Vargo Titanium bot 700ml – $65

[Jim C]

Massdrop has a Vargo 700ml Titanium Bot for $65 (if the target is met). For now at least, the 700ml size is only available through Massdrop.

A nice improvement over the 1L size (aside from a volume that’s likely more useful for BPLers) is that it has a built in handle.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

I jumped on this massdrop. Weight isn’t much lighter than the 1L version but the handle saves weight and would make it much easier to use in practice I think. The shorter height is much more practical as a food pot. If you are a soaker this makes a lot of sense. Depending on your solo pot size, its probably about an ounce more. Pretty hard to find a screw top container that seals well for under an ounce, of more than a cup in volume-I’m yet to find one. So if you were going to carry a seperate container then this is a weight saver. Also, just simpler, which is nice!

I’d be interested to know if the existing Caldera cone works with this-I’m guessing not.

Though, personally I’m thinking absolute stove efficiency might not be an issue with it for me. Why? Well, I envisage i would use the BOT in the morning sometimes as an extra water bottle. Come afternoon at some point I would put in my evening meal to soak (non heated water). By the time I’m ready to eat it, I can either eat it cold if I feel like it, or I just need to warm it. Won’t be hard to warm up nicely with a 4g esbit tab, sans windscreen. Extra weight of a windscreen over say Zelph’s wire mesh stand wouldn’t be worth it, or worth the bother (the trip would have to be insanely long without resupply).

 

 

[Russell Lawson]

Jim C the 1lt version rests perfectly in the top of a 550ml caldera, it can be rocky but once you know it’s sweet spot it seems pretty solid, raising the pot height up.  Can also dent the small strip of titanium above the exhaust hole but hasn’t broken. Your review is making me dangerously close to purchasing, but I have to many titaniums already.

[Gary Dunckel]

Has anyone received their Vargo BOT 700 yet? I am interested in how it performs for you.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

I got my BOT 700 yesterday.

Better than I expected. Weight of mine (inc lid) comes to 121.72grams, so about 3 grams under spec.

I’m pretty impressed with it. Lid is harder to screw on and off than I thought it would be, but, I don’t expect it will ever leak, so I don’t mind. Lid is very easy to use in the upturned position when on a stove due to the rim they put in it. Handles are sufficient.

Tonight at home I’ll soak my morning oats in it (just as I like to do on outdoor trips as well) to test it out, not that I really need to test it, it will perform as expected.

[Gary Dunckel]

Adam, let me ask you something. Like you, I had been having a good deal of trouble getting the “lid screw-on” technique dialed in. At times I thought I had it figured out, and at others it was almost impossible to get it right. I was pretty frustrated with the psycho performance, and I contacted Brian Vargo. He was very attentive and prompt with his replies. He finally offered to replace my BOT 700 with another, if I so chose. Great customer service on his part.

On mine, I noticed that the outside threads of the lid appeared to have been milled, or polished. The inside threads of the pot didn’t look like they had been. Is yours also like this? Before sending mine back to Brian (and incurring the postage cost), I thought I would try something first. I used a Dremel polishing wheel to gently smooth out the threads on the inside of the pot. This changed everything, and it was far easier to screw the lid on. However, I tested it with a cup of water in it, sealed tightly, and I sloshed the water all around, upside down, etc. It leaked. Not a lot, but did did leak. I wondered if the slight removal of some of the metal (maybe a few angstroms only) was the problem. I didn’t happen to do the same “slosh test” before using the Dremel, so I don’t know if the stock setup was actually leak-proof to begin with.

I used a caliper to check the thickness of the silicone seal ring (called the CS, or C/S, for cross section), and it was approximately 2.8 mm. I went to my local “we stock everything” hardware store, and they had a 3.625″ outside diameter neoprene o-ring (that’s all they had), which had a CS of .125″ (~3.2 mm). Bulls-eye! The thicker CS solved everything. Not only does the lid now screw on fairly easily, but the BOT seals up perfectly.

In my dialogue with Brian, he had mentioned that all of the problems he’s seen have been with the pot, and not with the lid. On Friday, after I had solved my problem, I asked him if the other inside pot threads were “un-milled” like mine, or if mine happened to slip past the quality control people. He hasn’t responded as of yet.

