Showing posts with label Tramping Cookers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tramping Cookers. Show all posts

Tuesday 12 January 2021

The MSR Windburner Stove System...

 Outdoor themed Christmas gifts for Jon.....

I got my usual haul of tramping gear for Christmas and I thought I would have a look at one of the items I received. My partner Karen brought me a MSR Windburner/Windboiler personal stove system after several discussions about them over the last couple of months. I really appreciate the thought and love involved in this purchase...it is certainly a gift which will see much use.

Setting up the the MSR Windburner to boil some water

I currently own five other stoves but have long wanted to buy myself a personal stove system but could not justify the expense of these units. They are all expensive...ranging into the hundreds of dollars depending on the system you choose. 

The Windburner and other cookers of this type are self contained...all of the elements pack into the main pot to make one relatively compact package. I store mine in a lite weight sil-nylon stuff sack to keep all my camp cookery items together. 

The MSR Windburner packed for transport...

Let's have a closer look at the Windburner, discuss its use and how it will fit into my tramping style. 


The MSR Windburner stove system:

I have long coveted a personal cooking system after watching people using them in huts and campgrounds. In particular I was envious of a couple of my hut mates at Casey Hut last year who were using a MSR Windburner and an MSR Reactor stove. The short boil time compared to my Firemaple Ti stove had me curious as to how one could be incorporated into my tramping equipment.


I visited the new Casey Hut II in the Poulter Valley last November

The Windburner system contains the following items: a 1 liter hard anodised aluminum pot with carry handle sleeve, a burner head with simmer control, a hard plastic lid for the pot, a canister stand and a 500 ml hard plastic cup. You will add to this a lighter, 110gms Iso-butane canister and a drying cloth. 


The complete Windburner stove system.....


Here are some statistics about the MSR Windburner;

  • 430 gm's without the gas canister, 550gm's with canister
  • 1 liter pot as standard- also 1.8, 2.5 and 4.5 pots and skillet available
  • excellent simmer control through quality pressure regulator
  • Integrated 500ml BPA free cup
  • Packed sizes is: 18cm(H)x 10.5cm (W)
  • retail price is $299 New Zealand dollars at most outlets

An accessory I brought to compliment my Windburner is a new coffee mug..the Sea to Summit X Mug. My previous hard plastic mug could fit inside my old cooking pot but adding it to the bag I keep my Windburner in makes for a super bulky package. The X mug is one of those foldable silicone cups and folds down into a package about 5 mm thick. 

I will let you know how it works once I take it out for a trip. 



Sea to Summit X Mug...


The average boil time for a pot of water is much less with these personal cook systems as they have windshields and heat exchangers to more efficiently use the heat produced. These stove are hard for the wind to extinguish as the flame of the burner head is protected by the wind shield. Quicker boil times mean less gas to carry....and a lighter pack!!!


The heat exchange vanes on the Windburner pot...

I have seen tests where a pot of water can be boiled in less than three minutes on a personal cook system while your average canister stove needs 5-6 minutes to heat the same volume. The Windburner/Windboiler system is the most efficient of these with an average 2 minutes and 30 seconds to boil .5 liter. This is half the time of the similar Jetboil system.....


Detail of the Windburner stove system


The Windburner system can be packed away and stored inside the main pot....the burner head, canister stand, lighter and a 110gms Isobutane canister can be easily stored inside the pot. This means less bulk as the gas is not stored separately and the whole system is in one place ready for use.


Illustration of how the Windburner nests in the pot


 MSR recommend you use their proprietary gas canisters but in reality all the brands are the same size and the contents are similar so any type can be used. My personal choice is Kovea gas canisters as I seem to get longer burn times out of them. The Windburner will accept all three gas canister sizes (110, 230 & 450 gm's) but only the small ones will fit inside this pot...


Windburner stove accessories:

There is a wide range of accessories for the Windburner/Windboiler systems which can be used on either of these two systems. There are several different sized pots built to work on these stoves. The pots range from 1 liter right up to 4.5 liters with the 1 and 1.8 liter being the most commonly used. 


