The Trangia Spirit Burner with Screwcap is a terrific option for a simple, reliable, versatile, and fairly lightweight stove. While there are lighter alcohol stoves available, most are less versatile because they lack the Trangia's O-ring lined screwcap, which allows you to store excess fuel inside the stove without leakage. This, as well as the increased durability, is the main reason I finally adopted the Trangia after years of using various homemade popcan stoves.
The stove could hardly be simpler to operate. Just fill it up with your preferred alcohol fuel (I recommend yellow Heet, which burns cleaner and seemingly hotter, not to mention cheaper per ounce, than 91%, 99%, or denatured alcohol) and light it aflame with a match, lighter, or fire rod. The stove takes approximately 30 to 60 seconds to warm up enough to vaporize the fuel and burn effectively at full intensity. At full flame, the stove will burn for 23 minutes on 100 mL of yellow Heet, and then gradually die down over the subsequent 60 to 90 seconds. At normal room temperature, the heat at full flame will bring 1L of water to a rolling boil in under 9 minutes, or 1 cup (8 oz.) of water to a boil in under 4 minutes. While not as good as some butane rocket-style stoves, this is exceptional performance for its weight, and more than adequate for all but the most impatient backcountry cooks.
Using the simmer cap, the Trangia becomes even more flexible and its burn time can be extended by quite a large margin. With the simmer cap fully open, the flame remains hot enough to maintain a rolling boil in 1L of water, and closing up the opening in the cap shrinks the flame progressively down to something approximating a low simmer (ideal for cooking more delicate, easily scorched foods like eggs). When closed all the way, the cap becomes an effective snuffer. Just drop it over the flame and it instantly extinguishes, allowing you to control and preserve fuel remarkably easier than with virtually any other alcohol stove on the market (excepting knock-offs that are patterned after the Trangia's clever design).
On my digital scale, the Trangia (WITH the screwcap and snuffer/simmer cap) weighs in at 111 grams. A homemade popcan stove can be half or even a third of that weight, which may matter to some people, but in my opinion the added versatility, convenience, and robustness of this stove makes it well worth its weight.
In my case, I typically cook with wood in a small Emberlit titanium box stove (the kind that easily separates and folds flat). In many parks, a box wood stove is considered an enclosed stove and can be used even when there is a ban on open fires; however, there are times in very wet weather when gathering dry tinder to get the wood stove started can be inconvenient to downright frustrating, and when traveling with my kids, it helps to have the Trangia to fall back on for instant access to a cook fire, as well as none of the smoke or wood supply management required to cook with wood. In that kind of back-up/convenience role, this stove is wonderful because thanks to the screwcap, I don't need to carry a spare fuel bottle on most shorter trips. With 100 mL of yellow Heet stored inside the stove, I get adequate burn time to boil more than 3L of water, which is plenty for several meals. And it fits so nicely inside the Emberlit box stove that I also don't need to carry a separate windscreen or pot holder. They just pair together so well.
All in all, I highly recommend this stove for anyone who wants a simple, durable, reliable, and unusually versatile alcohol stove. And I recommend yellow Heet to minimize the fumes and soot that other types of alcohol fuels can generate.
[UPDATE 5-17-2018: While I still like this stove, I found that after using it for a few months, the seam where the upper and lower part of the stove joins must expand, as mine started to leak fuel even with the cap sealed tightly. I was able to resolve this by heating the stove with a torch and running electrical solder all the way around the seam. The solder fills the gap and stops the leaks, and the stove does not get hot enough in operation (or at least, hasn't so far) to re-activate the solder to cause problems. That said, I have moved on from this stove in favor of the lighter Vargo Triad 2.0, which has it's own quirks but weighs substantially less. Since I need to carry more fuel on longer trips than fits in the Trangia itself--and thus, have to carry the weight of a fuel bottle anyhow--it didn't make sense to keep using the heavier Trangia. See my review of the Vargo if you're interested in the modest tradeoffs you make with that one.]
Other Product Promotions:
|
