Paging Neeman (and Codger and anybody else interested in this stuff)...
Here are some initial results of using my Emberlit both alone and in combination with my Trangia. Pictures are worth a 1000 words but words are easier to post. Will post pictures if there's huge demand.
As those used to getting performance out of alcohol stoves know, burn times vary considerably based on 3 interdependent factors: air flow under and up around the Trangia burner, windscreen protection of the flame and around the pot and distance of the burner from the bottom of the pot.
Obviously any idiot can drop a Trangia into an Emberlit. Question was: how fast could I get the Emberlit and Trangia in combination with each other.
By way of comparison, I usually carry a Trangia Mini with a modified coffee can shim to use an additional windscreen pot holder. It nests with the standard Mini pot stand but it puts the pot at about 30mm above the burner which dramatically lowers burn times. I use this with a aluminum foil windscreen which is place on twigs or stones (to let air under it) and this again drops burn times.
With the Trangia + Emberlit combo, the 2 sub-questions I had were:
A) What was the optimal distance from the burner top to the pot bottom?
B) Would a Clickstand style windscreen help the burn times?
If you aren't sure what the Clickstand system looks like, just google/bing.
To play with burner height, I need a simple way to adjust the Trangia's height above the bottom of the screen. I used some heavy gauge foil folded over to create a thick strip 50mm high. Another turn of the edge dropped the width to 35mm. Coiling the strip in a circle with the extra bit inside made a simple platform for the Trangia burner.
For the faux Clickstand windscreen, I used my hot-rod Trangia windscreen made from heavy guage aluminum foil folded over 3 times. It's about 15cm tall and is held together at the ends with paper clips. To get it to work with the Emberlit, I place 2 long straight twigs through parallel air in take ports (forming a crude twig '11'). When I placed the windscreen over the the Emberlit, it still came a good way up my pot and protected the flame area of the stove while still giving a large amount of intake room at the bottom. Again, hit the Clickstand site to get the basic idea.
I won't give all of the times of all of the variants I tried but here are the highlights. All times are for boiling 2 quarts (.5 L) of tap water in the same location of my yard on the same day (70f and light wind).
4:45 - Trangia + Emberlit with 35mm lift and windscreen
5:00 - Trangia + Emberlit with 50mm lift and windscreen
5:30 - Trangia Mini (modified), windscreen (no Emberlit)
6:30 - Emberlit with wood
6:45 - Trangia + Emberlit with 35mm lift, no windscreen
7:15 - Trangia + Emberlit with 50mm lift, no windscreen
7:45 - Trangia + Emberlit with no lift (on base), no windscreen
Observations:
The Trangia is more convenient than the wood fired Emberlit. It's cleaner and you can pack up quicker. With wood, you need to wait till the fire is dead and then there is some clean up. That's not horrible but needs to be factored in.
The Trangia Mini on it's own is more convenient in that you can actually use the simmer ring. The Trangia + Emberlit + 50mm is nearly as convenient but you need to use a lot of care placing the simmer ring on with twigs used as chopsticks. If you screw up, you can drop the simmer ring to the bottom of the Emberlit and it's there till the stove burns out.
IMO, the lower 35mm lift isn't worth the 15 seconds. It puts the burner assembly too far below the top of the Emberlit which makes dealing with the simmer ring and snuffing out the Trangia too much of a hassle. For my end solution, I'll probably go with 45mm-50mm of lift. Just so much more convenient.
Trangia + Emberlit and no windscreen is horrible (compared to Emberlit with wood) but dang... Add a foil windscreen and it's a water boiling machine.
Last comment... I'm expecting boil times on the Emberlit to vary considerably. There is a definite surge factor as you will fill it with wood from the side and then that wood burns to ember and needs to be pushed in further (or replaced). Different woods burn differently so getting things just so that you bring water to a boil at peak output will change boil times.
Hope this helps...
Here are some initial results of using my Emberlit both alone and in combination with my Trangia. Pictures are worth a 1000 words but words are easier to post. Will post pictures if there's huge demand.
As those used to getting performance out of alcohol stoves know, burn times vary considerably based on 3 interdependent factors: air flow under and up around the Trangia burner, windscreen protection of the flame and around the pot and distance of the burner from the bottom of the pot.
Obviously any idiot can drop a Trangia into an Emberlit. Question was: how fast could I get the Emberlit and Trangia in combination with each other.
By way of comparison, I usually carry a Trangia Mini with a modified coffee can shim to use an additional windscreen pot holder. It nests with the standard Mini pot stand but it puts the pot at about 30mm above the burner which dramatically lowers burn times. I use this with a aluminum foil windscreen which is place on twigs or stones (to let air under it) and this again drops burn times.
With the Trangia + Emberlit combo, the 2 sub-questions I had were:
A) What was the optimal distance from the burner top to the pot bottom?
B) Would a Clickstand style windscreen help the burn times?
If you aren't sure what the Clickstand system looks like, just google/bing.
To play with burner height, I need a simple way to adjust the Trangia's height above the bottom of the screen. I used some heavy gauge foil folded over to create a thick strip 50mm high. Another turn of the edge dropped the width to 35mm. Coiling the strip in a circle with the extra bit inside made a simple platform for the Trangia burner.
For the faux Clickstand windscreen, I used my hot-rod Trangia windscreen made from heavy guage aluminum foil folded over 3 times. It's about 15cm tall and is held together at the ends with paper clips. To get it to work with the Emberlit, I place 2 long straight twigs through parallel air in take ports (forming a crude twig '11'). When I placed the windscreen over the the Emberlit, it still came a good way up my pot and protected the flame area of the stove while still giving a large amount of intake room at the bottom. Again, hit the Clickstand site to get the basic idea.
I won't give all of the times of all of the variants I tried but here are the highlights. All times are for boiling 2 quarts (.5 L) of tap water in the same location of my yard on the same day (70f and light wind).
4:45 - Trangia + Emberlit with 35mm lift and windscreen
5:00 - Trangia + Emberlit with 50mm lift and windscreen
5:30 - Trangia Mini (modified), windscreen (no Emberlit)
6:30 - Emberlit with wood
6:45 - Trangia + Emberlit with 35mm lift, no windscreen
7:15 - Trangia + Emberlit with 50mm lift, no windscreen
7:45 - Trangia + Emberlit with no lift (on base), no windscreen
Observations:
The Trangia is more convenient than the wood fired Emberlit. It's cleaner and you can pack up quicker. With wood, you need to wait till the fire is dead and then there is some clean up. That's not horrible but needs to be factored in.
The Trangia Mini on it's own is more convenient in that you can actually use the simmer ring. The Trangia + Emberlit + 50mm is nearly as convenient but you need to use a lot of care placing the simmer ring on with twigs used as chopsticks. If you screw up, you can drop the simmer ring to the bottom of the Emberlit and it's there till the stove burns out.
IMO, the lower 35mm lift isn't worth the 15 seconds. It puts the burner assembly too far below the top of the Emberlit which makes dealing with the simmer ring and snuffing out the Trangia too much of a hassle. For my end solution, I'll probably go with 45mm-50mm of lift. Just so much more convenient.
Trangia + Emberlit and no windscreen is horrible (compared to Emberlit with wood) but dang... Add a foil windscreen and it's a water boiling machine.
Last comment... I'm expecting boil times on the Emberlit to vary considerably. There is a definite surge factor as you will fill it with wood from the side and then that wood burns to ember and needs to be pushed in further (or replaced). Different woods burn differently so getting things just so that you bring water to a boil at peak output will change boil times.
Hope this helps...