Last week, I showed the BOT to some friends working at REI. Jenny Askey, who occasionally posts here on BPL, felt that the BOT is a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. I don’t quite agree with her. At home I did a pre-soak test of 2.5 oz. of Barilla Pronto Pasta, and after 2 hours of soaking the rotini had reached the al dente stage. All I had to do was to add the powdered sauce mix and some FD chicken, tomatoes, and zucchini, and fire up the stove to do a short simmer. It took just 5 minutes and 6 grams of canister fuel to finish the job. Pretty darned good, I thought.

For some of my favorite meals, a few specific ingredients are very slow to re-hydrate, namely dehydrated diced Spam or Vienna sausage slices. Dehydrated Stagg Silverado chili is also slow to re-hydrate, whereas my Bush’s beans (to go with the sausage slices or Spam) are reasonably quick. For small items there are other, smaller and lighter, containers that can be used for the re-hydration process. But for pasta, or a can’s worth of dehydrated chili, the BOT is great.

The BOT 700 will hold only 600 cc of fluid and still be able to be properly sealed. Yesterday I found a cut down Jetboil cozy in the basement. It perfectly fits the BOT 700, whether I remove the BOT’s handles or not. I am thinking that this might be fun to try on a snowshoe day trip–at home, mix up a few packets of Starbuck’s latte powder, pour in boiling water, and carry it to the lunch spot. Then fire up the BRS 3000-T stove and heat the drinks up a bit (at low flame, so as to not melt the bottom of the cozy). The BOT might just be a semi-functional “Thermos bottle.”

So I guess this is a somewhat wordy “first impressions” review of my BOT 700. It certainly is a unique pot that might fit a specific niche. If nothing else, it is fun to play with. I honor Brian Vargo for coming up with the idea in the first place, and for the stellar customer service he has demonstrated to me.

Edit: Adam, one other thing that may (or may not) help you. I’ve learned that when I screw a lid onto a container, like a peanut butter jar, I usually place downward pressure on the lid. Habit, I guess. For the BOT, I find that if I place the lid with a slight UPWARD bias, it goes on much more easily. Also, if I hold the pot up high by the rim, it can cause the pot to not be a perfect circle, which might make it hard to align the threads. If I hold the bot by the bottom, or by the handles, things work much better.

[Peter H]

Thanks for the updates. I REALLY hope they produce a wide bottom (same size as olicamp or imusa), 1L version of this Bot. At the current size, it’s a good soaker but not large enough to eat out of, at least for me.

[Steve Chan]

 

Is the interior big enough to fit a Toaks 550 light pot? The toaks is 102mm wide when you include the rolled rim and slightly protruding folded handles, and 82mm tall including the lid.

[Gary Dunckel]

Probably not, Steve.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Interesting thoughts Gary

I will do some more careful playing with mine tonight, particularly with the original seal.

I think mine is also polished smooth on the lid but rough on the pot, like you say.

I don’t think the roughness is too much of an issue for me, I will get used to it pretty quick, and I won’t need to constantly take the lid on and off.

Actually the biggest concern I have is with the curled lip at the bottom of the lid. Its quite big and I have little doubt it will become a pain to clean as it will catch solids and liquids quite easily. The lid is insanely stiff overall anyway so I’m not really sure such a serious curled lip is needed. I guess for cleaning I could put water in and shake. But plentiful cleaning water doesn’t always exist in the wilderness.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Ok, so mine has a polished thread section on the lid, but the thread section on the body is left as is. I can tell that the polishing was done by hand, its not perfectly even, not that this matters.

Just did a couple of shake tests. The BOT is definitely no Nalgene! The seal leaks, though it is very minor and requires vigourous shaking. In practise, given how this will be used by most people, I don’t think this is an issue. If you have food soaking in there you will greatly reduce the amount of agitation and fluid velocity impacting on the seal. Taking the minor precaution of making sure its upright and not full to the max will make this practically a non-issue.

I’d be pretty comfortable using it for a water bottle in a side pocket, really. Just aim to use the water from the BOT first before you use water from your other containers. Easy. At worst I’d say you might lose a few ml over the course of a couple of hours of vigourous hiking.

