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I'm very tempted to get in on this act of good fun - as a complete beginner into this cooking malarky - So from the Alpkit range, which one would be a good starter? Kraku or the Koro - I suspect it won't get used that often but I reckong it's a handy thing to have.
My cooking skills are truly awful so anything being cooked on it is likely to be a one-pot surprise.
The Koro looks good as it has a hose to keep the gas away from burner; but the Kraku packs away tiny and probably better from a space saving point-of-view.
Anyone any experience of either (or ideally both and can say avoid to either of them)?
I also posted on the bike and bivi facebook group and a nice guy from alpkit confirmed that the one I received is actually faulty and just slipped through the QA net. In classic Alpkit customer service stylee he's going to provide me with a freepost address to sent it back for a replacement
@ DickBarton - I got the Kraku when they first released it. There were some problems with them not sealing properly on gas canisters, but I never had an issue with my one, so just carried on using it. It's a really nice little stove, packs up tiny (will go in the bottom of a 250g gas can along with a lighter) and is pretty powerful. Not as quick to boil water as my friends pocket rocket due to the flame being more spread out, but efficient enough. The only issue is the pot supports aren't very wide, so you need to be attentive if using a big pot in case it topples over.
Thanks for the response (and sorry for the slight hijack)...I'll order up the Kraku and see about a pot set as well...thanks.
I just did a boil test with my Brukit - 14m 45s for a litre. That's indoors with a half full gosystem butane propane cannister. Pretty poor.
Just tested my Jetboil Flash with 500ml of water at room temperature ish, came out the tap that hadnt been run in a while.
I used a Coleman Butane Propane mix canister.
It took 3:50 to get to a rolling boil. So not as fast as the MSR but a fair whack quicker than the BruKit. But I did pay twice the price for mine!
Well I succumbed to the BruPot after witnessing the effectiveness of McMoonter's Optimus equivalent...and it being cheap.
I boiled a mug full of water (about 0.4l) from the cold tap in both my MSR Titan Kettle and the BruPot. Same settings, same gas, same Micro Rocket, lids on.
The Titan Kettle took 3 min 25 sec, the BruPot 2 min 25 sec to a proper boil. That's about the 30% improvement heat exchanger manufacturers claim.
Is convinced.
I also spent a happy half hour faffing with a Whisperlite, my new Omnilite Ti and trialing a butane Express Spider with White Gas. The latter worked much better than it ought to on the standard butane jet and without preheating. I'll go ahead and do the multifuel conversion now for the full 'must have 3 multifuel stoves' effect 🙂
My Optimus pot has a HE too and I'm convinced it makes the whole thing more efficient.
@scotroutes. Be interested in how long the Optimus He takes to boil 0.4l of water from the cold tap on a Rocket type stove if you have time/facilities.
On short trips, I wouldn't bother with the HE pan as it weighs 100g more and is bulkier. On trips over ~5 days, I'd take the BruPot as the gas saving would offset the extra weight. I'd also take it anytime I'd be using a 230g gas canister as it fits in the BruPot reducing overall packed volume.
As way of reference, I've just tried out my swedish army trangia cookset, 500ml from tap to rolling boil in 7min 20seconds
£12 brand new, fuel available at any chemist or hardware store, can be hung over a real fire if you run out of meths 8)
How big and heavy is a Trangia again? Not really suitable for bikepacking with 'normal' bike packing luggage.
Some interesting posts. Thanks Chris for getting the jetboil out.
Interesting to see the brupot perform reasonably well but another brukit not.
II wonder what the difference is in construction between the two. Maybe none, maybe just the burner.
I might re try the 500ml test with the pocket rocket on the brukit Pot to see if the burner is the weak link
I'm going to send mine back. If it's taking nearly 15 mins to boil a litre of water in the house then it's a waste of time.
Brukit Pot on msr pocket rocket, 500ml, 3m20s
So it's not the heat exchanger or the pot construction but the burner design.
