for almost another full minute!! (A good omen for Dan’s Starlyte XL, for sure.)

Normally I don’t give a hoot about boil times — fuel economy is king! — as long as they’re not stupid-long, but this setup provides both speed and fuel efficiency and IMO is worthy of consideration. Also of note, the pot handles do not get hot at all, only a little warm.

The test setup with modified/MYOG bits

Test setup assembled

Windscreen, stove and inCycle cup fit quite easily inside… just add spoon and Bic. Also notice the big tab on the windscreen/pot-stand, which doesn’t need to be rolled up or disassembled.

All packed away

Comparison of the heavy pot stand and lid with their much lighter replacements

 

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Nice hack, well more than just a hack.  Well done!

[Bob Moulder]

Thanks, Jon!

I can’t believe I missed this thread 2 years ago.

[Gary Dunckel]

You people are such enablers – I just now bought the last one, so I could be like you. I might even make a neoprene cozy for it to see if that helps with efficiency. There’s nothing like a cheap HX pot…

Nice mods, Bob!

[DAN-Y]

Really nice Bob. Gotta love those clean holes with your new punch :-)

[Bob Moulder]

Gary, glad to help a fellow stove junkie any time.  ;^)

Dan, yep, be luvvin’ that hole punch. I was thinking about getting fancy and making the rows of holes different sizes but didn’t want to take a chance with reduced airflow. I’m tempted to add another row, or to make another pot stand with holes on one side to see if it improves wind performance. That’s the fun thing about stoves… there’s always something else to try that feeds my urge to tweak.

One significant observation that I forgot to mention… I’ve done several boils with this setup and it is interesting that there is no discoloration of the Ti pot stand, which indicates to me reduced heat loss in the system and also good intake/exhaust ratio. This is also why I am hesitant to punch in another row of holes.

 

[DAN-Y]

I noticed the same thing on my first test boil, no discoloration. I’ll have to make a conical Ti windscreen/support  shorter than the one that comes with the Inferno. Match it up with the Starlyte burner, see if the efficiency increases. Tweaking is habit forming and beneficial :-)

[Gary Dunckel]

Mine arrived in yesterday’s mail, and this morning I checked it out (no boils done yet, though). One thing shocked me – the cup/pot weighed a scant 109.1 g, or 3.85 oz! So it looks like you got one of the HEAVY ones, Bob. I tried to find a replacement lid that would work. All I could find downstairs was the ti lid for my Vargo 700 pot. It fits perfectly, but it weighs a full 1.0 oz. (still a 1.0 oz savings over the stupid stock lid). Curiously, a .65 oz. lid for a Jetboil (I think for a ti Sol cup) was a very snug fit, but it works. It certainly won’t fly off when I pour water. A Ruta Locura carbon fiber lid for the Jetboil works, but it is flush with the rim of the Sterno pot and a bit hard to remove. I’ve thought about asking Josh if he could make one that is a few mm greater in diameter, but he might whap me for asking.

One thing I noticed is that this Sterno pot is a wee bit shorter and a wee bit wider in diameter than my JB Sol pot. It will be interesting to see if these dimensions will result in a more fuel-efficient boil.

So…today’s chores are to make a neoprene cozy for the pot, and then try to make a ti foil stand like you did, Bob. I also want to test the efficiency with Sterno gel, and also with an alcohol setup. I don’t want to mess up the ti foil pot stand, so I will need to do some serious study in order to get it right the first time (I hate to waste my ti foil).

Of course I also had to see how this pot would work with my BRS-3000T pot riser disk thingy. It actually doesn’t quite work with the BRS-3000T, as it’s hard to get the pot onto the stove. However, it works very well with my FMS Hornet (Olicamp’s Ion), because the pot supports arms are a wee bit shorter than those of the BRS-3000T, and it slips onto the Hornet with ease.The original Thingy fits perfectly inside the Sterno pot, whereas my newer design with the tab doesn’t work. I’ll have to test things with the Hornet. A year ago it seemed that the Hornet burner head was positioned a 1/4″ too far away from the pot bottom, making it less efficient than the BRS-3000T. We’ll see…

But one thing I know is that this was a screaming deal on an aluminum HX pot. If nothing else, I can always just use it with Sterno fuel when truck camping. And for just $25, it’s cheaper than most forms of entertainment.

[DAN-Y]

Made a Ti windscreen/pot support for it. Now to make time for some tests.

Pot, lid, windscreen, Starlyte XL3 burner w/lid weigh 5.7 ounces. Burner holds 3 ounces fuel in suspension. Windscreen stores in the vertical position and burner fits in there also.

Good kit for 2 days in the piney woods.

