Emberlit Ti or Littlbug Jr. for Winter Backpacking (only)

Yeah I definitely started to devel some wood burning skills through trial and error this past weekend. Much better to do it at home than on the trail in the middle of the winter. hehe.

I agree about the sticks with bark. It was what was around my parents house b4 I went into the forest. You just see all these wood stoves chowing down happily on twigs, but people don't realize (I didn't at least) that these are warm twigs in the summer, not winter, cold twigs that are slightly damp even though dry to the touch. If I have a choice on the trail…I'll have to learn to identify different types of wood.

For the record I only evaluated the Vargo Ti Hexagon wood stove (nutshell = great light option for 3-season). I only researched the Emberlit quite a bit. Not too familiar with the Bush Buddy.

I think I made things worse by trying to make the Vargo burn hotter and hotter to boil a full pot. It's not meant to be crammed like that.

Like I said, it boiled a cup or two just fine in those temps. I think it'll work great with it's given ventilation/airflow in 3-season. There are V cuts in along the top of the stove where the pot rests to allow flames to flicker out. So basically it is drawing from the bottom to the top, no side vents needed (and if I added them, then it wouldn't work so well w/ out a windscreen and I'd have to add that and it's weight to the mix).

– BPL said it was the best!
BPL Ultralight Stove boil-off

(To be fair, BPL did not test the Emberlit. Doh! But beating out all the other stoves has to give it some street cred. :p)

– I will be using this in the winter, so have the largest fire box, most heat, biggest cranking fire is best to melt mass amounts of snow to a boil in cold conditions.

The Emberlit is 3.5 x 3.5in opening at the top.
The Littlbug Jr. is 5.5in diameter.
Both stoves are about the same height.

– Can shove more wood in the Jr. with that bigger fire box, thus more heat.

– (possibly) Easier to keep cranking at full bore by feeding sticks through the top vs. the Emberlit side fueling. Yes, the Emberlit advertises ease of feed with long sticks, and I agree, but that is still on the ground and a long stick would have it’s end sitting in the snow, plus I still need to bend down to advance the big sticks. With the Jr. I hopefully just need to drop fuel in from the top as I am sitting on a log/stump.

– If I want the ease of feeding long sticks in the Jr., I may be able to do that too… just have the stick hanging out the top of it around the sides of the pot and the sticks will be absorbed into the stove over time as they burn down.

– I think the Jr. will burn hotter as I think the Emberlit has a “terminal velocity” if you will… all regulated by how many sticks you can cram into the feed hole at once. The Jr. has a HUGE feed hole all around the top of the stove (depends on size of your pot of course). If I want a ton of heat, well by golly I’ll just cram a lot of sticks all the way around the top of the stove / bottom of the pot. I think it will burn hotter with bigger fire box and ability to cram more into it’s feed hole.

– The Jr. is lighter than the Ti Emberlit by .35oz…. but, this advantage could quite possibly be eaten up by weight of the storage envelope for the bigger (folded) form factor of the Junior.

– Emberlit certainly is very easy to pack, but the Jr. won’t be too hard to pack around my pack liner in a semi-circle.

– Emberlit has a floor which is very nice. Jr. does not, but I’l ok with this as it’s winter and I’ll just put a few sticks together and pack them with snow as a base. Hopefully I won’t have to carry a tin foil botom (extra weight), but we’ll see.

– The Jr. is available, the Ti Emberlit is not right now. :p

Least that’s how I justified my purchase… time will tell. I appreciate everyone’s insight!

I am away from home until after New Years, but I'll post a review of the Little Bug, Jr. and the Bushbudy. I can run them side-by-side.

Doh Frank…don't leave us hanging! (Ok, ok, you get a pass. Happy holidays.)

Ben’s Backwoods Cook Kit Review

It looks like the Zebra pot is perfectly sized for the Jr. in that it catches a lot of the flames and still gives you room to feed really good sized sticks into the stove while it boils the water.