More and more I think the curled bottom lip on the lid is major overkill. The Ti thickness in the lid is quite substatial and there are several other folds providing strength in the lid. The section that the thread is on, is only ~24mm long, and of course is a round pot, so the inherent strength is already high. The ridges of the thread, though not that deep, would also provide extra strength. Also, there is a strong lip on the pot, so compression is just not an issue really. I reckon one would be pretty safe to mill that lip off. You’d have to jump on the pot, sideways, to bend it. But this is already a really strong pot and lid combo (far stronger than say your typical pot from Toaks)

[Gary Dunckel]

Those are interesting points, Adam. I hope Brian Vargo is following this thread, as he IS interested in our feedback and he wants to tweak the BOT to function as best as it can. He indicated that this is indeed an ongoing project for him, to get it just right. I see where he is offering another batch of the BOT 700 on Massdrop, at a slightly higher price than what we paid.

Thanks for confirming that the threads of the inside of the pot haven’t been milled or polished. Brian did get back to me, but his reply was a bit vague and he didn’t quite answer that question. As I mentioned in my lengthy post, a simple light polishing of the threads and the grooves between them will help make the screw-on much smoother.

I agree that the rolled lip of the lid is overkill, and it adds a bit of extra weight (also, it collects water). I’m not brave enough to carefully remove the lip without making a costly mistake. It would take several Dremel disks to cut it off, and I don’t want to get into that.

As I had mentioned, a thicker O-ring should solve your leaking issue. Go with something that is a full .125″ cross section (the stock silicone ring is a bit thinner, at about .120″), and you should be fine.  All I could find was Neoprene, but Nitrile should work fine too. Viton doesn’t stretch very well, so you would have to find a size that is fairly exact. Silicone would probably be best, since it withstands a higher temperature and it stretches easily. However, Silicone has the lowest abrasion resistance of the four I mentioned, which theoretically could come into play over time. All four are rated food grade and are safe to use. If you do swap out the silicone O-ring with another, thicker one, the silicone one is a perfect “rubber band” to put around your rolled-up GTX parka to keep it under control.

One thing I’ve noticed is that, because of the thick titanium of the Bot, it might use more fuel to bring water to a boil. I did a side-by-side comparison test of the BOT vs. a MSR Titan Kettle, same stove (BRS-3000T), same starting water temperature (45* F), same conditions. The 2-cup boil with the BOT consumed 7.6 gm. of fuel, and the MSR 6.6 gm. Both boils took 5.5 minutes. I tried to set the flame the same in both tests, but I could have had it set a wee bit higher for the BOT–that would possibly explain the greater fuel consumption. I know, I know…too much impertinent information…

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Interesting on the Ti thickness and fuel use.

Yeah, getting water in that lid lip is an issue. I’m more worried personally about food though. If its used as a soaking container, particularly when on the move (eg mid afternoon start cold soaking evening meal) then stuff will end up there. Pain to clean out. The weight savings wouldn’t be much, I’d suspect a couple of grams at most.

I also though I could attack it with a dremel, but I’m loath to!

I’m looking forward to using this in the wilds though. I’ll safely soak my oats in it overnight (no pest or insect issues, or risk of tipping it over), then for maybe 3/4 of the day use it as an extra water container if I need, then say mid afternoon load it up to pre-soak. As I wouldn’t normally need to then boil, a simple 4g Esbit tab with a very light pot stand is all I’ll need to bring it up to a nice eating temperature.

[Gary Dunckel]

Adam, I expect that if you could fill up the lid’s channel with water and let it soak awhile, that your toothbrush would quickly remove any food that was caught in it.

I wonder how much Peter eats, anyway. I can easily fit an entire pack of ramen noodles, 3/4 C of spaghetti sauce, and a couple of sliced meatballs in my BOT. That’s over 700 calories, and more food than I can eat in one sitting. The pot is wide enough for me to easily eat out of.

Adam, I’m heading to the hardware store today to pick up a few things. Would you like for me to buy one of those .125″ CS Neoprene O-rings for you? It will solve your leakage issue.