And, a 200g+ cannister will fit in the brukit pot with a pocket rocket (without its red plastic box, so needs a small cloth)
[s]So what's different about the brukit Pot and the brupot, other than the neoprene sleeve?[/s]
Edit actually it's nothing as far as I can tell. So really the brupot with a correctly sized stove should work a treat.
[quote=boblo ]@scotroutes. Be interested in how long the Optimus He takes to boil 0.4l of water from the cold tap on a Rocket type stove if you have time/facilities. 2:05 using my Crux stove. (indoors, no wind, tap water, almost empty 230g Highlander Propane/Butane cartridge)
Probably just an isolated manufacturing issue and I know Alpkit have excellent customer service but the fact that they are sold out will mean no Brewkit for me.
Unfortunately this is the problem with Alpkit. For example, I wonder if you'll be able to get a replacement igniter when it fails at some point in the future. I feel the same about their tents as well.
Great company, great ethos, but maybe branching out too far into areas that are already pretty well covered? Maybe better off focusing on stock levels of the stuff they do really well. Like dry bags, stuff sacks, bouldering mats, etc.
If all companies thought like that on-one would never have got past the inbred.
I m a big Alpkit fan and at the last count had something like a dozen of their products. But they're a small young company. I dont mind if they make a few minor mistakes, most of the time they take those mistakes on the chin like their seconds dry bags or early down clothing.
Product support is not really a worry, especially given Alpkit pricing. I m far more interested in their continuing to develop products.
@scotroutes. Ta for that. I wonder if the Crux burner is more effective being less 'blowlamp' than the Rocket or if the Optimus pot is just more effective which would account for the improved timing.
I may buy an Optimus pot just to prove the theory.
How big and heavy is a Trangia again? Not really suitable for bikepacking with 'normal' bike packing luggage.
Not true...
I use my Trangia stove, triangle, and alpkit my-ti Mug for all my bikpacking adventures..
DrP
I've just tested the BruPot with my Express Spider on the tinned gas. At full tilt it took 1min to boil 0.5l of water from the cold tap. I'll run the Rocket test at full beans as well as it was turned down to non Saturn 5 levels.
that express spider looks pretty fierce. The pre-heat tube must really help get the most out of the fuel.
I thought I would join in.
I chose my kelly kettle trecker as my weapon.
Fuel: handfull of rowan and sycamore spoon shavings +strip of birch bark an 2no. Cotton balls.
Time: 5:36.07 for 1/2 litre from match hitting cotton.
Notes: required rekindling after i forgot to check it. Fire still burning so additional water could have been boiledand at a faster rate.
Weather: Windy as ****
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I just repeated my test with the Crux but using an Alpkit Mytimug 750. 3:12 to boil. That perhaps show the benefit of a heat exchanger, but I also had to turn the stove down a bit as the flame is otherwise wider than the pot and there is therefore a lot of "wasted" heat/gas.
Well to add to the debate I tried my Krakau stove on a 200 size gas canister (half full) with a brupot just now. Time to boil for 500ml cold tap water indoors was 3mins 5sec. The krakau is sufficiently small that it sits directly under the pot base rather than on the bottom of the pan below the heat exchanger which may explain the difference.
Just packing for my yomp up snowdon tomorrow afternoon/evening and Ive decided to take my pocket rocket with a 100g can inside the Brukit pot (which is basically the brupot)
BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?
BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?
They go in a bag for use when cooking out of the car. Hence the availability of an empty one 😳
(my PR last got used when I camped "rough" 50m or so from my car as I couldn't find a campsite anywhere near an event I was doing)
BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?
After collecting a substantial number of these and never getting around to using them for cooking from the car I've now found that they've usually got enough gas left to do an evening meal, hot choc, porridge and morning coffees (i.e. an overnight bivi).
So, I'm taking them along with me on my excursions, with a fresh canister in my pack if needed. If they run empty then I crush them with a rock to reduce space for the trip home.
BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?
