Whenever I go hunting or otherwise tromping through the boonies, one of the things I take with me is an Esbit stove and a bunch of fuel tabs. This is so that I can boil up some water to use to make meal out of some freeze drieds while I’m out hunting. I don’t drink coffee or tea, so my need for super hot water in the field is usually just limited to rehydrating something. Certainly, I can make a cup of hot beverage if I want, I’m just saying that I normally don’t.
The Esbit stove works pretty well for what it is. It’s main advantages, to me, are the compactness and portability combined with the light weight and durability of the fuel – fuel tabs about the size of a piece of bubble gum. The drawback is that these fuel tabs don’t put out as much heat as other fuel sources, but there is always a tradeoff in things. The end result is that it can take a little bit more time to boil some water than it would using other fuel sources.
The supermegawesome gadget for making hot water in the field is the JetBoil line of products. Theyre basically an isobutane cartridge, same as found on a lot of backpacking stoves, and a cooking vessel with a heat exchanger. I was always reluctant to pick one up because, up to this point, my needs had ben adequately met with the Esbit stove and I regarded the tall Jetboil vessels, about the size of a large travel mug, to be rather bulky and overkill for my needs…after all, I only need about 12-16 oz of water for a freezedried meal.
Additionally, for my ‘crisis cooking’ at home in the event of some sort of disaster I have a kerosene stove, a Coleman stove, and an Omnifuel stove that will literally burn any liquid fuel. A JetBoil would be a quadriary level of redundancy…maybe even deeper than that.
But…I was killing some time the other day and wandered into REI and saw that JetBoil had a smaller, much more compact version called the Stash. The attraction was that everything needed nested into the small-enough -to-be-handy-but-large-enough-to-be-useful cooking pot. I already carry a titanium cooking cup to use with the Esbit stove, and this stove and fuel container would easily fit inside that…so it fits within a footprint that I am already using.
Curiosity got ahold of me and I wondered how long it would take to actually bring a goodly amount of water to a rolling boil. The most water-intensive of my freezedrieds calls for 16 oz. of water. I figured I’d throw caution to the wind and poured 20 oz. into the vessel, put the lid on, cranked the flame, and started the timer. Two and a half minutes later it was boiling mightily. That’s pretty sweet. It takes significantly longer to achieve that same result with the Esbit stove.
The most obvious drawback is that this stove, and others like it, run on isobutane cartridges. The reasonable question is where do you get additional cartridges in a crisis? The same place you get gasoline, kerosene, white gas, and propane – you don’t. You either have a stash of it, or you scrounge it from somewhere. But, as I said, I already have cooking options for cooking with gasoline, kerosene, white gas, propane, and alcohol. I’ll lay in a case or two of cartridges for this thing and that’ll be that. I really only plan on using it for hunting and boonie humping purposes.
So..a new piece of gear to play with.I’m being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century but at I’m getting there.
My solid fuel stove uses Trioxane fuel bars. Not inexpensive now, but back in the day, ridiculously cheap. You could buy 10 boxes (30 bars) for $10 at The SportsmansGuide long ago and as much as you wanted, it was very common.. Three bars to a box, the foil envelope stored in tight spaces and even the dust from the bars could be used as a fire starter. Like your stove, not for ‘real cooking’ but for heating water and other small containers of liquid, convenient. A Sierra cup or military canteen cup was used as the cooking vessel.
That Stash looks like a great way for a small cook kit to be carried.
Following. I am from the old military heat tabs heating your chow generation, so the new types of compact cookers using these fuel canisters is a welcomed advance in technology or an accessibility to alternatives to heat tabs or sticks and twigs cooking when out on foot innawwods situations. This set up should supplant the heat tab methods as a primary or first case usage if the weight, size, durability, etc factors fit your field requirements over the heat tabs methods. Thus the heat tabs systems can be relegated to your redundant back ups stashed with your truck kit, etc. As with any product sourced via normal commercial supply chain you must be your own quartermaster / supply sergeant. (How we all learned about those scenarios) So about 8 to 12 in inventory and 4 or so with your truck and back packs load out should be good to go. No, scratch that, that’s a low ball amateur amount, you better get like 36 or some acceptable pro level number to you amount of them any way. Having some hot chow during a respite from the action really does help with staying frosty during your Wolverine adventures.
Do a search for Pepsi can stove. Burns alcohol, which you can buy cheap or make. Light, cheap, and boils water as fast as a pressurized stove.
