Easiest way to clean Ti-Tri?

Rocco, just about any form of scrubber cloth with some water will knock off the loose black soot. Then it may require a drop of soap to get your hands clean again. Just don't get the soap in the stream.

Once a titanium cone has had a wood fire, its metallic color changes somewhat, and that is perfectly normal. You probably do not want to remove that, even if you could.

One way to minimize the problem in the first place is to try to avoid burning anything except dry wood. Pine cones and needles tend to have lots of oils and moisture, so they contribute to the mess.

–B.G.–

Thanks for the comment. I'm cool with a little mess from the soot, but do you know if having soot on the bottom will lower alcohol or esbit efficiency?

Having soot on the bottom of the pot probably has little effect on efficiency. It might help. It is more of a sign of low air intake in the burner system. However, that is the way that many alcohol or Esbit burners operate. I expect to get a little soot, especially if my cook pot is holding very cold water at first.

You can always experiment with the distance from the burner to the pot. You could be able to change the amount of soot. Then you can work it whichever way is best, depending on whether you are shooting for minimum fuel use or fastest boil time or something else.

I will suggest that if you are starting from a standard Ti-Tri Caldera with a standard 12-10 burner or gram cracker burner, then you are already somewhere around a _normal_ compromise point.

–B.G.–

I really enjoyed trying out the wood burning inferno on a trip last fall, but stove noobie and wood-burning-naivite extraordinaire that I am, I was shocked – shocked! – at how dirty it all was. It was comical, actually, and made for quite the chuckle around the campfire as the soot got on my hands, my face, my arms, my hair…………

I did a little experiment of my own!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ByR-pkIxE&feature=youtu.be

I was kind of surprised at the results. All in a margin of error/User error I suppose.

With the cone stoves, you have to roll up a chimney, it's dirty, and not much can be done about it, really.

Throw it in the oven on the self cleaning cycle.

I carry a small Scotch-Brite type scratch pad (all plastic) to scrub my 3 cup pot, CC Sidewinder and Inferno woodburning insert with LOTS of water.

One thing I learned in boy scouts some 45 years ago is to coat the pot or other items subject to wood burning soot with soap. Take a bar of soap and rub it all over the exposed area. You can also put a light coat of liquid soap on the object. Then once it has been used and coated with soap, the soot comes off quite easily.

The advantage of a wood burning stove like the Bushbuddy is that only the mug / pot gets sooty.

Hope this helps,
Rodney M