I did a little experiment last weekend to see how my BOB fold-up Sterno stove/stainless 1 qt pot setup would perform in an emergency. After an hour, it still had not brought the water to a boil. Almost there but not quite boiling. I guess that setup is out in terms of using it to boil water for purification purposes. Back to the drawing board...

How do the various fuel-tab stoves perform in terms of boiling liter/quart quantities of water? Are they up to the task?

Moral -
It isn't enough that we prepare our BOBs, PSKs, trunk kits, etc. - we have to know whether our gear will perform as expected (or as advertised)!

I just tried the old trusty esbit stove tonight. I learned a couple of lessons...

** Lesson One **
I tried to light the fuel with the old magnesium block...
Sparks alone will NOT light the fuel.
Magnesium and sparks will not light the fuel.
Igniting 1/2 cotton ball on top of the fuel also failed.
Lighting 1/2 cotton ball and dropping the fuel on top worked fine. It left a heck of a mess on the stove, though.

** Lesson 2 **
I used enough water to fill two coffee mugs in a small stainless-steel kitchen pot. The water got hot enough for a nice cup of hot chocolate, but that is it. I saw some small (pinhead size) bubbles, and a bit of steam. Good enough for eating, but not hot enough to kill much.

It it possible that it might have boiled a smaller amount. I have not tried it yet. Plus, esbit fuel is hard to find around here (unless you buy a whole new stove).

I tested the magnesium block fire starters. I was very disappointed. The block dulls my knife, it is hard to get a quarter size pile of shavings, the wind blows the shavings away, and the flame last for only a second or two. If you have good tinder the magnesium will get it started. Treated cotton balls or fat wood is so much better.

You can buy ESBIT fuel from Campmor. It is hard to ignite, but is more stable than it's TRIOXANE cousin . Expose both to the air and the Trioxane dissolves while the ESBIT looks like a troll caught in sunlight. Triox does seem to produce a hotter flame, but this is my anecdotal observation. You will improve the stove's efficiency with a windscreen. I cut two rectangles from a soda can, bent into a L and trimmed to fit inside. Place them along the exposed sides and one tab will bring a G.I. canteen cup to boil. If you rig some manner of container lid the efficiency again improves. Watching most of your heat being drawn off the open top waiting for the hot chocolate is demoralising. That piece of aluminum foil in the PSK? perfect <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I think it would work better with a thin aluminum mess tin like a Trangia mess tin with lid and handle. I've got the mess tin but I have yet to buy an Esbit stove and try it.

Frankie

Your Trangia burner is better.

being a hiker and bushcrafty type, i personnaly got my equipment i have for hiking and bushcrafting in my bob, if the kit hasn't proven it self, i won't carry it.

The best I've ever got Sterno to do was to boil 8 oz. in 18 minutes. I still use it to warm food and to warm myself, but specifically for boiling water I made an alcohol stove:

http://www.zenstoves.net/

It's the simplest one--essentially a cat food can with holes drilled in it. Works great. Gives me a rolling boil in 4 1/2 minutes on 1/2 oz. of alcohol.

Regards, Vince

Edit: looks like they moved the one I built. It's called the Super cat stove. You can find it here:
http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/SuperCat/HTML/Super_Cat7.htm

I wouldn't use sterno for an emergency, but instead would use Esbit. The esbit tabs can be hard to light. Some squirt some alcohol hand gel on the tablet and light that. When I used it backpacking, one tablet would boil 16 oz. water for sure. It might even boil three cups of water, but 1 quart is pushing it in my opinion.

Wow! That Zen Stoves site is detailed. I've never seen a site on DIY stoves that showed someone taking that much care. Good instructions too. The Lego Minifig is cracking me up.