I have a .9 liter, 5 1/4in diameter by 2 3/4in high Vargo Ti pot to use with the Junior, similar diameter to the Zebra pot in the review. It weighs 4 ounces. Being the ever-gram weenie, I am thinking of moving to a .9l Ti Evernew mug that is 4.5in diameter by 3.9in high and only weighs 3.5 ounces… a savings of .5oz.

Do you guys think it is worth it to go for the lighter Ti mug that is smaller diameter to save the weight and would allow even MORE space to feed big sticks into the Jr., or will I lose a lot of efficiency by having too many flames not hit the pot (possibly the flames will crawl up the sides of the pot? BPL used a similar 900ml Mug in their tests of all the wood stoves….hrmmmm)?

Here is my unsolicited 2 cents. You are saving a ton of weight by not taking a white gas stove and fuel, so spend just a little of that weight on a decent sized pot. How much water will you need for dinner and a drink? Will you be using hot water bottle to warm-up your sleeping bag? Size a pot to make the volume you need without having to melt multiple fills.

We had one guy on our last trip trying to melt snow with a weenie of a stove/pot and we were always waiting for him in the morning. We finally banned him from using his stove and he melted snow on a firepan tripod (chain) camp fire. A 0.9 L might be too small – a 1.3 L might be ok – a 2 L would be perfect for 1 guy and < 2 L of water for each meal. (since no-one fills the pots up to the top)

I realize that we pull sleds and you backpack, so take this for what it is worth – I use a 2.8L evernew pot and a big hobo. I am seriously looking at the little bug SR.

Enjoy,

Dave

From what I have been gathering the last few weeks, a bigger pot for melting snow is best. The Sr. sure goes up in weight compared to the Jr.
Duane

@Duane, yes the bigger pot the better, but I'm wondering, given the same volume of the pot, will wider diameter melt snow quicker or will little thinner base and flames wicking up sides work best? (and give me weight savings)

@Dave, It's never unsolicited…. I posted, I want everyone's ideas so keep them coming. :) I plan to do my melting at night if possible when I have time. Just a quick boil/warm of water for oatmeal in the morning so hopefully I won't be lagging like your friend (what setup did he have exactly?). I know I'm saving a ton of weight….I guess we'll see how far I can push it. One tip I picked up is to bring a garbage bag and load that sucker up with snow when you get in camp. Then as you are melting snow, you have a clean source of snow to add right next to you so less trips. The hope is that I can load up the Littlebug Junior with enough fuel from the big open top to concentrate on melting snow. The .9l pot may bite me, not sure, but willing to try.

That Littlebug Sr. must put out massive amounts of heat… like no need for even a campfire with the warming heat it must put out. :o

are you prepared for and ok with the extra 10-15 minutes you'll spend outside of your sleeping bag preparing/building/tending the wood fire as opposed to lighting the white gas and hopping back into the down? i know my buddy and i did this 1 winter ago but now we use esbit in the AM and then cook on wood fires in the evening.

This trip is weird, it’s going to be long days, but also a lot of people. So I figure we’ll be tired, but socializing quite a bit at night. So I’ll be out and about in camp anyway. If I were going solo or with a smaller group, I’d be more likely to crawl up in my sleeping back quickly I think. (snow shoeing 2mi at night the first day after work, 8mi the next, and 10mi back to trailhead the 3rd. NE BPL Winter Gathering)

I also didn’t think about how I’d going to transition water from the Ti pot to my Platypus water resevoirs. I have a lightweight silicone funnel to place in the small mouth of the platy, but I will need to hold it there and tip the platy back a bit (the mouth of the platy is angled on the corner of the bag). Doing all this while holding a hot pot. Hrmm… even if the wider pot is a bit more efficient, I’ll welcome the handle on the taller, more narrow pot while juggling. The Wider .9l pot I have has no handle (I planned on using my mitten shells and/of bandana to hold the pot initially). Thoughts?

Bryce,

To be fair, you already have more experience hiking than that guy did. His stove looked like it was bought at the antique road show. It was a small white gas stove that wasn't much bigger than an alcohol stove. He used a 0.9 L pot/mug.

Don't forget that you have to melt enough to take hiking with you. I agree with the Brr factor. This is why we spend some weight on a platform (cookie sheet) to set a top logs – so that we can have a roaring fire above the snow. The level of the fire is even with my body in the horizontal position – I get some heat this way (watch for sparks). This is why feeding logs in sideways is no big deal. We collect enough wood the night before and cover it with a stuff sack. We can stay in our sleeping bags while we cook breakfast. I only emerge when it is time to pack up.

Dave

When I come into camp, let’s say I’m bone dry w/ water.

I plan on having a 1.5L platy and a 1l Platy on me, maybe 2 x 1.5L platys.

Dinner will take 0.354882355 liter (1.5 cups).

So all told I’ll need upwards of 3.35 liters of water boiled.

3.35l / .9l = 3.72222222l or ~4 “sessions” over the span of the night.

I’ve read 2l per day for drinking while on the trail so I may not need as many melting “sessions:”
How many miles / day would you average in these conditions…

Boil 3-4 pots doesn’t ~seem~ bad, no?

Sounds like a medical diagnosis on an episode of House :)

melting snow is not like boiling water. Fill it up melt it down – repeat – repeat – repeat – repeat – ok 1 pot done. Most people don't fill their pots to the rim, so effectively a 1.3 L pot will yield 1 L of liquid. four boils is doable, but it may take a while. I think that Roger C. had a great idea – instead of pouring your precious water through a funnel, he uses a dipping cup and holds the platy over the pot while filling.

I like to "camel" up at night, so that I have little to do in the morning – but melt for my breakfast. Fill my walking water and put in a cozy to warm-up my sleeping bag.

Unless we get some snow soon, you may not find out until your trip.

Dave

Ok fair enough on the "repeat, repeat, repeat." I still may get a bigger pot, we'll see.

I agree, at night is when I have time to "camel up." I want to do my boiling then and then just a little in the morning.

I wonder if I can find a squishable cup for "dipping." Have you found (cheap/walmart) one that works?

oh, oh, oh…. if I can leave the unhandled Cargo pot with decently wide diameter on the stove 24/7, and use the dipping cup, I won't really need a pot with a handle to better manage the filling of the Platys. Thanks for the idea! :)

I raided the cupboard for some Ziploc containers… we had 1 cup containers:
1 cup containers

I hacked off the lip and it weighs 10 grams = 0.352739619 ounces.

It fits inside the Vargo pot I have in the photo. Thanks for everyone’s help.

BTW, there is a 15% off sale on Evernew items today at AntiGravityGear that I found while searching in case anyone is in the market. :p

I picked up a used Littlbug Jr. recently. It weighs 5oz on my scale (no envelope to pack the stove away).

Here are some pics with my Vargo Outdoors Ti .9l pot (78g/36g Pot/Lid -> 114 grams = 4.02123166 ounces w/ some nice caked on soot!).

This is the Vargo Ti .9l pot inserted into the bottom portion of the Littlbug Junior (it's upside down) to how well matched the diameter of both items are:

(For reference, the Samsung TV remote's dimensions are: 7 3/4in x 2 1/2in x 3/4in)

This sucker is going to fit TONs of wood and output a bunch of heat me thinks!

Burn time!

Hi Bryce,

How did your outing go and how did the stove perform?

Dave

The outing went well. It hit -18F on top of the mountain.

The stove did not perform well. The firebox is not big enough to retain enough heat to keep the stove going when you put in frigid pieces of wood, no matter now dry and thinly split.

Basically, I had signed off on wood stoves for conditions under 25F lets say. Often times when it is colder the wood is too cold (duh) and the wood can be covered with ice as well….all of this zaps away the heat from a small fire and it was very difficult to keep it going. If it weren't for another guy's whisperlite we would of been screwed. :p