Replacing My Jetboil W/ Alcohol

I know you asked about alcohol so if you’re set on that then ignore me. :) Otherwise if you’re just looking for a lighter stove, consider Esbit. I’m really amazed how easy it all is. Pull out my BPL wing stove, fill my SP450 with water, put on my alum foil lid, light half an Esbit with a minibic, put the pot on the stove and drop the windscreen around it with a paperclip. 4-5 minutes later water is boiling good and ready for tea or dumping into my freezer bag. I love it!

Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t limit myself to JUST alcohol, I suppose I have just read more about that and less about solid fuels. I appreciate the insight, and am wondering if you know of any kits, or places that would sell the whole package. Any other ideas would be appreciated, too.

I don’t know of any kits but you can buy most of it on this site.

BPL Ti Wingstove
BPL Small Ti windscreen
Esbit Fuel
Ti mug of choice

I use a snowpeak 450 for solo trips although many people use the 600 or 700. You can also use a beer can pot but I think the ti stuff is a little tougher. I can set mine up tonight and take a picture if you want? It’s out anyway since I just got home.

Robert… in many cases… when you get into these types of stove… there is no complete kit. Lots of times it’s a DIY type thing and there is a LOT of mixing and matching of different pots, stands, etc.. You can buy lots of pop can stoves… but you may have to make a windscreen (easy as pie) or a lid… etc.

That said… one “complete kit” comes to mind that is pretty nice… the Ultralight Outfitters Beercan stove is great… and can be used with esbit or an alcohol burner of your choice.

I’m also very partial to my OWN 48 gram / 1.8 oz beer can stove. VERY easy to make… and 8 times lighter than a Jetboil! :)

Anyway… the benefit of Esbit is that is amazingly simple and reliable and burns really hot… it has almost the same BTU’s as propane. The drawback is that the fuel is very expensive (relatively speaking) and it leaves a gunky residue on your pot and esbit holder. I don’t care about the gunk since my “pot” is just a $2 empty can of beer that is easilt replaced. Plus… it’s very easy to clean off if you scrub it after each use.

The benefit of alcohol is that it’s cheap and easy to find. You can burn any number of alcohol sources in an alcohol stove. It also burns clean… no residue. The downside is that it’s fussy to deal with (I find… personally) and doesn’t burn very hot at all. I tried a MoGo Firefly on a few trips and I never ONCE got a boil… not one time. Plus I would inevitably spill some alcohol which can be downright dangerous. I really didn’t like it… but LOTS of people swear by it. YMMV.

I think if you could post a picture that would be awesome, that would give me a better idea of what type of setup you described. I also appreciate the insight on the burning temp of esbit fuel vs. alcohol. I didn’t realize that there were so many options at that weight range, and that there could be such a difference in quality.

FWIW… I find the Heneiken beer can, with it’s keg shape, is very strong for it’s weight… much stronger than a Fosters can. But yah… you don’t want to accidently step on it or sit on it!!!! I kept it in the rear pocket of a Gossamer Gear Mariposa pack on one trip and sat down and rested my back up against the pack… and crushed the beer can a little… but it was fine… just a little bent up. Just be careful and keep it at the top of the pack.

A Snow Peak cup will be heavier… but bomb-proof and very user friendly… and it will work veyr well with a BPL wingstove. Some will disagree with me… but I find the BPL wingstove doesn’t work well with a beercan. It’s too big as made… and I’ve never had much luck bending the legs to fit the small diameter can.

Robert: Esbit burns at 1400°F. I don’t know about alcohol… but I think it burns about half as hot… depending on environmental conditions. Water boils at what… 214°F or so???

It seems like I might be more comfortable w/ a pot a little more open, especially because I already feel squeezed in my jetboil. This is considering the fact that I cook my meals in the pot usually, instead of pouring the water. I guess after looking at the pictures/ video on your site it makes a little more sense. I’m still a little intimidated by all of the steps it takes to get these things set up, but I imagine that the weight savings is well worth it. I think you or someone else said that it was 1/8th the weight of the jetboil, wow.

I use a Snow Peak 700 with a home made RedBull alcohol stove as a 2 person cook set.

I made a windscreen/pot stand that weighs .7 oz. With the RedBull stove, it took 2/3 of an ounce to boil 16 oz of cold water in 4 minutes and 15 seconds, and would boil 16 oz of room temperature water on only .5 oz.

With the mug (3.25 oz), the lid (1.1 oz) the screen/stand (.7 oz) and the stove (.3 oz), I’m at 5.35 oz for a two person cook set.

