Trangia in the freezing outdoors

The Trangia 27 was tried in proper outdoor conditions, in about -7°C weather. Some earlier assumptions already had to be revised.

But before that, some words about gear expansion. I got a Trangia 0.3L fuel bottle, Trangia multi-disc and a backpack.

I had the misfortune to find out the multi-disc doesn't properly fit into its "carry" position inside the Trangia 27 stack. This resulted in an annoying 5-7mm gap between the pan and the cover when stacked.

Trangia multi-disc and the 0.3L fuel bottle

Some angry moments were spent wondering how on Earth could Trangia have mistaken two circumferences by the order of several millimeters?

Then, in the clear light of the morning I understood the flaw is not that radical. The folded edge of the Trangia upper windshield can be bent inwards. Then it will fit in the disc groove.

I simply took the pliers and put some protection between the jaws. I did the adjustment with far too much haste, but the edge wasn't entirely ruined. Possibly a round wooden pin rolled hard against the edge could have been better.

I am many things but maybe not a metal artisan

Even after getting the disc to fit, there's a 1-2mm gap between the pan and the windshield in the stack, but I can perhaps live with it.

The Trangia fuel bottle ("red") is quite handy and the safety cap looks very sturdy. 

I have to wonder though about the build quality here too, the cap plastic shape isn't very precise and what looks like a metal ring around the container is painted into metal color? And even dispensing said color to my hand? But in functionality, all appears to be well. 

A backpack was dedicated to outdoor gear (Black Diamond BBEE 11 if you must know). Cheap, it has numerous features for attaching equipment, and a nice hook inside for hanging the bottle vertically, inside near the top of the bag. The Trangia 27 stack fits snugly at the bottom of the bag. I thought the small size might encourage more minimal thinking, hopefully this decision doesn't backfire.

Helsinki January breeze

At the site

I had read the spirit might be tricky to ignite in the cold, but I had assumed this would really only happen in -20°C conditions.

But the plasma igniter wouldn't do on its own and a piezo lighter wouldn't ignite even warmed-up spirit. A few tries with burning paper handkerchief material got it going, but even this happened rather randomly, possibly some quantum cascade when it was not observed.

No wonder pre-warmers exist. After the spirit and the burner had warmed up, it could be safely shut out and re-ignited, which is a good thing. At that point it's really not more difficult than operating gas. The simmer lid was not adjusted, I simply used it to snuff out the flame when needed.

A little less than 100ml of spirit was burned. A few drops of water were added to prevent soot.

First, a 0.5l pre-warmed water was made to boil for a Blå Band instant soup, another Swedish institution. (10 minutes) Then, some cheese sticks on the pan and then 0.5l of mulled wine.

Just as a test, some more water was put on, but there wasn't enough spirit to get it to boil. Especially not without a cover.

So, what felt like an overkill of spirit to carry was actually a reasonable amount for the tasks. This means about 10 comparable sessions with 1L of spirit.

The flame is on

At least in the cold, the burner flame isn't as stable as my meager previous experience had suggested. I would say it did its job reliably, but it's not exactly on/off. After a rough and cold start it will improve in time, and then it will die out as the fuel runs out.

Compared to gas, I had some negative expectations especially after the difficulties with ignition. All went well, considering the lack of experience. But then again the spirit burner is the original Trangia product, whereas the gas burner is a later addition.

The spirit is almost uncomfortably silent compared to gas. I don't mind the gas noise, and it's often a good tell-tale sign of how things are going. There's nothing in the spirit burner that "says" about the condition of the fire.

Campers who make longer treks have compared the weight of spirit fuel unfavorably to gas. But what about this kind of quick foray? If 100ml of spirit weighs about 100g, together with the Trangia bottle (93g) it's getting near the 200g territory, comparable to the weight of a 230g gas bottle. Ok, alcohol is less dense than water, so I have to measure this empirically.

If you're confident with taking ~70ml and carrying it inside the burner, sans bottle, then obviously it will be a very, very light load.

For this kind of 1-2 person tasting trip, the small Trangia set proved easy to use. I'm looking forward to using it in warmer weathers...!

Not so sooty as last time