[James L]

Gary,

Interesting observation about the fuel use of the BOT, but  I think you are wrong about its cause.

If you do the research I think you will find the actual metal thickness used in both the MSR Titan kettle and tge BOT to be nearly identical. The MSR is a fairly thick walled pot (compared to the Evernew 90Mug pot fir ecample). The BOT pics up its weight by the shear volume of metal used in forming the threads and the dual use lid and seals. Lot of metal there.

What you are actuallt observing is thebeffect of thebwider base on the MSR pot. Yes ,its true. Wider pots are more fuel efficient even on a littel burner like the BRS-3000t.

Why? Because when cranked up to boiling speed , the burner flame still spreads out to the perimiter of the pot’s base.

Larger diameter pot = more surface area to get heated faster.

Done lots of burn tests on it. Optimal pot diameter for effiency is about 5.5″, or the size of most short -wide 900 ml pots..

Just my experience…:)

[Gary Dunckel]

James, after reading your post, I am convinced that everything you pointed out is true. I just now used my calipers to check the wall thicknesses of the BOT and the Titan kettle–they do indeed seem identical.

I also measured what I’ll call the “functional diameter” of both pots. By this I mean the diameter from where the bottom of the pot rounds upward toward the sides. In other words, the diameter of the perfectly flat part of the pot bottom. That of the Titan kettle is 4.25″, whereas the BOT’s is 3.625″. That difference of 5/8″ gives the Titan a clear advantage, and I believe that the Titan’s recess in the bottom also enhances efficiency.

What has me confused is that I later did the same test, under the same conditions as before, this time using my BPL Firelite 550 pot. It has the smallest functional diameter of the 3 pots, at 3.375″, and it also has a recessed bottom like the Titan kettle. What surprised me was that a boil was achieved in 4:30 minutes, and it consumed just 6.2 gm. of fuel.

I’ve seen this before, where identical tests under identical conditions (same ambient temperatures, humidity, and altitude, same starting water temperatures, same breeze/no breeze, same pot, stove, and canister fuel brand) yielded slightly different results. The only variable that I never plug into the equation is barometric pressure, which likely would have only a slight effect on boil time. So I just write it off as being caused by invisible stove gremlins that like to mess with me, imps that they are…

Thanks for posting, James. You have set me straight, and I appreciate it.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Hi Gary

I appreciate the offer for a better seal, but, I’m in Australia, so probably not worth your time and effort to get it to me! I’m sure I can make do for a fair while. I don’t have a huge amount of use planned for it in the coming year or so…maybe when I finally get around to doing another big cycle touring trip or come over to the US for a big thru-hike I’ll get on it :-)

Yeah I figured I could clean it with shaking and also toothbrush. Doesn’t mean that isn’t annoying! Haha

 

Cheers

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Getting back to this thread, how are people going with their BOT 700s? I haven’t put any more use on mine yet.

Wondering if anyone is using a stove system other than gas? If so, what are you using? I’m wondering how I’d go about doing esbit with this….hmmm.

[DAN-Y/FANCEE FEEST]

Adam, try your new Fancy Feast esbit stove with the bot. Use a 14 gram tab and then blow it out when water is hot enough. Let it stay stuck to the stove and then re-light with jet style lighter.

I’m curious….how many BPL members got into the massdrop deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DAN-Y/FANCEE FEEST]

I made one this evening and was not able to blow it out…needs to be snuffed out by covering it.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Hi Dan.

Yeah test went ok with 4g tab-see the esbit testing thread. I’m going to do more holes in the can and put the tab on its side to get better airflow and faster burn, see how that goes. But almost got 250ml to boil…but stayed there for a long time until it went out well over 15mins. So I suspect air restrictions of my holes are limiting the watts generated.

Interestingly, I have no issue getting esbit to light with a mini bic. Just hold the tab, light the end, takes about 1 whole second. Maybe you have a different batch of esbit to me, with a coating or something?

Cheers

 

[DAN-Y/FANCEE FEEST]

Found a photo of the BOT being used with the caldera cone made for the toaks 550.

[DAN-Y/FANCEE FEEST]

Disregard that photo of the bot in a cone for 550. Bots are larger than the 550. The one in the photo must have been modified.

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