Lighter weight heat diffuser for Outback Oven

[Paul Mountford]

I have been playing with an Outback Oven to make breads and muffins with on both alcohol and canister stoves. As I plan for some paddling trips where I'm willing to accept the extra weight, I'm looking to assemble a minimal baking kit. When using the 7 in version with your own pot, the heaviest part of the kit is the metal heat diffuser.

Has anyone found a lighter option for the heat diffuser? Perhaps it needs to be as heavy as it is to effectively diffuse the heat, but I would be interested in hearing from anyone who might have experimented with this.

[Stuart R]

Lid from a paint tin. Read my article:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/ul_baking.html

[David Thomas]

Running a 130,000 BTU/hour burner for a portable hot tub, I was melting my HX tubing until a put a rock over the burner. It functioned as a flame spreader and fixed the problem.

I'm not suggesting you bring the rock. Find a new one each day if you're on a river trip.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Be wary with any heat diffuser over canister stoves – if they are the type that are stove on top of canister. I melted a stove that way. I kept doing even though I knew not to and bingo, after about 20 ro so times, bam, it started going over. Lesson learned.

[Paul Mountford]

Thanks Stewart, funny enough I did read your article when it came out. I had remembered the oven bags mentioned in that article, but had forgotten the paint can recommendation. The outback oven's heat diffuser is not only the disk. It has metal wire to raise the pot above the disk. Do you think the raised rim of the paint can lid is doing the same thing?

[Paul Mountford]

Sarah – thanks for the warning. I'm actually using a Pocket Rocket stove so I was monitoring this exact issue closely. The Outback Oven comes with a heat reflector that you cut and install below the flame and heat diffuser but over the canister. With all in place, I can place my hand over the canister and feel no heat when the stove is running at the minimum level required for baking. I'm being carefully and recognise that it is less than ideal.

I'm waiting to see if a similar version of the recently reviewed stoves (http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/olicamp_xcelerator_review.html) are released with a per-heat tube so that I could use it for winter camping and for baking – a much better solution that would allow me to use oven bags like in Stewart's article vice the much heavier Outback Oven.

[Bob Gross]

I've made heat spreaders out of steel can lids with some holes punched. I punch relatively few holes in the center, and many holes toward the outside. I made one out of titanium foil which weighs less and costs more. Also, I made a riser out of a long strip of titanium foil.

–B.G.–

[Paul Mountford]

Thanks Bob. I just found the you similar post in the thread http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=56211.

Sorry for asking such a similar question. I try to always search for similar posts before asking a question, but I had no luck with the 'search' function in this case.

[Bob Gross]

"I had no luck with the 'search' function in this case."

Yes, I am afraid that is relatively true.

You can search using Google with "backpackinglight" as the first search term followed my other terms.

After a while here, you pick up a sense of what sort of things can be searched for here and how to structure the search terms.

–B.G.–

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

I will say that I have had great experiences using a diffuser and also the whole oven setup with a MSR WindPro stove. Works great!

[Paul Mountford]

Sarah,

I was doing some reading last night and I think I'm settled on the Windpro I I for my winter and paddling trips. In terms of baking, the burner head would seem to spread out the heat better than the concentrated flames of both my current stove and the most recent Asian offerings.

Would you agree?

[Stuart R]

Do you think the raised rim of the paint can lid is doing the same thing?
Yes, the raised rim creates an airspace between the lid and the pot and this airspace limits the heat conducted to the pot. You don't need any holes in the lid.

I would NOT advise using a canister top stove. A remote canister stove gets very hot after it has been on for 20-30min, even at a very low flame, and this would not be good for a canister valve (or the rubber o-rings in a canister-top stove).

[Paul Mountford]

If anyone is interested, I have now experimented with the Ti lid of one of my pots as the heat diffuser, and it worked fine. Bread did not turn out, but that was my fault for using the wrong type of UK flower!

Dave, I think I will put your rock idea to use (in this case 3 small ones) to give me a little more separation from the Ti lid and the Pot.

Stuart – advice noted, and I see it as essential with your method of a totally enclosed system with the roasting bag. The Outback Oven allows for the use of a non-remote canister stove if you are careful; however, I do recognize the risks and like your method better.

I look forward to testing your method out with my new remote canister stove (that I expect to arrive from Amazon today). With a Ti pot as the cooking vessel, the lid as the heat diffuser and the roasting bag, you end up with a baking system with little weight penalty with the exception of the extra few oz of the remote canister stove (the point of your original article – thanks!).

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

I really like my Windpro….it wasn't cheap but has served me well :-)

[Stuart R]

Ti pot lid – good idea! I don't have any Ti pots so didn't think of that.
UK flower – definitely not good for making bread :-)

Once you have a remote canister stove, there are other weight savings to be had, so the weight penalty over an upright stove can be reduced almost to zero:
1) The windscreen does not need to be so tall, and so is lighter
2) There is no need to use the heavy squat canisters that are required for upright stoves. These for example, contain 175g of gas and yet the canister weighs less than the squat canisters that only hold 100g gas. Plus, you can wrap the windscreen around it for transportation.

Add: only available in Euroland, even tho' Campingaz is owned by Coleman

[Paul Mountford]

I would have been nice to know about those canisters when I was up in Scotland last fall. I did a River Spey decent by packraft, and on the second day I ran out of gas because I had grabbed an old canister. I stopped at a Post Office to try and buy a replacement. I saw that exact type of canister, but thought it was for some weird euro-designed stove and never looked at it closely. I had to go with one of the massive squat canisters that I will probably never finish before I move back to Canada this summer.

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