Suggestions for simmer only alcohol stove design?

And most.consistant and fiddle free woul be the "Simmercat" variant of tbe Jim Woods' Supercat.

Basically, its a ALUMINUM ( not steel) 3oz cat food or poted meat etc can with one row of 16 .25" (6mm?) diameter holes cut up high , just umder the rim. If you can find smaller hole punches, you can try them out to reduce the heat output even more, but stick with no less than 16 holes. You might find that 5mm or even 4mm holes work the best for your purpose.

The good thing about the Simmercat is the flame pattern is dispersed ring, its not in one fixed point in the pot where it can still scorch food over a long simmer session.qa

Info here-
http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/SuperCat/
What you are trying to build-

Other than that, I have had great results low simmering and dry.baking with tealight candles. Very consistant dry baking results. I use 1 tealight per 250 mls of pot capacity for simmering and baking. As akways, you will need a foil floor under your setup and a good windscreen. The lower the flame ,the more it is affected by air currents.

Thanks Jim, thats the kind of idea I was looking for.

S,
Glad to help..

Good luck and if tou run into any issues let me know..

Ive used the above enough to know it should work fine. The tealights especially, are almost foolproof for dry baking.

Jimmer, do the tealights get the pot hot enough to "brown" the outside of the baked product?

Dan,

I was concerned about that as well.I like browned baked goods which is why I stay away from steam baking.

I came up with the one small tealight per 250mk of pot capacity( baking pot) after expermenting with several pots from 12cm -IMUSAs up to a 2qt Open country.

The tests I ran were in 50 to 60 weather. If in doubt about having enough heat,I would put an extra candle or two in if they will fit.

One test I used 7 candles under a 2qt OC pot with the 3 cup OC lubed with a touch of Olive oil as the baking pan. I used a Supercat as my pot stand and aranged the candles around it. Had a pretty snug wind screen with good vents as the bottom. Baked the most beautiful Chocolate Chip Cake you ever saw in 30 minutes.

A fellow named Michael here tried the Supercat and I believe the candle setup and said they worked great for him.

FWIW, I have also had good luck with the Fancy Feast stove with a MYOG Simmer ring as well.

I smiled when I saw Shug Emory's youtube vid on that subject a few months ago..Already been ,there done that..works just fine.

Adding simmer rings to regular stoves works fine, while I don't test this myself much anymore, I know when I tested a simmer ring on an ion stove, the simmer time was absurd, for 15ml, it was close to 30 minutes I believe. Keep in mind with long burn times, these stoves blow out VERY easily, so you have to have a good screen in place.

A simmer ring is a feature of all center burning stoves, the idea is pretty simple, you take the top and raise it with the ring (cutoff bottom of a can with a hole in it), which puts it closer to the pot, less air space.

I haven't tested the CHS simmer ring because I don't really need simmering at this point, but it's the same idea, you stop using the jets, which are on top towards the sides, force the flames into the center hole, reduce air space, and then end up with really long low temp boil times, all without needing to have a separate stove as with the fancy feast, which seems to have experienced an odd resurgence for unknown reasons here lately. I tested the Jim Wood supercat/fancy feast simmer stove when I was first doing stove tests and wasn't very impressed by it, I remember it being a real pain to actually use outside, hard to light, hard to keep burning. But my memory is fuzzy on it. The simmer ring method is a lot easier to use, you just pop it on top of the stove, and away you go.

A regular center burning stove with simmer ring weighs about the same as one without it because it's just a few grams difference. Playing around with the center hole size can show what is most optimal, I used on the ION about the same diameter center hole (1 inch, a bit bigger), and that worked fine.

After giving this some thought I think this might be the way to go for a simmer only DIY burner. You'll have to add a pot support to officially call it a stove ;)

Buy the 4 gram esbit tabs and break them in half. Put it in a tealite aluminum container and light it. If it burns too hot, scrunch in the sides if the container to slow it down, cut off some of the air coming in around the esbit.

Thanks Jimmer for your description on how you did the candle bake, interesting.

Ps, I like steam baking, moist, moist whooooo good stuff :-(

Nice to see Stuart, Jimmer and Zelph on the same thread. You three have been quite influential on my cooking approaches, whether you knew it or not. So, I thank you all very sincerely.

I have been experimenting with Jimmer’s candle baking set up. (Thanks again for all of your tips, Jimmer.) It has worked great so far; however, I have only tested it in very calm conditions. Had some issues with one or two going out but just swapped them out with replacements.

I have also been experimenting with the Simmer Cat stove, but for frying things like eggs and pancakes, but not for baking. It has worked great for frying. It allows me to set the fry pan down and heat up oil and if things get too hot I just remove the pan for a few seconds. By contrast, a Super Cat cranks out far too much heat.

A fun little system is evolving for me: Super Cat for fast boiling of water; Simmer Cat for frying and simmering; candles for baking; Frying pan for everything (I can boil, dry bake and fry all in one).

Michael

Mike,

Giod to hear it is working out for you. The great thing about the "Cat" stoves is that two of them only weigh a half an ounce combined! Only thing that would be better is if they also stacked inside of each other to save space;)

Can't have everything..lol

BTW,What kind of frying pan are you using that does triple duty so well?

Jimmer,
I have a GSI Bugaboo set. It's heavy by BPL standards: two non-stick (Teflon) pans + handle = 13.3 oz. One is a shallow fry pan; the other is deeper and better for boiling large quantities of water. But either would do the trick for baking, frying or boiling.

I could take just one pan and make a lid out of foil. Or, if I am ever feeling ambitious, I could try to make a nice aluminum lid like Stuart (check out his MYOG threads on it. He did a brilliant job.)

Other fry pans that come to mind for triple duty (fry, boil, bake) would be: MSR Flex Skillet (I believe Stuart uses that with a lid) or the Fry-Bake (frybake.com), which is a slightly different animal–it's not non-stick with Teflon.

Using the non-stick pans and your candle method means I can bake larger amounts at low heat and not have to use an inner pot + spacer for dry baking. I made a cinnamon raisin bannock this morning I could never had made with my small inner pot set up. I'm working on another large recipe tomorrow.

Michael