Tutorial on the web or YouTube. Make one in 15 minutes.
okay i think you’re just looking for someplace to blow money now. (joking). but a msr pocket rocket or a knock off is a third the price and a 4th the size/weight. using a canteen cup/water bottle cup it takes maybe 30 seconds longer to boil.
Back in the early 70’s when I first started my backpacking stage somehow acquired a Svea 123 stove. Brass, heavy duty, used white gas or Coleman fuel and routinely threatened to send someone to the burn center. Mighty handy in the cold and snow when there wasn’t much dry wood around. Still got it and it still works!
I have a couple of those and they are easily end-of-the-world champions. I just wish they used a more common fuel than white gas.
White gas is basically unleaded gasoline. But unleaded will leave more soot/crap behind when burned which can clog lamps and stoves.
CZ, I use a Kelly Kettle kit with pot and lid(the full kit) its makes a larger foot print but requires no special fuel supply. You just burn small sticks, twigs, paper products, whatever you have handy. I take it hunting with me and can cook freeze dries as well as a pot of canned something or other. The remaining hot water is then used for coffee or tea (caffeine addict here) or any other hot beverage you find comforting. Because the burner is steel and supports the kettle there is little light or smoke when materials are dry. It will boil water (about one liter) in about five to eight minutes. Not a cheap product, but it works. TTFN
I have a jetboil. I have the one with a 1 liter pot and a French press thingie. Got it for making coffee while camping. It’s basically a more refined version of the simple white gas stove’s which have been around for awhile. The neoprene (?) sleeve thing really helps in out handling and I imagine getting up to temp faster.
It’s a slick system and boils water super fast. I’ve only used it to boil water. You get a whole bunch of boils per little canister of fuel. It lists the amount on the container snd even if you halve it the number is still a lot.
A half dozen canisters of the fuel in a box somewhere will cover anything short of the end of the world.
What it does well. Very easy to setup and use. Boil water for whatever. Heating up a can of soup would work just fine.
What it won’t do well. You aren’t going to have a good time doing things that require moderate or low heat. Not the most budget friendly option.
Where it fits into my preparedness. Power outage morning coffee. A lot of power outages in my area last under 12 hours. Often happen at night. Wake up in the AM. Don’t want to set up the full on camping kitchen but I do want coffee. Could also heat up a can of soup or whatever.
This would also work well for a small kit where you had a bunch of ramen or freeze fried type foods.
Yeah, for me its almost exclusively a boil-water-in-a-hurry-for-freeze-drieds kinda thing. Seems to excel in that particular field.
Yes. I haven’t tried to do a lot of different things with it (have better stoves for that) but my gut says the further you get from “boil water” the less effective this stove gets.
Trioxane heat tabs (Esbit is a brand name, but most US sporty stores have Heat Tablets) are a fire starter without equal, when you have some damp wood within reach and a #10 can stove or a fire pit. The fold-up pocket burner is very convenient, and will hold a couple of beeswax candles and a Bic lighter when folded closed.
+1 on SVEA 123. I sold one with an auxiliary pump, before discovering that the pump is MUCH more rare than the stove. White gas stores about forever in sealed cans, but is no longer cheap (2002 got Walmart brand gallons for $4, 2024 Coleman $24 gallon.). White gas is the best high altitude ice-snow melter and an MSR XGR stove is a fine model for this.
“bio-mass” (wood) is nice in the biggest Kelly Kettles. There is a 64oz 304 Stainless model available. Vargo titanium HEX folding stove is high-maintenance small stick burner that is okay for trioxane and alcohol as wind screen.
If you have a filter and can boil water, you are going to be okay unless drinking agricultural or mine runoff water.
thanks for the topic.
Amazon sells a 1lb propane tank to lindal valve adapter so you can use a 1 lb propane cylinder in place of the isobutane.canister. Cost is $10-12.
https://www.commanderzero.com/?p=4530
” an Omnifuel stove that will literally burn any liquid fuel” as long as it is petroleum-based, which alcohol is not.
GI Canteen cup, and GI stove that fits it is always a prudent thing to carry, IMHO. Works with trioxane/esbit tablets but can be forced to work with twigs, etc (not very well).
The Ghillie boiler is a piece of kit that I learned about from Ukraine. Bulky, not exactly cheap (but not much more than a jetboil or similar) and it only does one thing well: Boil water, fast, using ground litter.
I keep one in my winter gear bag
https://www.campingkettle.com/?srsltid=AfmBOopKGvRawgDV6YUczLyNJq8652P8PrjqLzF-NiWWoySJvLiHA0dG