A wide range of pots exist for the Windburner system...


Another accessory for the Windburner is a French Press attachment to make coffee using your Windburner pot. These come in both 1 liter and 1.8 liter versions. You just add your coffee grounds to the hot water insert the press and gradually push it down to extract the final product. Sounds like a lot of faffing about too me but I am not a connoisseur...give me a nice 3 in 1 and I'm happy...

Coffee press for the Windburner system...

MSR also make a skillet which works with your Windburner/Windboiler systems...it has an integrated wind shield on the bottom to stop your burner blowing out. I have heard mixed reviews of this...it cannot easily be used with other cookers and is heavier than similar Jetboil skillets. 





The MSR Windburner skillet




You can use other pots on a Windburner but you need to buy a separate pot stand which fits on the burner head...the gap introduced by this stops the pot from extinguishing the flame. They cost about $40 NZ dollars and are available in store or online. 


Using the MSR Windburner stove:

These units are made to heat water for drinks and dehydrated/freeze dried meals..freezer bag meals like polenta, instant spuds/rice, cous cous and rice noodles are also an option. You can cook in the pot but it will not be all that easy as it is tall and narrow. This will probably affect the planning and tone of your tramping trips at least where food is concerned...


Personal cook systems work best with dehydrated meals...



Using the Windburner is easy...unpack the system, attach the stove to a gas canister, fill the pot with water, light the stove and fit the pot to the burner head. Pour the hot boiled water in that gruesome dehy meal and Bob is your uncle and Mary your aunt. 

Very easy to use, little to no clean up and everything is readily to hand. Simple as....


Unpacking the MSR Windburner system...


Unlike some other MSR stoves the Windburner does not have an integral Piezo igniter...you need to light the stove with an external flame. You can use a ferro rod, lighter or matches to do this or you can invest in a separate hand held MSR piezo igniter. 

I brought my MSR igniter from Bivouac Outdoors here in Christchurch for less than $15 NZ dollars and it will work most times. These igniters are not great in wind or heavy rain so always have an alternate flame source....a lighter or matches!!!


MSR Piezo igniter for canister stoves...

The head of the Windburner stove has a fantastic safety feature...a thin metal wire that glows when the stove is running. During the daytime it is very hard to see if the stove is burning on the lowest setting but this glowing wire is obvious. When operating at full capacity the whole burner head will glow....as seen below. 


The Windburner stove face in use...


There is a vented heat exchanger on the bottom of the Windburner pot which efficiently distributes the heat over the bottom of the pot. This helps to lower boil times as well as making the flame more wind resistant. 


The vanes distribute the heat more efficiently...

Going forward I will primarily be using the Windburner for short overnight trips and trips where I am camping and cooking outdoors. These stoves are almost impossible to blow out so they suit the rigors of camp cooking. the are also perfect for any Alpine adventures or tops trips where wind can play havoc with simpler gas canister stoves. 

The Windburner would be perfect for windy places like Travers Saddle...

The stove is heavier than my usual cook system (430 gm's verses less than 200 gm's) so not ideal for the Te Araroa or the Great Walks. Weight is important in both these situations so a lighter option would work best...


Most Great Walks have cookers provided...here Howden Hut, Routeburn Track


In those situations I will still use my Firemaple Ti stove, Sea to Summit cup and Toaks Ti cook pot. Talking about Great Walks...most have gas cookers provided so a pot and eating utensils is usually all you need to carry... check the facilities offered before you go. 


The Windburner stove in action:

I will put images of the Windburner system out in the field and in use as I gradually incorporate it into my tramping program. 


Watch for images of the Windburner in the field...

So far it has only seen action on my recent trip to the Abel Tasman Inland Track...

Brewing up using the virgin MSR Windburner stove near Wainui Hut



Please come back for more images soon...  


Wednesday 19 July 2017

Tramping Equipment: What type of tramping stove?