[Bob Moulder]

Gary, that weight discrepancy is interesting! Clearly outside the small fluctuation that might be expected in manufacturing, so it means the material is a bit thinner or there’s less of it. Looking forward to your results with the neoprene cozy… will it heat up quicker and then cool down slower? …. that would be a nifty thing to graph … and would save me the effort!!   :^)

Dan, what are your boil test results with your setup? Looks great! As far as leaving fuel in the stove, I have not done that and would have to test personally to gain confidence in that practice.

[DAN-Y]

Bob, I have not done any serious testing with the set-up. I can send a sample of the XL3 for you to play with. It has a tight fitting lid that prevents vaporization of fuel while in the pot.

[Gary Dunckel]

OK boys, you’re gonna dig this. Yesterday I picked up a pair of neoprene gravel gaiters that the fisher-folk use to keep pebbles out of their shoes. I made a cozy for my new pot, and it came out pretty well on the first try. Here it is – the lid is the one from my Vargo 700 pot (1.0 oz. – ouch). The total weight of cup, Vargo lid, and cozy (which weighs .69 oz) is 5.54 oz. This is about 0.5 oz lighter than my aluminum JB Sol pot.

A bonus is that it comes with the always popular Frogg (Toggs) logo (part of it). I will likely take a black Sharpie to it to at least mute the logo so that it doesn’t scare the squirrels or offend an actual nearby frog.

The weight of the setup with a lighter Ruta Locura CF lid is 4.85 oz., which is a bit lighter than my JB titanium Sol cup (5.0 oz).

Bob, I’m not sure that I will do a study of how well the cozy retains heat after the stove is shut off. I actually did that last winter to see how a cozy would insulate the water in a Vargo Bot 700 and an MSR Titan kettle. It turned out that the water in both pots cooled down at about the same rate with or without a cozy. But of course those were both titanium pots, and this one is  very conductive aluminum. Maybe I will give it a try if I’m bored next fall on a +20* F day.

Thanks for the link for that hole punch set. That has been a rather serious problem for me for several years. I ordered one this morning, you know, so that I could be cool like you. Good punch holes of the right sizes are a must for geeks like you, Dan, and myself.

Now, to do some actual patio testing of this cute Sterno pot. I probably should buy a couple of your alcohol stoves, Dan, as I’m not sure what I have on hand would be proper for this application. I’m not going to consider trying it with Esbit, as the HX fins would get gunked up with deposits. I hate when that happens.

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

The concept of a HX mug is pretty fascinating.  With the Sterno version it also makes it pretty affordable and compelling.  I can see the advantage when used with a canister stove as the gas velocity is pretty high.  My question is “do HX fin help out when using an alcohol stove”?  The gas velocity is pretty low and there is considerable flow restriction going through the HX fins.  I did some alcohol testing at one time with a JetBoil and my overall impression was: meh.  Again, the price point is low, but does it make significant difference?

[Gary Dunckel]

Jon, I had a similar experience when I tried to use an alcohol stove with a Jetboil. Back a few years ago when we were raging about the BRS-3000T stove and the pot riser disk combination, I think it was Ryan Jordan that asked if anyone had tried alcohol stoves with a JB pot. That stuck in my head, so I tried it last fall. I tried several stove-to-pot distances and nothing worked worth a hoot. I think in one try the flame was being starved of oxygen, so I increased the stove to pot distance to maybe 1.5″. That never quite got a boil, although the flame wasn’t quenched. But it did dance around, and when it started to melt the cozy I blew it off. Perhaps a better operator than me can make it work, but I’ll stick with the BRS-3000T and riser disk thingy.

Today I tested the FMS-300T stove/riser disk with the Sterno pot and cozy. It worked OK, but not quite as well as the BRS-3000T with the Jetboil cup. On a 71* F day (in the shade), it boiled 2 C of 45* F water in 6 minutes at a medium-low flame setting, using 5.1 grams of canister fuel. This was just a slight bit more fuel and maybe a minute longer than the BRS-3000T.

And to appease Bob, I also did a comparison test to see how fast the boiled water would cool with the cozy vs. no cozy. It was in the low 70* F temperatures, so it isn’t too pertinent to cold weather conditions. However, the results were interesting, if not very dramatic. So here’s what I did…

My first 2-cup boil was done by using a can of generic ‘Sterno-like’ gelled chafing fuel with the stock Sterno Inferno setup + the pot with the cozy. That sucked, as it took a full 18 minutes to achieve a boil, which happens at 200* F at my 5440′ patio altitude. I might buy some actual Sterno fuel to see if that works, but I’m not very optimistic.  I used a digital kitchen thermometer to plot the cooling rate. I then boiled water with my FMS-300T/ riser disk and the Sterno pot without the cozy. After boiling this second time I placed the pot back on the stock Sterno Inferno “stove/windscreen” to standardize the cooling environment. I should note that during the first test, with the cozy, ambient was 71* F, whereas it had warmed up slightly to 74* F for the second test (without the cozy). This might have a slight influence on the results.

