Home Made Gear?

The 300ml Lucozade bottle also works well if you want to take less meths for say a weekend hike

I haven't had leakage issues from normal cold drink bottles (around 250-350ml size).

I've done some experimentation with Hexamine. I used Coghlans because Esbit is ridiculously expensive in SA and its the same substance. I have a few 7g tablets in my emergency kit. I couldn't get reasonable boil performance with the tablets so decided to stick to alcohol stoves.

I used my penny stove on a 3-day 'berg hike in October (Organ Pipes/Smugglers - Tlanyaku Passes area). Used it to boil water and cook for 2 breakfasts, 2 suppers and tea for 2 of us, in total about 7 meals, without any problem. The only issue really is the time it takes, and a little bit of hassle to set it all up.

To be honest, after thinking about it for a while, I'm going to go back to gas. As Sabine mentioned, sometimes you can't afford to wait 10 minutes to boil water.

Also, after chatting to Sabine, I think we should start a new thread: home-made dehydrated meals. I started doing some basic experimentation and made decent home-made dehydrated mash (in the oven, would love to have a proper dehydrator).

I finally got around to testing firelighters as solid fuel substitutes for my alcohol stove, and the results weren't pretty
The plan was to use my cat can stove and Frisco windshield with a piece of firelighter instead of methylated spirits, and try to boil 500ml of cold tap water. I used a 2cm by 5.5cm piece of Charka firelighter which weighed 19 grams (the standard piece you get when you break the firelighter along the pre-cut line). It just fitted in my cat can stove.



As soon as I lit the firelighter, I noticed that it was much smokier and smellier than alcohol. Thick white smoke collected in the bottom of the cat can stove around the firelighter, and seemed to be making it burn less efficiently. Unfortunately, it was impossible to keep the firelighter burning with the cat can stove inside the Frisco windshield. As soon as I put the pot on, the firelighter was snuffed. I reluctantly removed the Frisco tin windshield. Wind was now a major problem, and flames were being blown around like crazy.



The firelighter burned for 11 minutes exactly without bringing the 500ml of water to a boil. It didn't burn away completely, and left a sticky mess in the bottom of the cat can stove.



It also covered the bottom of my cooking pot with black, oily residue.





I decided that this was enough of a result to give up on firelighters as a solid fuel substitute. The gross black residue was a deal-breaker for me

After reading joshilewis's comments about returning to gas, I have been wondering whether my alcohol stove is really an improvement on gas. My husband and I have 2 different brands of gas canister stoves, so I decided to test both of them against my cat can alcohol stove and Frisco tin windshield. To make the test a little fairer for the gas stoves (which don't have windshields), I conducted it indoors with a few windows open. There was an occasional very mild breeze (not even enough to ruffle my clothing) through the kitchen where I was conducting the test.

I started with our ancient, traditional gas canister stove and got the following results:
With the gas about halfway open, it boiled 500ml of water in 8 minutes and 53 seconds.
With the gas open all the way, it boiled 500ml of water in 5 minutes exactly.


I then tried our Kovea gas canister stove and got the following results:
With the gas open halfway, it boiled 500ml of water in 9 minutes and 32 seconds.
With the gas open all the way, it boiled 500ml of water in 5 minutes and 4 seconds.


Lastly I set up my cat can alcohol stove and Frisco tin windshield and got the following results:
It boiled 500ml of water in 5 minutes and 51 seconds.


The weights of the various stoves and fuel for a 3 day trip are as follows:
Old gas stove, one half-full fuel canister and one full fuel canister = 740 grams
Kovea stove, one half-full fuel canister and one full fuel canister = 650 grams
Alcohol stove, windshield and 300ml of fuel in a cold drink bottle = 400 grams

So basically, my alcohol stove takes about 1 minute longer to boil water than the gas stoves (at full steam), and weighs 250 - 340 grams less. I was actually quite surprised by how long the gas stoves took to boil water. I have never timed them before, by I thought that they would boil water much faster than 5 minutes. Has anyone else timed other brands of gas stoves? If anyone has a different type of stove to the ones I have tested and wouldn't mind timing how long it takes to boil 500ml, I would be really interested to compare notes
I'm sure that there are other types of lighter and faster burning gas stoves out there, but since my alcohol stove performs nearly as well as my gas stoves and is lighter, I think I will be sticking with the alcohol stove for now. The biggest draw back I can foresee with the alcohol stove, is that it can't be used inside a tent vestibule if the weather is really terrible. There is a lot more uncontrolled flame with an alcohol stove than with a gas stove. I have considered taking an umbrella with me in case I am forced to cook in the rain (the smallest umbrella I own would add 158 grams to the weight of the cook kit), but honestly I think I would rather just eat my breakfast for dinner (no cooking required) and cook in the morning (provided that the rain had stopped, of course).

Has anyone else discovered any major annoyances with alcohol stoves?

I use various stove/fuel and even pot set combinations depending on the hike I'm doing and the type of cooking I expect to be doing. I find this works for me. I mostly use my home made cook set when I'm travelling extremely light and when I only need to boil water - cous cous for supper and my morning cup of coffee. For the rest I use my MSR Pocket Rocket

I have been worried about the instability of the smaller gas canisters, and can’t cough up the bucks for an imported canister stand, so I had an attempt at making one out of some aluminium flat bar:



Works on large or small canisters:





And folds up neatly:



Only thing is does it really warrant the 51g it will add to my pack? I’m sure I’ll say “yes dammit” the first time my pot actually falls over without it

I've found I sleep better on my side in a sleeping bag but then my neck takes strain ie I need a pillow to support my head; after a quick google I gathered these bits & pieces:



which when assembled thus:



produced this 35g pillow



edit: tried this on last week's trip and found that sealing the ziploc with the bag full of air was a hassle, I ended up stuffing a fleece top inside the bag; the wadding & dishcloth makes a comfy outer . not sure whether I'll bother taking it on the next trip

What I was hoping for. Approx 40l plus, removable internal aluminium frame, removable hipbelt. Load lifters, spandex pockets on the side and back. Top loader only. Shock cord compression on the sides.
Just the lid to go and I'm done.
Will be about 800g.

Very cool Papa Dragon... Looks comfortable and simplistic with only what's really necessary.