Small, fairly quick, efficient, and compact. You could do this same setup with Esbit if you wanted – probably twice the boil time, or more, but a bit less weight.

Pic of Stove Burning:

Mug on to of stand:

Mug next to stand:

Robert: Ya… any kind of beercan solution is really only meant for heating up water. That works for me as all my cooking is “simmer in bag” cooking.

Dan, that looks like a really cool setup, and the mug is similiar to one of the evernew type pots? I am also wondering, do you just pour the alcohol into the center area of the pop can, then just light it up? Looks really simple compared to some others ive seen, and you use tent stakes for a pot stand?

Seems like it makes more sense doing it in bags, but is there anyone who doesn’t do that? Do some cook there meals in pots over alcohol stoves as well?

Here are a few pictures. The first picture is the majority of my kitchen items except for my spork or spoon. The snowpeak cup is on the stove and there is an (unopened) full Esbit tab sitting in the holder. The second picture is a closeup of the wingstove with the Esbit sitting in the cup. The third picture is the windscreen around the stove and cup.

There are lighter setups than this one but it’s pretty bulletproof and very easy. I will further lighten it by removing the snowpeak mug’s handles, trim the windscreen to length (it overlaps quite a bit) and cut off the parts of the wingstand that are made to hold a bigger pot. I prefer the Ti mug for biking over a beer can mug for that inevitable crash. If I was just hiking I could justify a beer can pot much easier.

Sorry Robert… when you said you “cook your meals in your pot” I thought you meant you were doing real cooking in the pot. I see now that you meant you just did the simmering in your pot (i.e… pour dehyrated food into pot of hot water and wait).

Well… a SnowPeak mug will also be much smaller than a JetBoil… which has a 32 fl oz. cup. The biggest SnowPeak cup is 21.2 fl oz. SnowPeak also have “cook sets” which are bigger… like the Trek 700 at 26 fl oz. and 4.7 oz in weight. A jumbo heineken can is 24 fl oz. and weighs 1 oz.

As for simmering in the pot… it may be nice to eat out of the pot / cup… but to me… that just means you now have something to clean. I pour the water into the bag… stick the bag in a reflectix cozy for 10 mins. or so… cut the bag down… enjoy… and then put the empty dirty meal bag right in with my other garbage. Nothing to clean (other than my spoon)… and you don’t need as big a pot.

Robert – yes, I just pour the alcohol into the top of the stove and light it. Works like a champ and took less than 1 hour to make.

Directions are here:

http://www.pcthiker.com/pages/gear/miniGstoveinstruct.shtml

The windscreen is aluminum flashing from Menards with two tent stakes through it (dual use on the stakes).

Christopher – that is an excellent example of a very similar setup with Esbit. I’ve been wanting to give Esbit a try, but I get too much of a smile lighting up my alcohol stove for now – I’m sure the smile will eventually wear off.

My Snow Peak Trek 700 weighs 4.35 oz with the lid. That is something I do like – a good lid, even if the thing weighs 1.1 oz.

Hi Christopher,

I use the exact setup, with either the SP 450 or 600 mug.

SP 600 cup (handles removed) with BPL Ti stove and BPL Ti foil windscreen and foil for a lid weighs a tad over 3 oz. That’s pretty light!

A pointer if you want to remove the handles:

You don’t need to cut them, they are easily removed since the handle tabs that insert into the cup are only about 1/4 inch long. If you remove them this way you can then put them back on if you want handles again.

I mistakingly thought that the tabs went all the way through the cup female piece and cut them with some snips.

The 600 cup will weigh about 2.3 oz (down from 2.8) with the handles removed. The 450 cup will get down to under 2 oz, something like 1.8 oz or so.

Cheers

Dan

Take a look at these two alcohol stoves. Both are very easy to make and perform well.

http://royrobinson.homestead.com/Cat_Stove.html

http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/SuperCat/HTML/Super_Cat7.htm

(I made my SuperCat with a single-hole punch in just a few minutes.)

Just about everything you need to know about alcohol stoves is available here:

http://zenstoves.net/

I have a Brasslite Turbo II-D with custom extensions.

Visit http://www.brasslite.com for details. But I offer one caveat: it gets pretty hot on the bottom, so be sure you put some insulation between it and the ground if there are leaves or roots. Mine caught some tiny roots on fire — I awoke the next morning and found a two food wide black spot where tiny roots were smoldering the the fire burn was spreading. It’s light and compact, but use with care.
Bruce Lewis
http://lightbackpacking.com

The Esbit is a good alternative. I own the Brasslite Turbo II D alcohol and the Esbit.

