Replacing My Jetboil W/ Alcohol

I can’t understand the logic behind the design on the arms of the Esbit Stove/stand? I mean those ‘tab fingers’ that poke up give very little surface area to rest the pot bottom on = less stability, than say, if the ‘tabs’ were just flat/horizontal and rounded.

They would’nt poke through anything, the redesign can’t be brain surgery, and the weight would’nt change either, only the packed shape.

It’s hard enough to balance small pots, on even smaller arms of minuscule stoves!

Is the windscreen one of the new Ti 24″ers?

It’s not the most stable design ever but it works pretty well for me and it packs tiny. I’ve never had it tip off. A redesign would be fine as long as it still packs inside my cup. The windscreen is one of the new ones. The 24″ length is way longer than needed for my combo so I’ll probably cut it down so that it only overlaps a little. The holes look cool now that my friend borrowed it on our trip and blued them :) He had a SP700 and it was more than long enough for his alcohol stove too.

Chris, thanks for the reply. My comments on the BPL Esbit stove’s prong type pot rests are because I’ve had some similiar type homemade stove arms ‘slip’ and drop the whole shebagan.

If BPL just turned the prongs flat/on their side, it should still fit inside a cup.

If the Jetboil stand was an inch higher I’d opt for that, as the prong pot rests are more level.

It seems that in your picture the main reason for the supercats flame pattern being significantly wider is due to the fact it doesnt use a stand. Setting the pot right on top of it is probably the reason the pattern is spread so wide. Nice pictures by the way, and I think im definately going to try to make a redbull stove tommorow.

Does anyone have an opinion on which minibull stove from minibulldesigns.com is the best?? Which is the most simple to work, and which is the best overall in your opinion.. Just wondering, they look pretty cool, some of them. Also wondering what the difference in operation is between the pressurized models, and the non pressurized, and which is better/ how do they work??

The SITH looks pretty neat, along with its smaller version. Any opinions on either of these?

I can only comment on the MiniBull stove that I have. I purchased the MiniBullPpuck stove, a low-profile unit that doesn’t hold a lot of fuel. Ive only had it for a couple weeks now and it’s been out with me on one overnight.

I was using it down by a river with a bit of a breeze but did have my windscreen as well as some rocks to help block it. The Puck (so named for it’s lowprofile and black colr) is a side-jet semi-presssurised stove. Once the stove is going (takes 15 or 20 seconds) the pot sits directly atop the unit.

In the two uses of the stove in the breezy conditions I was able to bring the water very close to boiling but not to a true boil. This was fine for my dehydrated split peas soup and coffee (of which I had two cups thanks to Tin Mans lovely pot cozy’s!) but there’s no way you could treat water with this stove.

I tend to play with lots of different stoves. I own both the Nion and the Mini Sith from Minibull design. I feel the Mini-Sith is a excellent choice as an all around stove.

Oh as to the title of the thread. I am actually trying going the other way around. Not sure if the conversion is permanent but the convenience of the jetboil is hard to beat.

Robert,
I also wanted to get rid of my 620g Jetboil set, but nothing I tried performs as well as the heat exchanger/foam insulation combination on that Jetboil cup. On my Fuji trip for example my Gigapower could not boil water in my Ti cup, no matter how long it ran.
So my suggestion is do not get rid of your Jetboil cup. I discovered that the Triangia “wind shield” (actually just a pot holder) fits the bottom of the jetboil cup perfectly! You can fit many very light Pepsi-can type alcohol stoves into the 100gram pot holder and still use the best features of your jetboil cup.

I ran a quick test indoors, recording a few parameters; the other variables I held constant for ease of testing.

Test:
Time to rolling boil- Trangia Alcohol vs. Canister power. 2 cups cold water

Results:
Trangia: about 4m30sec, 12g alcohol consumed. Full stove and pot holder=214g
Canister: about 2m30sec, 4g propane consumed. Full canister and Jetboil burner=378g
Pack weight saved: 164 g
Consumables weight saved: -8g/event.

So you would come out ahead on anything less than 20 events. If you use a Pepsi can stove you would save even more weight; the brass Trianga is quite heavy.

Unlike the stock Jetboil setup the alcohol stove is very sensitive to wind, so add 10 grams or so for a foil windscreen. Also, wind causes the flame to flare up, so scrunch the insulation a little up the cup so it does not burn.
Using your Jetboil cup with a conventional propane stove such as MSR or SnowPeak Gigapower also works and I suspect would save fuel over a non heat-exchanged/insulated pot..(future test?)
Does anyone have other positive experiences combining kit components?
.

