Stove Stuff

I wanted to like Esbit tablets. I really did. It seemed like they'd fit in so well with my "almost-no-cook" food approach. I could carry a few with me at a time and only use them if I really wanted a hot meal or if I needed to fry up some nature burgers that night. Then I tried them.

I tested them out on a 40 degree, windy day, the kind of day where you don't want to be fumbling around with a lighter or other small objects more than necessary. My biggest issue is they're nearly impossible to light in the wind, at least with the technology I was using. I tried matches and lighters and even after holding constant flame on the tablets for close to 5 seconds they were not lighting up. I tried digging the entire stove into the ground to make a wind shield, as well as creating a foil screen, but neither of these approaches helped much.

Once it was lit it worked pretty well. It fried up a nature burger in less than 5 minutes with no lid and it boiled water pretty quickly too. I found another issue when I decided I was done with a lit tablet. They cannot be stifled like most other flammable objects, and blowing them out is difficult. After I lifted the frying pan shown in the photo below a big gust of wind actually lifted the aluminum foil and the stove and sent flaming Esbit tablets skipping across the lawn. This is not a scenario I wanted to repeat in California's wildfire territory.

There was probably some user error involved in these tests but overall this is not a technology I want to use for 5 months. If it annoyed me in the backyard there is no doubt it would have annoyed me in the back country. Therefore, I decided to join the bandwagon and get an alcohol stove. I went shopping at OGE, the downtown Burlington outdoors store. Shivers, a 2012 PCT thru hiker, works there and was kind enough to offer up one of his old alcohol stoves. He lent me a Trangia with pot holder, wind screen, and everything. More about the Trangia from the trail!

Esbit stove frying up a nature burger