You buy one of [url= http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/G-WORKS-NEW-GAS-SAVER-R1-CARTRIDGE-EXCHANGER-Made-Super-Duralumin-/131297403365?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e91ef61e5 ]these [/url] and decant from canister to canister. No implied guarantee, values may fall as well as rise, E&OE etc.
^ Oooh. Bit expensive but clever.
That looks a bit dodgy.
I like the way they warn you not to fill past 85%, but don't tell you how to avoid it.
There's a reason why vehicle LPG pumps have got big warning signs telling you not to fill cylinders. Vehicle LPG tanks have got an automatic shut of valve set at 85%, cylinders haven't.
If you fill a cylinder, whether it's 47kg or 100g, too close to 100% and it warms up, by being left in the sun for example, the liquefied gas will expand and force it's way out somehow.
The only safe way to use this would be to weigh your cylinder when new, then never exceed that weight when refilling it. Even so, Propane and Butane have got different specific gravities, so you'd need to know the exact mix.
There's a blog somewhere of some bloke discussing filling canisters at an angle to ensure there's always a gap at the top (i.e. 85% full). He worked out the angle to be 35 degrees by filling one with water and waiting for it to leak out of a hole he'd made.
Made sense when I read it, less so when trying to repeat it. Google the thingy and you should be able to find it. $30 to reuse all your old part full cans? What are they about £3.00 each? Might be worth it just to save the planet a bit.
I'm not convinced that would work either.
Connecting two sealed containers, each pressurised with liquified butane is not the same as pouring water in to an open container of air.
If you pour water in to a tilted container, sure enough, you will get an air lock at the top and can achieve 85% water, 15% air.
An empty gas cartridge is still full of gaseous butane and my suspicion is that if a cartridge with liquified butane is connected above it, it will fill with liquid right to the top.
On a related point;
There's a couple of comments above about boil times varying with the amount of gas left in the cylinder.
I'm definitely not an expert, but this looks to me like a misunderstanding of how liquified gases behave.*
As I understand it, as long as there is at least some liquid gas in the cylinder, then the pressure is entirely dependent on temperature.
[i]The pressure in a butane cylinder doesn't vary as the cylinder empties.[/i]
Think of it as a boiling kettle, which will give off steam at the same rate, right up until it runs out of water.
It's not like a punctured tyre where the air slows down as the pressure decreases.
*But I know where I can find one. 😉
@mtg I think the 'pressure' point is more a symptom of the propane burning off first in mixed gas cannisters. What's left is less lively and looks like it's at lower pressure even though it isn't necessarily.
I haven't got one of those decanter thingumybobs, just came across it whilst searching for (ahem) some specialist items.... 🙂
Edit: just found the link to the 'how to fill without blowing yourself up' stuff [url= http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=58375&startat=40 ]BANG!! [/url]
IME the canister cools when cooking and so the pressure seems to drop. I've reversed this by warming it up with my hands.
As I understand it, as long as there is at least some liquid gas in the cylinder, then the pressure is entirely dependent on temperature.
The pressure in a butane cylinder doesn't vary as the cylinder empties.
Well otherwise that refiller clearly wouldn't work.
So I sent mine back because of the slow boil time (10-18mins for a litre on 1/2 to 1/3 full cannister). Alpkit tested it and got about 5 mins with a full cannister. Apparently it can take as long as 25 mins on a low cannister. I knew there would be a difference but the size surprized me and TBH renders this type of stove pretty much useless in my eyes. Going to stick with my MSR windpro which allows me to turn the cannister upside down when it runs low.
Fair play to Alpkit they have refunded me on the basis of my 'unrealistic expectations'!
The pot is fine, it sounds like the stove is wanc... Use the pot with your msr stove and you'll be more delighted than a delighted thing living in delighted Street on delighted day... Ahem.
Did we decide these were a bit crap.. i cant quite tell
Get a brupot, its good. And match it with one of the smaller burners mentioned above so that you can put the burner and 200g gas cannister in the pot. The Brukit burner just doesnt seem to be very efficient for some reason.
@cloudnine. