Trangia 27-3 UL cooker

Of course the strap had to be misplaced for the photograph.

I received this small storm / camp cooker from Marq, who got the Trangia virus already earlier.

So I know the deal with the pans and the pots from those urban excursions. But this burner uses spirit alcohol, so that's at least a new thing.

The Marinol brand of spirit has been recommended so I bought 1 liter for 7 Euros. I've read the Covid-19 and Ukraine war has increased prices for spirit alcohol, so who knows it might have been cheaper in the past.

The equipment inside the box (and a few that don't belong)

There's a couple of things in the box not to be thrown away. The burner is meant to be kept in the yellow plastic bag, as it can be sooty. The teflon pan has a plastic sheet for protection, and this also needs to be kept in place. (Not very visible in the above picture, I don't mean the bag around the pan.)

The kit weighs about 740 grams, including plastic bags.

For my water boiling test I used 50ml of spirit. I poured it into a kitchen measure, and then into the burner.

The burner in place, and the simmer lid component.

The fire was made with electric plasma lighter, a silly impulse purchase that barely fits inside the Trangia. 50 grams.

The flame started out quite blue and low, which looked nice and cozy. But in time the flame became higher and turned more yellow.

I knew 50ml to be too much, but I naively expected I could wait it to die out. But as my first test was on a balcony, I couldn't spend the time.

The balcony setup.

The vapor, smoke and scent can easily rise to the floor above. Also, after the pot no longer covers the flame, the flame rises so far above the cooker, it begins to illuminate the surroundings in an undesirable way. An outside observer might suspect a house fire, without even seeing the actual flame.

For these reasons I snuffed out the flame with the closed "simmer lid". I probably won't ever use the burner in the balcony again.

The first flame. The simmer lid component is not in place.

Also, even with all the care it is difficult to avoid the smell of the spirit alcohol. I'm a little suspicious about the indoor use case suggested in the Trangia manual...

Even for such a small test, it was easy to forget equipment. Luckily it was all one door away. A checklist and well ordered Trangia "package" will be a must.

Some instant noodles

The ten minutes of burning had barely consumed half of the alcohol. So the 1 liter bottle could be good for 40 comparable rounds.

But then again, this ten minutes only boiled slightly more than 0.3L of water, in a weather of about 3 degrees Celsius.

I don't know the water initial temperature, but it was cold tap water. Just for the sake of doing something productive, I added instant noodles to the boiling water.

Soot from 10 minutes of cooking

The pot had become surprisingly sooty, but apparently this is to be expected even with the "clean" Marinol spirit. The denaturing components are mostly to blame.

A common tip says to add a little water to the mix, which is something to try the next time. This needs to be done right, as too much water will reduce the flame effectiveness to the point it can't even boil water.

PataPata steel wool

Using dishwasher and a brush did little or nothing. PataPata soaped steel wool got rid of the soot, but it's also nearly like sanding the dirt away. I was wary of doing anything similar to the inside of the pot, although it doesn't look like these basic pots have any protective surface.

It's far too early to compare this with the gas burner experiences, but I'll try anyway. 

Having to clean the pots is a bit of a downer. Gas is faster. The spirit sure is cheap and needs less carrying than the gas container(s). In both cases you don't really see the flame while cooking, and it may be the spirit flame is more predictable, if only for being slower. But then again, it's really easy to adjust the gas.