First Esbit setup, how did I do?

4.7 0z kit? Can't go wrong there! Although some will probably tell you to lighten it by 4oz :) Nice kit.

I'm an esbit user and finished a similar setup last night. Had very similar boil time. I have 28 1/4" holes punched in my cone 8 on the top edge. Seems like Esbit is sum what forgiving on airflow, pot height and wind.

By the way how was it in wind with the larger dia. holes?

I'm using a ti wing setup w a thick aluminum foil wins screen and ground shield. I use the SP 700 with foil lid and handles removed. My kit is 4.1 oz before adding cozy and spoon. Fuel performance is similar to yours.

I have some aluminum flashing in the garage and I'm tempted to build a cone like this. Thanks for sharing!

Hi, nice work. If you want some honest feedback I would say you need more ventilation holes in the cone, both top and bottom. If you look at some off-the-shelf designs you will see much more ventilation. I assume of course that this is the result of extensive testing on their part, I myself have not spent too much time experimenting. You may also notice that off the shelf designs often have about a third of the bottom of the cone without holes in order to provide wind resistance on that side; again, whether or not you agree with them is up to you. Lastly, I notice there is some puckering of the aluminium where you have punched the holes. This is down to the type of punch used. I find dedicated metal punches are paradoxically not very good at punching foil. This is because they are flat and simply press the holes out in one go, and this causes the material to bend slightly. If you tried to use that punch on ti foil it could make a real mess (you are going to tell me you have already done so and it works perfectly, oh well). I find the Mcgill 303 heavy duty paper punch is much better. The punch is diagonal, and cuts the hole progressively, leaving a nice smooth edge. Funnily enough I had to order mine from the USA. It powers through ti foil effortlessly. For my set-up I copied a design by Steve Evans, but I used an alloy beer bottle instead of a beer can, because they are more robust and don't require an additional container. The tall bottle is rather inefficient, but I need something compact to go with my flying gear. It holds several days esbit inside which is another bonus.

Altogether it probably weighs about 2-3 ounces and uses two 4g esbit tablets to boil 250 ml of water. Aluminium flashing from the diy store? You don't know how lucky you are in the US, you can't get that stuff for love nor money here in the EU. Below is a picture of my first cone, as you can see, the sheet metal punch has made a bit of a mess at the top of the cone. Not that I'm saying your holes suck or anything, clearly they are quite neat. I just think that that punch may come to grief on ti foil.

The burner, on the other hand, is rather smart: it was done with a simple paper punch; didn't even need the McGill 303 for that one. If you need a cone design program, there is a good one available on the Zen Stoves site. Have fun!
Matt