The results:

At 15 minutes of cooling, the water temperature with the cozy was 172* F; without the cozy it was 154* F.

At 20 minutes: cozy – 164* F; no cozy – 150* F

At 30 minutes: cozy – 150* F; no cozy – 135* F

At 40 minutes: cozy – 136 * F; no cozy – 125* F

So it appears that the use of a cozy is more important for retaining heat early on, for the first 10-15 minutes. This is likely when we most want to keep the water warm-to-hot, such as for making a hot drink after the water has been added to the FD meal.  As we get to the 40-minute mark the difference is less dramatic. I plan to do this test again when the ambient temperatures drop down below freezing. That will be more telling about the heat retention efficiency of a 3 mm. neoprene cozy.

[Roger Caffin]

Chuckle. When it goes below freezing, ‘things happen’.

I was washing up after dinner in the snow, and I put the slightly wet plates and pot out for drying (by Sue). By the time she had found the (mini) teatowel we carry, the warm water on the plates and pot had turned to ice. So she gave them a good whack to dislodge the ice and declared them dry.

Cheers

[DAN-Y]

Chuckle chuckle, it’s winter in Roger’s home town/camp :-)

[Matthew / BPL]

I love this thread and I’m glad you folks pioneer this stuff.

[Bob Moulder]

Gary, bravo on the testing! About what I expected with the cozy with mild ambient temps. Cold testing will tell us more, and by then I might be tempted to test the Olicamp XTS with cozy, which I never got around to earlier.

An interesting thing to keep in mind is that once the heat source (stove flame) is removed, HX fins act in reverse and start cooling the water in the pot, although probably not a big deal if there is not forced airflow through them.

Jon, very good question about the actual benefits of HX fins on this pot with alcohol. My feeling, based on having watched a fair amount of water boil, is that there is some benefit. As I mentioned above, the original Starlyte boils 2 cups with 20ml DA (insert generic test parameters!) and continues boiling for another minute or so, which means it could probably do it with 17-18ml, which is pretty darn good.

What would happen if we ripped out the fins? I dunno. Note that the Sterno fins are more widely spaced (and therefore fewer, with correspondingly less surface area) than JB fins, and the airflow (gasflow) through them seems to be restricted very little when using alcohol. So is this good for efficiency? Again, I dunno.

I don’t think it means anything, but early on I noticed discoloration of the pot bottom (inside) at the fin weld spots… this is what it looks like after 20 boils. I’m not worried about it.

 

[DAN-Y]

Using a cozy attached to a pot denies the pot of heat rising up the sides when heating the water. Fuel efficiency is not good. Took Gary 18 min. to get a boil.

Do your tests without a cozy on pot for better efficiency ;-)

[Gary Dunckel]

I’m not too sure about that, Dan. Jetboil makes its living using cozies with their pots. I can’t see that the Sterno system directs much heat up the sides of the pot, other than that which escapes through the HX fins.

As for my 18 minute gelled fuel boil, I’m not convinced that it wasn’t the fuel itself. I’ll have to try it again with a new can of actual Sterno, doing boils both with the cozy and without. In fact, today I’ll use that same fuel again, this time without the cozy.

[DAN-Y]

No matter what stove/fuel you use, without cozy will heat more efficiently. Jetboil makes a living selling to the uninformed ;-). Just as Roger, he knows all about the hype retailers/manufacturers put out to sell their product. 

The cozy will keep it warmer, longer, no doubt about it. 

[Gary Dunckel]

Dan, I just now repeated the gelled alcohol test with the stock Sterno Inferno setup, this time without the cozy. It took 20 min 30 sec to achieve a boil. It might be a wee bit breezy today, and I think the first test was in pretty calm conditions. So I’ll call it a wash whether or not a cozy is used. If anything, the cozy helped a bit. I’m pretty sure that the particular gel fuel is the problem. I’ve some errands to take care of this afternoon, and I’ll pick up a 3-pack of 7 oz. Sterno cans. I’ll test that fuel tonight.

I am also plotting the cooling of that water, to again compare it to cooling rate with a cozy. I’m pretty sure that a cozy slows down the cooling, like I had mentioned earlier.

[DAN-Y]

Scientific  tests need to be performed under calm conditions 

[Gary Dunckel]

Not my tests, buddy. I like to test things in ‘real world’ conditions, to get a baseline of worst-case performance. So I use 45* F water from the fridge, let my canisters cool down to ambient, and employ windscreens if needed. When I get an idea as to how things perform, I am quite confident using each system in the field.

And I will respectfully disagree with that bit about Jetboil – I think they solidly outperform most other systems. Whether it’s the cozy, the flux ring, or the combination of both, my JB cups work more efficiently than any of my other pots (when using canister fuel). My MSR Reactor is a solid windy day stove, but it uses more fuel than any of the JB pots.

 

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