They are both equally light. But what adds the weight is the fuel.

The alcohol stoves can be adjusted to make the fuel last longer, while Esbit just burns flat out hot. It works really well for boiling water quickly, especially at high altitude.

I did some testing on my Esbit for boiling times, etc. which are posted on my blog, http://www.lightbackpacking.com

Bruce Lewis

I was reading all about the different stoves on the brasslite website, and also looking at some of the cat/tuna stoves on zenstoves.com. It seems that alcohol is going to be the best choice for me, I am just wondering what the procedure for firing one of the brasslite stoves up is, Im used to the Jetboil’s simplicty =). I really cant find a solid, simple instruction guide to get one going, same goes for the cat-can stoves.

Robert… to start any alcohol stove, you pour alcohol into it and light the alcohol on fire. Simple. Alternately, you can place the stove on a small metal tray, spill a little alcohol in the tray and light that first… that heats up the stove faster. People call this “priming”.

Esbit is even easier… put the tablet on something (like the BPL stand or the cut off bottom of a small drink can… 2-3 grams) and light it on fire. It’s pricey (50 cents per boil) and leaves a residue (which you can clean off)… but otherwise I love it… personally.

I use Esbit because it’s so amazingly simple, reliable, light weight, foolproof and hot as hell. I found alcohol, at least with the stoves I tried (MoGo FireFly, Penny Stove, Favor tin with gutter mesh + fiberglass and one other one I can’t remember the name of… plus I have the Ion stove which I haven’t tried yet), was unreliable and too affected by environmental factors (temperature and wind). I’m sure there are great alcohol stoves out there that work great… but I never found one. And I wouldn’t use something like a BrassLite… WAY too heavy for my liking. If I were to try alcohol again… I’d probably try out some of the mini-bull stoves. Check those out.

Anyway… have fun doing all the reasearch :) You’ll probably try a bunch of things before coming to a solution you like. The good thing is… most of these esbit and alcohol options are pretty cheap… and often DIY projects that cost just pennies… so it doesn’t cost much to experiment. I have a JetBoil too BTW… and it’s great… but when I pick that monster up now I’m stunned that I used to carry that thing around!!! It weighs a TON compared to my current set-up… 1.8 oz for the whole rig!!!

Oh… and here’s more essential reading for you!!! :) If you read nothing else… read the “Stoveweight vs Time” articles. Invaluable.

http://www.thru-hiker.com/articles.asp?subcat=2

David provides the two main examples of lighting an alcohol stove. 1.) insert flame into fuel resevoir, light. 2.) Add alcohol to priming plate, light.

The first method only works if you have an open-top fuel resevoir. In the case of a “pressurized” alcohol stove (i.e. one that has a closed top with a threaded-hole and screw or some such device for closing off a priming plate is necessary.

One thing that’s important to note in use of alcohol stoves is that you can’t see the flame in the daylight. You simply have to place your hands six or seven inches away from it to feel if it’s warm.

Here are some good links here at BPL:

Lightweight Alcohol Stoves Test Report

Alcohol Stoves Review Summary

People have already covered the methods of lighting alcohol stoves, but I’d like to add 2 small things.

My stove is an open top burner, and I don’t care for the smell of burned knuckle hair, so I take a tent stake from my windscreen/stand setup and dip it in the alcohol in the stove. Then I light the alcohol on the tip of the stake and lower it to the stove (a stick works just as well). You can hear a little “woof” sound when it lights. I can also hear it huffing a little when it’s getting going.

Once it’s running in daylight, you can really only tell it’s going by the sound of boiling alcohol, the fumes, and the heat it’s giving off. As others have said, the flame is not visible in daylight and the stoves are virtually silent.

Whether you choose to use alcohol or not, you should at least make one, because it’s a very fun and simple project.

Instructions for a PepsiG stove are HERE, and instructions for the RedBull stove are HERE

The SuperCat is a cool stove, but I don’t think it works well on small pots – the flame pattern is too wide. Here is a picture comparing the PepsiG stove I made to the RedBull (the smaller RedBull flame pattern is great for my Trek 700 mug):

In the picture below, you can see how much wider the flame pattern is on the SuperCat (on the left) than on the PepsiG (on the right). The SuperCat is good on larger pots, but when I tested my SuperCat against my PepsiG, the PepsiG won. Not sure why – I know other people have gotten different results (probably because they did a better job constructing their SuperCat stove than I).

Excellent photos, Dan. I also think I’ll take to using the dipping of the tent stake in alcohol to light the stove technique.