Esbit Burner

"I didn't realize how unrealistic my expectations were."

The standard use calls for one 14-gram cube to boil 500ml or 2 cups of water of indeterminate temperature at indeterminate altitude.

That works fine as long as you use a windscreen and a few other things working in your favor. As you get out toward the extremes, this isn't going to work quite right.

–B.G.–

Actually, I'll re-post this somewhere more appropriate.

The BGET burner looks cool as does your Gram Cracker stove. The StarlyteI have is awesome.

Jameson , thanks for getting back to me. I'll send a BGET out tomorrow. Let us know on Monday how your tests turned out.

So I was able to go out this afternoon and run a couple tests on the mini esbitmizer – one with (2) 4g tabs and one with (1) 14g tabs.

It was 50F outside, but very windy (about 16MPH), and both tests were conducted with 60F water in a 600ml short/wide titanium Evernew pot, a 2in high stainless steel mesh pot stand, titanium windscreen, and the baseplate supplied with the mini esbitmizer.

The test with the two 4g tabs never came to a full rolling boil unfortunately, plenty of crab eyes, but no boil and ran out at 14 minutes.

The test with the one 14g tab came to a full rolling boil at roughly 12 minutes and 15 seconds (I left the pot lid on due to the wind so I'm not sure of an exact time) and ran out at 19 minutes.

The 4g tabs lit up very easy whereas my 14g tabs were very difficult to light, but maybe I just had bad tabs. The 4g tabs also left only a small amount of soot on the pot compared to the 14g tabs which left noticeably more. The 4g tabs also burned much cleaner meaning they left much less residue in the mini esbitmizer after burning, with the 14g tabs leaving a much larger amount of residue left after burning down.

I like that you are able to store two of the 4g tabs inside the mini esbitmizer which can be stored in my pot along with the rest of my cook kit with room to spare for extra tabs if going out for more than one night.

My guess is that one possible reason I could not get the 4g tabs to come to a boil is that the mini esbitmizer does not raise the tabs off the ground meaning there was probably around a 1 7/8" gap between the top of the tab and the pot which would have only increased as it burned down. The 14g tab would have been more of a 1 3/4" gap between the pot and tab. Overall though, more testing needs to be done with them as that was my first time working with the 4g tabs, and I feel like they are clearly superior to the 14g tabs if I can get a boil out of them.

Could be worth a new thread Richard, though its Dan's thread and up to him :-) . Be interesting to see some comparisons between pop-can, bget, esbitmizer, gram cracker all within the same windscreen/stand/pot setup (eg a caldera cone kit).

When all my new gear comes in I can try BGET vs home made pop can, to add to the data.

Jameson, it would be helpful to know what volume of water you were trying to boil.

–B.G.–

Also, Jameson, did you try 3x 4g tabs, ie 12g? Could add one on top say half way through the burn?

Its interesting that the 4g tabs seem to burn better. Perhaps a way to test this for yourself, is to carefully cut down some 14g tabs to the exact same dimensions of the 4g tabs and do another comparison between original 4g tabs and 14-4g tabs. This would control for possible combustion differences due to size/shape/weight allowing you to directly compare the chemical make up of the tabs.

Sorry Bob, not sure how I overlooked that. I was boiling your standard 2 cups.

I did not try adding a 3rd tab as I thought have read on here that 2 tabs or 8g seems to be the magic number to get 2 cups to boil.

As far as cutting up the 14g tablets I'm not sure how perfectly that would work. I've never cut them up before but I feel like it would be difficult to get exact sizes. They seem to crumble whenever I shaved the top to help lighting. It would certainly be interesting to see if it's the size/shape or chemical makeup that affects performance. My guess would be the actual make up considering the 4g does not smell while the 14g does leading me to believe they are somehow different besides size.

Hmm, yeah I would have thought you'd get a boil with two 4g tabs from everything I've read on here too, with your set up. Maybe they are just burning too fast? Were they close together, side by side on a long edge, or one on top the other?

A really sharp blade might be needed to cut them accurately, perhaps a razor blade. Take it slow…if you are keen to try it of course :-)

They were laid flat next to each other side by side. I'm going to try using the same exact set up indoors to see if the wind had an effect. I think it might just be the distance between the esbit and pot. Once I get the BGET I'll use that with two 4g to see the difference as that will move the tabs higher off the ground.

I've never been able to get 2 cups to boil with two 4 gram tablets. 3 gets a boil every time, just let the remaining fuel burn it's self out.

My theory on the smell given off by the 14 gram tablets is: On the assembly line the tablets go into the plastic storage pack right after the tablet has been hardened and is still off gassing. The little plastic containers are then quickly sealed, trapping the fresh chemicals/gasses. Some off-gassing occurs while they sit patiently in the paper box waiting for you to open the box and get your first whiff of pure esbit :-)

There are no human hands involved in the process to cause the tablets to get chipped. They go from liquid state to solid and then in the package and then the box and then wrapped in plastic.

The esbitmizers were designed to simmer and keep the remaining crud contained so you don't have to handle it. Just slide the top closed, insert into provided Ziploc and then pack it away.

I think if you search the threads here you'll find that the general consensus is the BGET is the best tray for burning esbit efficiently. That little 1 gram unit is interesting.

It's fine with me if a new thread is created for those that want to do comparisons between the various esbit burners/stoves. It would be nice to see all that info in one, easy to read place. It would be nice also if there were no thread drifts there going into alcohol comparisons ;)

"It would be nice also if there were no thread drifts there going into alcohol comparisons ;)"
-I'm guilty as charged :-)

Slight drift, but curious if it is possible to melt and reform Esbit?

Ken, I think it can be. It's hydroscopic, so with the correct amount of moisture you can get it into paste form and then shape it and then dehydrate it.

Thanks Dan.

I bumped this up in case there are those out there that want to simmer with esbit.