Equipment for back-country cookery: Tramping/Hiking stoves

 There are a variety of ways to heat water and cook food while pursuing your outdoor adventures. The most obvious is the use of an open fire but due to the environmental impact this is now a discredited method. While open fires are not illegal they should only be used to cook food in an emergency.

Camp-fire cooking...as old as humankind.
Instead there are a myriad variety of stoves specifically manufactured for back country use. I thought it might be useful to look at these various types and explain what I use and why.

  So many types of outdoor cooker...


To start let us look at the types of cookers available. Note that the terms stove and cooker are interchangeable, you call them stoves we call them cookers!

 Iso-butane or gas canister stoves

The most commonly used stoves are those using iso-butane canisters, these are often refereed to as 'gas stoves'.  A gas stove will consist of the gas 'bottle' and a screw on cooker unit which you attach to the bottle.  Please note that the older 'pierced' type of gas canister is very difficult to find in New Zealand, we all use screw on cookers.

Kovea Titanium Tramping Stove

There are two main types of gas cooker, those that attach to the top of the bottle and those that are free standing. Above is a Kovea Titanium stove, this is typical of the top attached cooker. As you can see it has a perforated burner head, with a mechanism on the side to control the gas flow. There are fold out pot supports above the burner head. The button next to the Kovea branding is the piezo spark actuator.


Using my top fitting Kovea gas canister stove at Packhorse Hut, 2016

Below is the MSR Whisperlite, this is one of the free standing variety of outdoor cookers. These are much more stable as they usually have wider legs/pot supports arms and have a lower centre of gravity. The downside is the extra weight, these are normally 100-200 gms heavier than a top fixing stove.


MSR Windpro free standing gas stove for tramping


Here is a different version of a canister stove, the Jetboil. A Jetboil is an integrated cooking system with stand, cook pot, burner and canister all in one.  You use a Jetboil to heat water...you cannot cook in these. These stoves are good for alpinists and mountaineers as they are fast (melting snow for water) and pack into quite a small package.

They are also expensive and heavy which is why more trampers, anglers and MTB riders don't use them.


The Jetboil outdoor 'cooking system'


Iso-butane gas canisters are pressurised so the canisters must be made of steel to contain the gas. This means the canisters are heavy. An empty 225ml canister weighs 145gms so that is a lot of wasted weight you have to lug around.

Disposing of empty canisters can be problematic. The empty canisters cannot be recycled in New Zealand unless they are punctured- they need a hole in them to allow residual gas to escape. If not completely empty they are liable to explode during the recycling process.


Various sizes of MSR iso-butane gas: 100gms, 225gms and 550gms canisters

Aside from the weight,  gas canisters can also be expensive- they currently cost from $15-$20 for a medium sized canister. They do not perform well in cold conditions, as the gas can freeze if it is very cold.  If using one in a cold alpine environment it needs to be kept warm in a sleeping bag overnight.

Pros:Easy to use, quick set up, fast heating ability, relatively cheap, moderate heat control, widely available, many different models/makes, three sizes of canister available in New Zealand

Cons:Fuel canisters are heavy, quite expensive, disposal of empty canisters is problematic, top fixing versions are unstable, not good at high altitude or in cold conditions


Multi-fuel stoves

As the name implies a multi-fuel stove can use a variety of different fuels, this ranges from gas canisters, stove specific fuel, kerosene and even gasoline at a pinch. Some makes will only use liquid fuels while others are able to use both liquid fuel and gas.

The MSR Whisperlite multi fuel hiking stove: Both fuel bottle and gas canister shown

You fill the fuel bottle with your fuel of choice, then turn this into a pressurised gas by pumping the pressure handle. The stove is lit with match, lighter or piezo spark actuator.

Multi-fuel stoves are excellent for alpine conditions as the fuel is not affected by altitude or cold. Their ability to use a multitude of fuels also makes them practical: gasoline is available everywhere in the world while gas canisters are sometimes difficult to locate.

