I've had a Trangia burner on wages for ages. I like them for some things but I happy to be brutally warts and all about what is crap about them.
First, consider whether you really want a genuine Trangia and why. A Trangia burner is made from brass, so it is a lump. There are loads of me-too versions on the market that are made from other stuff. There is no reason at all why a clone burner will not burn as well made from steel, aluminium or titanium.
You can achieve most of the burning action that a Trangia commonly does with a Super Cat stove, and have the advantage of needing no further pot support. A] Take one soft cat food tin, B] punch holes in it with a paper hole punch. C] tip in fuel and set on fire, D] plonk pot on top.
Stick a screen of aluminium foil round it and away you go.
With a Trangia burner you'll be carrying something many many times heavier than a Super Cat and a bit of foil, mebe needlessly. In fact, as I write I am genuinely wondering whether a pillowcase full of Super Cats would be lighter than my Trangia burner. Not something that has occurred to me before, but now it has, it amuses me that toss a coin is as good as my best guess.
Notice how I hedged with mebe needlessly? Regulating the flame on an active Trangia burner ranges between PITA and waste of time. The heat output of the fuel is so poor you will invariably use a Trangia in flat out mode. Sure that isn't in stone, and a skilled user can coax more from them. In the same way one can make pizza by burning candles under a cookie tin one can bake with a Trangia if one brings a bunch of other stuff. Essentially, all the other bits in a Trangia set are a bunch of modified cake tins to enable you to be able to do more than what a Super Cat can do. It's all about trying to preserve the precarious bit of warmth the burner produces. Short version if you have a bunch of other stuff you can set the regulator [no different to putting a rock across the hole] of the burner on low before you start, and you can do slow stuff. For all practical purposes you can probably dump the idea of regulating the heat once it is lit.
I really can't emphasise strongly enough how poor the heat output of a Trangia burner is. They are hideously inefficient compared to alternatives. Sure you can get more out of them by doing a mod that pressurises the fuel, and that'll pump out more heat, but that fuel is what it is, and it is low on BTU. That means you'll get through a lot of it. It also means it is terrible in the cold, as in really awful. That's probably counterintuitive given where they come from. Don't trip on that. If someone made a stove that ran like an old oil lamp with a frond from a mop running into a bowl of rendered penguin fat it would not be excellent for cooking. All those aluminium cans that surround the brain are to try to claw back something from the hideous deficiencies. Without all the scaffolding a breeze stronger than a good fart is nearly catastrophic for a Trangia burner.
True, Trangias are very popular with unsophisticated, heavy handed, or just plain dim folks. If you want something for military use that's hard to break then splendid. If he doesn't lose the parts even the most dopey member of the squad can boil. Good enough. Likewise, they are very popular here with outbound courses, youth groups, and D of E stuff. It's stuff that needs to work to some degree over and over, just like the 8oz yd² rubberised waterproof jackets they hand out at adventure centers to get kids through the weekend. You can jump off a table and land on a Trangia set with clogs on and you'll still be able to get it working. You could leave it at the bottom of a lake all week, and when you drag it out it'll still work. If you want longevity, or simplicity, or idiot proof, or all three, these are great.
Be clear in that I'm not saying they are only for the unsophisticated, heavy handed, or just plain dim folks. I am saying that the ruggedness they have is foil to those people. And I strongly believe that accounts for a good portion of their popularity. In that respect it is a bit like wool, sure there are some merits we can honestly explore, but the lion's share of what makes it trendy among some groups is that in the woods they are too dipshit to find other ways to keep warm without setting themselves on fire. As a consequence they suffer all those weight and bulk penalties etc. I am certain there are a few others we can be more charitable about though.
For myself, well I like all sorts of stoves: Most the time I use some sort of canister stove. There are problem with those too, but modern canister stoves are so good a lot of the old complaints that used to be valid have fallen away. They can be quick, simple, stable, reliable, and with a degree of fine adjustment that makes cooking interesting stuff a breeze. And they can operate at merrily at a wide temperature range. Apart from the persistent issue of the part canister they are about as good as it gets for me most of the time. If it is hugely below 0º I'll break out the 442 and run that on Aspen 4T, and suffer the drawbacks with pressured petrol stoves. Below is how my Trangia ended up.
It's not all there 'cos this is just a repost image I've used before. There's a lid that goes on top of the cup. In the cup I also have a bit of foil that makes the wind shield and a bit of foam. The foam is on double duty. The cut down SIGG bottle stands on it to slow the heat robbing transfer of the ground that Trangias are so sensitive to. It's also the last thing that goes in under the lid when I pack it away and put a tredder tube rubber band over it. It stops any kind of rattling, that I am extremely sensitive to.
This is still my current favourite micro system for use on the bike after 4 years. I've meddled with tiny handbag hairspray sized blowlamp canisters up Rocket stoves, and that worked OK but I prefer this. As I said above a Super Cat would confer considerable weight advantage and do away with the pot stand. You can't carry fuel in a Super Cat though and with a Trangia you can. And this is more wind resistant when I surround with foil compared to a Super Cat and foil. And a Super Cat will need to have insulation from the ground to ideally. No need for a further part elsewhere or to improvise something when I have something in the cup. 90% I use this to make couscous and coffee, the rest of the time noodles. I can push it a bit more by using a Reflectix cosy. Boil water, stick it in cosy, chuck in couscous and lumps, put cosy lid on and go do something else for a bit. On the bike it allows me to go a bit more than what my Thermos King can do, yet stops short of cooking something proper on a stove. In those 4 years I've tried to beat this system for this niche and I haven't managed to yet.