Have you checked out the Ti Vargo Triad EX available on this site? It uses alcohol or esbit.

Roger wrote a review with some suggested mods.

sandy in miami

Jason… I have a JetBoil too… it is nice… but way heavy… and all I ever used it for was heating water. To be honest… as nice as the JetBoil is… for just boiling water… I find the convenience of Esbit impossible to beat. I love my 48 gram esbit beer can kitchen :) Love it. As long as I’m just heating water.

Man, alcohol stoves are a joke. They are for hobos and emergencies, mostly. I purchased a Vargo titanium alcohol stove from this site and while it works, it is hardly what Id call the ideal stove for any kind of serious backpacking. I tried all three kinds of alcohol in it 1) denatured alcohol from the paint supply store 2) 90% rubbing alcohol from the drug store and 3) Everclear (moonshine) from the ABC store. Everyclear by far burned the best, it burned the cleanest with no noxious fumes. Rubbing alcohol works poorly, it snuffs out easily and blackens your pot. I wouldnt recommend rubbing alcohol except in an emergency.

I tried the above alcohol in 1) a Vargo titanium stove I bought from BPL 2) a simple steel cat food can and 3) a “supercat” alcohol stove I made from a steel cat food can, by drilling I believe it was, 14 holes in the can.

The supercat was the most impressive, but wasnt impressive enough for me to want to take it on a trip.

Alcohol stoves are just too iffy for real backpacking. I own a Jetboil PCS myself and I actually like it. It boils 2 cups of water the fastest of any stove Ive ever used. There are lighter weight titanium cartridge stoves on the market…Vargo makes one…perhaps you should consider selling the Jetboil and using the money to purchase a lightweight titanium cartridge stove (Vargo or otherwise).

Ive never used this Esbit stove, but I am going to REI TODAY to buy one and try it. It sounds pretty good reading some of the reviews here. Ive used military issue solid fuel stoves in the past for backpacking and wasnt impressed in the least. It wont boil water, it will just heat it up to the edge of the boil point. Military issue solid fuel stoves are what I think of when I think of an Esbit stove, but evidently I am wrong.

Chris Townsend in his book “The Backpacker’s Handbook” gives solid fuel stoves a bad review for any sort of serious backpacking. That guy has done a huge amount of thru hiking and has very credible credentials. He says Esbit wont boil water and if you can get it to boil, it takes forever to boil. But I’m going to go and (probably) end up wasting a little of my money and buy an Esbit and see for myself.

Another thing you can do is buy the Vargo titanium alcohol stove and flip it over and place an Esbit tablet on the flat side of the stove. Thats extremely ultra-light, although I am unsure if it would really work well for actually boiling water.

If you dont want to sit and wait and wait and wait and wait for that water to boil, the odds are you will need a lightweight cartridge stove.

Vlad

Vlad: I agree re: alcohol… I’ve never had much luck with it personally… and I find it fussy to deal with.

I use esbit exclusively now… for short trips. I haven’t done any thru hiking. I use it precicely because it always boils water… every time. I always get a full rolling boil (with about 12-16 oz. of water) within about 7 mins. The tabs burn for 11-12 mins… so that’s a pretty comfortable about of leeway. The only issue I’ve had it trying to light a tablet when there is a brezze… i.e… cooking on the beach is often not an option… and there are a LOT of beaches where I backpack. My solution has always been just to find a more sheltered location 10-100 meters inland. That said, someone here posted a tip that putting a dollop of hand sanitized on the tablet will get the thing lit very easily and would probably allow be to get one lit on the beach even with a light breeze.

I use a Spark-Lite to light all my stoves. I little hand sanitizer is what I use to light Esbit as well.

hand sanitizer? I never heard of that…Im interested, please explain.

Vlad

REI website says one Esbit tablet will boil one cup of water in around 8 minutes. OK for the lightweight and reliability of Esbit tabs and the stove that goes with it, I will excuse the long boil time. But just ONE CUP? I need to be able to boil two cups of water.

Most backpacking meals require more than 1 cup of water to be boiled.

My Jetboil PCS will bring two cups of cold mountain stream water to an extremely vigorous, rolling boil in around 4 minutes. Five minutes max. Thats performance.

Vlad

The REI website is wrong about the ESBIT boil capacity. One tablet can easily boil 16 oz of water. A good ESBIT setup will boil 20 oz with a tablet and still keep burning for a couple of minutes.

The key is to use a very good windscreen. I’ve found that the ESBIT pocket stove does not work too well at blocking wind, and will produce poor results if there is any amount of wind.