Unfortunately, these stoves tend to be heavy, 300-800 gms as opposed to a gas canister stove at 70-250 gms. They can also be a cast iron bitch to light as the burner unit is prone to soot blockages and fuel impurities. You must use good quality fuel and carry a cleaning kit and use both for optimum performance.



A MSR multi-fuel cooker service kit


I have to say though, there is nothing like the sound of a multi fuel stove blasting away on a cold morning...to a lot of us older trampers it is the sound of tramping itself.


Pros: Able to utilise many different fuels, much hotter flame, better flame/heat control, work well at altitude and in cold conditions, sound awesome when fired up

Cons: Much heavier, more difficult to operate, fuel must be pre warmed and pressurised before use, can be hard to light, more prone to stove blockages

  Methylated - Spirit stoves

  Methyl alcohol or 'spirit stoves' have been around for a long time but have recently been undergoing a resurgence in popularity. Prior to the 1940's this type of stove used jellied fuel and was utilised in the Great War trenches: Luigi, Ivan, Tommy, Mustafah and Fritz all had them.

Reproduction of a World War One "Tommy cooker'


Alcohol stoves can be commercially produced or home-made and have a burner unit with a series of holes in the top and sides. They normally have a stand to hold your pot above the flame and sometimes a wind-shield. Once lit the heating flame will come out of the holes providing the means to cook/ heat water.

 
A Trangia brand outdoor alcohol stove in action

As you can see in the photo below they are quite effective but the do have a number of limitations. The heat put out by methylated spirits is low, so cooking times are much longer. Once lit the flame cannot really be controlled so these stoves are not ideal for simmering.

They are also easily extinguished by wind, you really need a wind shield if using a spirit cooker.


Home-made outdoor alcohol stoves made from aluminium cans

These stoves will use both methylated spirits and de-natured alcohol, which is the American name for a similar product. "Meth's" comes in 1 litre bottles in New Zealand and cost from $6-$10 NZ dollars. Methylated spirits can be found in most service stations, hardware stores and supermarkets.

 De natured alcohol is usually only found in the larger outdoor equipment shops. It costs approximately $10-$20 NZ dollars per 1 litre bottle.

Just use meths' bro....



Methylated Spirits aka Denatured Alcohol
 
Pros: Fuel is cheap and widely available, stoves tend to be quite light, fuel can be used for starting a fire (carefully...don't throw meth's on an existing fire), fuel weight is lower as no heavy gas canister to carry

Cons: Highly inflammable...the vapour only needs a spark to ignite. Not safe for use in huts, easily extinguished by the wind, often need a wind shield and stand for use negating weight savings, care needed when refilling, fuel only comes in 1 litre volumes so there is potential fuel wastage.

Solid fuel tablets- Esbit Stoves

  Solid fuel stoves have been a mainstay of worldwide military forces for most of the later part of the 20th century. There are many firms producing both stoves and fuel including Sea to Summit, Coleman, MSR, Coghlans and cheap 'no brand' versions from China.

The most renown brand of solid fuel stoves are made by the German company Esbit, so in Europe these cookers are called 'Esbit stoves'.

Classic Esbit stove from Germany

 The solid fuel tablets for an Esbit type stove are generally made of a compound called hexamide. Hexamide is highly flammable and hence relatively easy to light. It is basically a solid form of hydro carbon covered in wax to stop it evaporating. One if its downsides are the fumes it exudes: these are both poisonous and foul smelling. 



Classic Esbit fuel cubes- one cube = 12 minutes of burn time

The beauty of solid fuel is that you need no stove...when I was in the military we just used a couple of rocks or sticks to prop our mess tins above the burning fuel cubes.

Oh my god... the smell of a 'hexie' tablet cooking some 'Spag and Snarlers' 'Corned Beef Hash' or 'Meat and Vegetables' is something every ex service person will remember fondly...morning time means hexie time!


