UL winter cook kit

lol, did it and indeed straight to TD!

They must've ordered a whole, heapin' bunch of 'em! :^)

@Jimmer, yes I saw the OC BSA mess kits while digging around but did not know they were related… no specs for the pot anywhere I looked. but the whole kit can be had for about $25.

Bob,

I agree with your graphs of boil times and stand corrected.

BUT… (You knew this was coming ;o) from my experience with both canister and white gas stoves I've found that Ti pots do not heat as evenly ad aluminum on the bottom, but instead have a central very hot spot. I'll admit, much as I hate to, that lightweight aluminum backpacking pots like JetBoil and my 3 cup Open Country do have a hottER spot in the center but not the temp differential of Ti. A Ti skillet is a bad way to cook eggs. Don't ask how I know.

The online info on thermal conductivity of Ti v.s. aluminum is informative and shows the great difference.

Nobody, including the Trail Designs designers like Rand, may have thought of this but the Tri-Ti and Sidewinder ti sheet metal stoves likely keep more heat in than do the aluminum Caldera Cones. Just a thought.

Hi, Eric:

I don't disagree with any of this… certainly I have also noted the hotter spot with Ti, although with a blowtorch like the XGK you're gonna get a very hot spot with whatever material the pot happens to be made of.

Might possibly be an advantage with Ti over Al for the cones. It'd be interesting to see identical setups fired up side-by-side with Adam's IR camera running.

Although I enjoy cooking at home, when backpacking I am perfectly content to dump some hot water in a bag, wrap it in my quilt, and have a cup of coffee and a cigar while my dinner rehydrates. :^)

>"aluminum conducts heat more rapidly AND evenly than Ti. "

As Bob Gross mentioned in his response, yes, Al heats more evenly than Ti, but not more rapidly.

Evenly: The greater thermal conductivity of aluminum and the typically greater thickness of Al versus Ti pots, provides a bigger "pipe" to move heat through the pan bottom from hot spot over the burner to a larger area of the pot bottom. Consider high-end kitchen cook wear and there is a thick disk of aluminum imbedded in a SS pot to provide that uniformity across the pot bottom (alas, not UL at all).

Rapidly: Nope. The limiting step in heat transfer from flame to water in a pot isn't the pot. The thin, highly thermally conductive metal – whatever metal it is – conducts heat very well with very, very little temperature differential across the thickness of the pot bottom. The next slower step is conduction into the water. Here we are aided by the heated water convecting off the pot bottom and being replaced by cooler water. If your gloppy dinner is too viscous (lentils with little water, mac&cheese, etc), not enough heat is conducted/convected off the pot bottom and you burn your dinner. We've all done it. We try not to in the future. But the slowest heat transfer step is the air film outside the pot. Heat fins help with that, a lot. Anything that disturbs the airflow (like vortex generators on a airplane wing) help somewhat.

Pot weight has a small effect on heating time – you do have to heat up the pot, but the heat capacity of 100 grams of metal is 22%-26% that of a 100 grams of water, and none of us carry really heavy pots, so it is a small factor.

If you think one metal is heating up water faster than another metal, something else is going on. Small differences in pot geometry, tightness of your lid, surface finish on the pot (shiny metal doesn't emit much infrared which is good for the upper pot sides, but bad for the pot bottom that sees LOTS of IR from the stove burner), or the interaction with a windscreen is different between them.

http://www.amazon.com/Stanco-Non-Stick-Grease-Strainer-Black/dp/B000MVTIOQ

This is for the more traditional K-Mart Grease Pot. It weighs about 3.75oz stock but can be modified.
1) Smash the lid down and trim of the edges, leaving just a 1/32 lip. It dishes in slightly and is also used as a cutting board. Remove the stock handle and replace with a small aluminum screw and a piece of plastic cut from the original lid.
2) Add a series of ridges to the bottom. This acts as a heat exchanger, expanding the bottom surface area about 20%.

Final weight is around 3.25oz, but it will vary up to 3.5oz. Really good weight for a 4 cup (full to brim) pot. 3 10oz cups is the actual usable volume.

Yes, Trail designs makes cones for these. Ask them to remove the handle cut-outs.

I consider my CC Sidewinder for a 3 cup Open Country pot the minimum for winter camping WITH a 1.5 liter lidded pot B/C I have to melt snow for water.

I take the Inferno ti insert in winter for burning wood as that lowers my fuel weight a LOT. Vaseline soaked cotton balls (usually cut in half) are great tinder. In my area (mountain west) wood fires are usually not permitted after April and before December.

Eric, did you ever use esbit as fire starter?

Sven,

You can dig a “cave/trench”. It’s the fastest snow shelter I know.

1. dig a trench 1 meter deep and 1 meter wide and 1/2 your body length
2. then dig a low “leg cave” for your lower body (about two lengths of your foot high.
3. Cover the trench ties skis and poles and cover them with a light tarp, holding the edges into the snow with buried deadman X’d sticks
4. make an L-shaped entrance to keep wind from blowing directly in
5. use your pack to block most of the entrance at your head. (That way you have access to things in your pack as well.)

For a long term “cave/trench” stomp down the area before digging. Wait 1 hour the for the snow crystals to interlock (firnification) then dig.

Snow melting!!  For isobutane stoves, they won’t vaporize the gas when it gets below 11F.  And even if you warm up the fuel canister in your jacket, the canister will cool very rapidly in low temperatures as the gas vaporizes.  There are a couple ways to combat this….

1.  Use a stove with a remote canister (inverted!!) and a vaporization loop that lets you run on the liquid and doesn’t rely on the canister to provide pressure (which it will do a lousy job of when it’s cold).  Examples are the Windpro II and Kovea Spider mentioned above.
2. My favourite snow melting stove is the 1.7L MSR Reactor.  It relies on gas pressure.  However, it has a couple things going for it that make it an amazing snow melter.  1.  It’s so fast that the snow will be melted and boiling before white gas stoves are even primed.  2.  It has a pressure regulator and can run on very low canister pressures, which happens when its cold out.  If I absolutely, positively need not water now, without waiting, in temps around 0F, I’m going for the Reactor every time.  It’s a little heavy but it won’t let you down.

I also have and use the MSR Windpro II in the winter.  This stove is my “fry a batch of bacon and a half dozen eggs for breakfast” stove.  It’s not a 1 trick pony like the reactor.

You might want to check this.

Winter stove operation with straight N-butane at -5°F.

Jimmer,

I too prefer the 3 cup pot. I stumbled upon the Open Country 3 cup pot when I ordered my Trail Designs Sidewinder multi fuel Caldera Cone stove. That 3 cup size is just right for solo cooking (not just boiling water).

Plus the proportions of this pot are about the most efficient for heat “uptake” from a stove. The width-to-height ration is about perfect. It’s been shown through tests that pots like this heat faster than tall skinny pots/mugs. Makes sense B/C there is more surface area on the pot bottom.

TRUE CONFESSIONS: My most reliable winter stove is the MSR Whisperlite Universal using white gas (petrol). With its remote fuel supply the burner sits low and can be completely surrounded with a windscreen. The windscreen also puts heat up the sides of the pot making heating more efficient.

Yeah, I had an MSR Dragonfly for many years but sold it B/C it was too heavy. Great stove and the simmer champion of liquid fuel stoves.

“For isobutane stoves, they won’t vaporize the gas when it gets below 11F.  And even if you warm up the fuel canister in your jacket, the canister will cool very rapidly in low temperatures as the gas vaporizes.  There are a couple ways to combat this…….. the 1.7L MSR Reactor.

lol