I'm working on reducing the pack around my middle. It's the cheap and healthy way to lighten your backpacking weight. Time to take the dog on her (my) 3 mile walk. Cheers, Manny
Some items I can't imagine leaving behind - a book comes to mind. I'd go nuts without something to read. Dave is right I do like to fiddle gadgets when in the bush. If I were to go on a longer or harder trip where weight is more critical I'd work harder at getting my pack weight down. For a quick trip with minimal mileage weight doesn't matter so much to me.
When I got back into tramping 3 years ago my weight was much the same as my weight plus pack now. The ultimate light weight setup. Mind you that first tramp was a killer
Have you got a link to the site, or a copy of the spreadsheet? I want to make sure I am buying the heaviest tea bags!!!! When I go camping I need a Toyota Surf 4x4 just to carry the 240V generator, stoves, lamps and drag the 18 foot Caravan.
I had a hiking buddy like that. Everytime we would go into the woods for a 3 day hike, hewould sit down to his meal of Ramen. He didn't bring anything else to eat. Must have figured out that I always carried along extra freeze dried food for 1 or 2 days emergency ration. Fortuntely he is now too old and feeble to hike in the woods. But I still bring enough food to feed a tribe. Jim Henderson
Hi Men, I thought you might like to view this review of the Evernew Titanium Alcohol Stove. Evernew Titanium Alcohol Stove Review I'm not convinced! I'll stick with my Trangia burner or a "pop" can burner. I really don't get it. Why spend this kind of money to save a couple of ounces. You're better off spending the money on grub and getting your self out on the trail for a weekend. How about a titanium windshield to replace the heavy brass on your Svea 123. Hey, you could save two ounces. Cheers, Manny
Thanks to linux author for posting this. Please don't take the rancor that product has elicited personally! It looks interesting to me. I want to point out that whenever someone goes out to 'improve' on a trangia they usually overlook some element of how the trangia system was designed to work. By putting the holes in the side of the burner as well as in the flame ring, they have thrown fuel economy to the wind in several ways. 1) when you want to simmer... you can't. EDIT: I watched the video Manny posted. The simmer option, is to remove your homemade potstand and set the cooking vessel directly on the stove, this eliminates the top flame ring and decreases the output. It's a 1 size simmer. hopefully it's enough to stop the noodles from boiling over. otherwise i suppose you could bring a handful of coins to set on the lip to block more holes. SERIOUSLY FOLKS. How long before we make up the gram weenie brass to Titanium weight savings in extra fuel and bits of metal to block jets?! 2) When you're done cooking and you want to shut the stove down... you can't. So there's no need to store the excess fuel in there... because you can't put it out. Presumably fuel weighs nothing so there's no need to conserve it, even though alcohol is the heaviest liquid fuel per BTU. I suspect that the 'design flaw' they were looking to eliminate from the trangia design was the longer boil times compared to a white gas stove. Without thinking about it too hard, i guess that since alcohol has roughly 1/2 the heat potential per volume as petroleum, the designers of the evernew decided that the solution was just to guzzle the fuel 2-3 times as fast as a white gas stove. The main error in reason here is that boil times alone do not make a cook system functional. If all you are doing is literally boiling water... not pasta nothing but water... i bet this thing would be fast. And i bet it would be a great idea if you could very precisely meter how much you needed given how much water you were boiling, variable heatup time, ambient temperature and wind effect. Baring that, an infinite supply of fuel would be good.
The two tone color scheme would be nice. It would do nothing to improve your cred with AT thru-hikers though... When you show up at the shelter with a 123 they KNOW you are a hardcore bad-a*s.
I do something similar with my Trangia but with better results(I think). When you get that good boil and want to go into simmer mode do the following; Remove the rubber o-ring from lid Place the lid INVERTED on the burner This may not work as good as a simmer ring but it is a low tech easy and available way to cut to about 1/2 heat. The burner needs to be good and warm, else this will just snuff it out. AR
Manny, Wow,a base weight of 5 pounds - that is really heavy! see: http://www.christownsendoutdoors.com/2009/07/ultralight-in-cairngorms.html
It's not a simmer ring, but for those with Trangia check out my inverted cap trick on youtube. [media=youtube]IsIwkcnnZ2o[/media] It also works as a substitute pot support for solo style pots. Enough surface area to conduct heat to the burner without choking it out. AR
good job on the video! i wondered about doing rice out in the field and your video has given me some confidence!
My personal favorite is beans & rice. I take the mix out of the box and put it into a zip-lock bag to save space. On a long haul I put dry good it into a wide mouth water bottle, the Nalgene type. I have a simmer ring that I typically use but thought this to be an interesting approach. I have used the large Military burners with this technique. You can even put your pot on the inverted cap and ditch the pot support. Just be careful, it gets tippy. I use this infrequently and still learning the tricks. I've seen some people add a little water to get it to run cooler. Guess a weaker grade alcohol would do the same. For now I'll just use the ring. Any easy tricks for adjusting the simmer ring once it's on the stove?? Respectfully, AR
A leatherman or such multitool is always handy. With a little practice you can lift the ring off. If you grab the ring by the swingy thingo, you can close it slightly by pushing the ring against the ground or a rock etc... then replace it on the stove. If you have non synthetic gloves, you can just open or close it by hand without burning yourself.
Tried another simmer trick with my Trangia 28. An old trick used by those who have 123 Sigg Tourist and like cook sets. Just add some water between the burner base and stove. This acts as a heat sink and lowers the fuel pressure. With the Trangia you can almost do away with the simmer ring if you just keep adding new water at regular intervals. AR