Esbit stove, fuel tablets and cookpot, from Esbit website

An Esbit stove is bullet proof: it has no moving parts, requires no servicing and can be stored forever. That's why the military used them for so long.


Esbit type stove in use, from Australian Hiker

Pros:No parts to break, can be stored till the end of time, need no cooker, slow steady heat, relatively light, can be lit when wet, fuel makes excellent fire starter so dual purpose, cheap (a stove and fuel is usually less that $10 NZ dollars.

Cons: Low heat output, noxious fumes, cannot be used indoors, not readily available except in outdoor stores, easily extinguished by wind

Portable wood stoves

One of the newer forms of stove in use are those that use wood as their fuel...much as our ancestors have done for the last 40 000 years. These are commonly aluminium or titanium and burn paper, sticks, leaves and small wood chips. 

There are many commercial versions but these can also be made by the outdoor hobbyist at home.
 These are most often used by survivalists, long trail hikers and in areas where other stove types are banned. I see very few people using them in New Zealand- it is wet here so little dry wood and there are often fire bans in place over summer.

Typical lightweight outdoor wood stove in action


 The beauty of these stoves is that fuel for them is all around you, all the time. They can burn paper, card, wood, coal, dry grasses, dry leaves....basically anything that burns and is dry.

Pros: No need to carry fuel, relatively lightweight, inexpensive if home-made, can be used in most outdoor situations, fold down versions take up little space, environmental impact slight


Cons: They require dry wood,  can get very sooty on the outside, fire risk- cannot be used if there is a fire ban, cannot be used in huts, bulky unless fold down design, commercial versions are expensive

Flameless Ration Heaters or FRH's

Flame less Ration Heaters (or FRH's) are a by-product of military style Meals Ready To Eat (MRE's). MRE's first came into use with the US Army in the late 1980's to replace heavy canned rations.

 

US military FRH from a Meals Ready to Eat (MRE)

An MRE (jokingly called, with usual soldierly humour: Meals Rarely Eaten) is a thermo stabilised retort pouch of food, with the addition of various drink powders, snacks, side dishes and accessories.


Flameless Ration Heater: the chemical heater pad in a FRH

 They are a one meal item i.e. you would need to eat three a day to get your recommended calories. The FRH they contain uses a thermo-chemical reaction to warm the main meals and any hot drinks. Most of the military forces of the world are now using these.


A US military MRE: Beef Pasta with Tomato Sauce

FRH's were specific to military circles until about 10 years ago when a number of outdoor companies started to produce them for hikers and campers. Back Country Cuisine are the only indigenous manufacturer of FRH's. You have to be careful with an FRH, these can get really hot to the touch- don't leave them on an unprotected tent floor!



 

A Back Country Cuisine Flameless Ration Heater

In New Zealand the commercial food ranges these FRH's can be used with are Kaweka Meals (also used by the NZ Defence Forces), Sun Rice meals and the MTR range of Indian meals. All of these come in thermo stabilised pouches. Freeze dried meals can also be heated if the contents are re hydrated with cold water first. 

Pros: Very lightweight (less than 20gms each), easy to use, you require no stove/fuel or pot if not heating water, can be used in a well ventilated tent, not affected by cold/wet/windy conditions

Cons:Horrible environmental impact, very slow heating, expensive, limited uses- only good with thermo stabilised retort pouches, hard to source in New Zealand, need salt and a cup of clean water to work.


 No heat/no cook tramping 

One way to deal with cooking while tramping is to simply go without. I have meet a number of people practising no cook (or stoveless) tramping. Instead of your traditional hot meal they only utilise cold foods that require no cooking.

Typical 'no cook' foods might include: cold meats, canned fish, cheese, jerky, wraps/tortillas/bread/crackers, various spreads, energy bars, cereals, dried fruit or it could be dehydrated meals reconstituted with cold water.

Basically the sort of stuff you eat for lunch!


Some no-cook menu items: cereals, scroggin, energy bars, tuna, salami, drink powders, dried fruit etc.