I typically boil 16 oz of water and it takes 7-8 minutes. A tab will burn for about 11 or 12 minutes.

A dab of purel, or other alchohol based gel hand sanitizer works excellent for getting an ESBIT tab started in more difficult conditions.

I have tried many of the alcohol stoves listed in this thread but continue to return to the Firefly sold by Gossamer Gear, 15 ml of alchol will easily boil 300 ml of water in around 6 minutes. I use a foil windscreen provided with the stove along with the Ti legs from the Ion Stove sold at BPL. Total weight less than 1 oz.

It has never failed me in many different locales and many different temperatures.

Vlad, Sterno and alcohol hand sanitizers are very, very similar. 7 ounces of Sterno will burn for about 2 hours. I carry 1 ounce of hand sanitizer which, I estimate, would be good for a 20 minute burn time. It sputters a little when it burns and leaves a brown residue but it burns well enough. I am guessing that the sputtering and residue are from the moisturizers that are added to the alcohol gel.

Roger: Interesting… that’s the exact same stove I was using when I started with alcohol (MoGo FireFly)… and it failed me more often than not :( I don’t think I ever got a boil before the fuel ran out. I’m often in coastal locations where there can be a cool offshore breeze. On the flip side, Esbit has never failed me. Just goes to show… YMMV.

Vlad: No doubt… the JetBoil is an awesome performer… but if all you are doing is boiling water, it seems like overkill to me to carry close to 1.5 pounds of gear to do it. The extra 3 minutes of my time is not worth the weight. Not with a base weight of under 6 pounds.

I’ve used my 48 gram esbit setup on numerous short trips (1-4 nights… 3 season… below the treeline). It weighs less than my spare socks… and it’s never failed me. And it will boil two cups of water. I’ve posted the link here on numerous threads before… but if you’ve never seen it… and you’re interested… here is my homemade 48 gram kitchen

p.s. I’ve thought of a great new use for my Jetboil!! I’m going to keep it in my surfing kit for winter surfing and use it to heat up water to pour inside my wetsuit and booties before heading out to catch some of those chilly north atlantic waves :) No doubt… for car camping (or surfing… or fishing… or whatever)… the jetboil rocks!

David as you say YMMV

Your experience with alcohol stoves reflects mine with Esbit

IMHO wind is the biggest issue with alcohol stoves and I always look for (or make) a sheltered spot for my stove.

Roger

I own a jetboil and use it when it gets a bit colder out since alcohol does have problems when it get nippy. So, I would not look to sell or retire your Jet boil. There will always be times when you will want to haul it out. Having said that, Alcohol is a wonderful alternative fuel as is Esbit or the new stuff being sold on this site as a replacement for the Esbit Tabs. I am surprised that you have not taken advantage of the many detailed reviews and discussions that have been written on Alcohol stoves and kits on this site.

One kit keeps getting consistently high marks. Thermojet Alcohol stove kit is well made, durable, easy to set up and unlike many alcohol stoves adjustable if you are planning to cook on it and not just boil water. It uses an open jetted burner. I own one and use it often with an antigrav 20oz anodized pot. I also own several of Tinny’s stoves and collaborated with him on one of his burners to replace the Esbit tab in the Ultralight bear can stove. That little burner really does a great job in that particular stove.

All of these stoves and burners have their adherents and detractors. I think you will probably benefit from reading the reviews here on this site and will end up with several stoves that you will use depending on the weather, number of people on your trip and weight/footprint considerations.

Good Luck and welcome to the stove club! (I now own 5)

Given that alcohol stoves are slow and take lots of fuel…
Take a look at the Elite 2 from MiniBull (for 1 person) or the Sketti (2 persons). Both are dead easy to use compared to some others. But yes, you will need a good close windshield with any alcohol stove.

>So, I would not look to sell or retire your Jet boil. There will always be times when you will want to haul it out.

One advantage to the Jetboil is that you can heat water without packing down a snow platform and setting up a multi-piece cooking system (any fuel). I can just stand there on my skis or sling my hammock, hold the stove in my hands and have a hot liter of Jello four minutes after pulling the stove out of my pack. If it’s well below freezing, I keep the canister warm in my clothing and hold the stove by the canister if it flares up.

Otherwise I use alcohol stoves (mostly homebuilt, although for cold weather I like Tinny’s SST which is a hissy little torch when it gets going) or if it’s too cold I would choose a Coleman PowerMax Exponent stove. If it’s just me in winter, though, the Jetboil is my preferred stove.