I've tried this on an multi night tramp and decided it is not for me.  I like a hot drink in the morning with breakfast and soup and a hot meal at night. In extremis I would go stove-less but not out of choice. That's just my personal opinion by the way...you need to decide what works for you.

I meet a guy on the St James a couple of years ago who had scroggin, whiskey and 24 peanut butter sandwiches for food- he had six sarnies per day- two per meal. Hey...it would keep you going, but....

Do you fancy this at every meal for four days....

Pros: Lightweight (no stove/pot/fuel/cutlery), cheaper option as not buying fuel, stove or cook-pot, easy to sustain yourself for short periods this way

Cons: 24 peanut butter sandwiches......who wants to eat that for 4 days in a row! Will not sustain you properly for more than a couple of weeks, could be unsafe if tramping in adverse weather conditions (hot drinks save hypo-thermic trampers as they used to say...), packaging...there would be a lot of it!

 

My personal choice of tramping stove


I've used all of these various cooker types before but my primary cook stove is a relatively new titanium Firemaple screw on canister stove. This stove is very light....it weighs under 90gms including the hard plastic case it came in. This compares to older Kovea stove at 120gms without the case.


My newish Firemaple Brand iso-butane stove...

I brought this stove from Complete Outdoors a local online gear shop, it cost about $60 NZD. The cooker has quite a large burner head and expandable pot support arms that fit my titanium pot very well.

 Firemaple is a Chinese company..the Chinese are starting to make real inroads into the outdoor gear market I can see a time when all of the best outdoor brands will come from there.

Burner head and foldable arms on my Firemaple stove

I also own a Kovea Backpacker gas canister stove. I have been using this stove since 1993 with great success and it is still going strong. I like this stove but it is hard to argue with the weight savings of using the titanium Firemaple.


The Kovea Backpacker stove...this is the 2016 version

I usually couple my stove's with a medium size MSR gas canister, this combination allows me to boil water for both breakfast and dinner for 4-6 days. Both stoves cool fast and both have larger diameter burner heads which I find advantageous when heating speed is of the essence.


My Kovea Backpacker stove in use at Nina Hut in 2016

 Why gas....? I just find it more convenient to use a canister stove. You can have it out and going in less than one minute. A good breakfast is a fast breakfast if you know what I mean...! Any other type of cooker involves too much buggering around to get it operational.


Fixing dinner with my Kovea tramping stove at Mid Robinson Hut, 2015

If you are going to be using a canister stove you need a Crunchit. A Crunchit is basically a big can opener which allows you to safely puncture canisters to vent residual gas. The 'empties' can then be recycled. I leave mine at home and take to my empties after the trip.


The Jetboil Crunchit recycling tool

I also carry two Esbit cubes with me on every trip as an emergency backup. As I said earlier these can be used without a stove and because they only weigh 5 gms each are a useful survival tool. It is not without precedent to run out of gas for your cooker on the last day of a longer trip, so...two meals worth of hot water.


My Esbit cubes: fire starter and emergency cook tool

I have not had cause to use them for about 2 years now.

A gallery of other tramping stoves I own...

I have an Esbit methylated spirits cooker which I will be using when I do some of my longer Te Araroa Trail sections because it is ideal for that kind of tramping. The fuel is cheaper and more readily available in out of the way places.



My Esbit cooker looks like this...

 I inherited a Kovea Hiker stove from one of my brothers who moved to the US, it is an older design but still works well. She is a bit hefty for tramping but folds up into a nifty hard plastic container.I would use this stove if car camping or as a base camp stove.


Kovea Hiker stove, mine does not have a piezo

I also have an Outer Limits Huntsman stove, which I brought when I got back into tramping in 2010. I really like this stove but I just have a sentimental attachment to my Kovea Backpacker so this one doesn't get used very often.



An Outer Limits Huntsman stand alone stove


I hope that gives you some ideas to consider when choosing a new tramping stove.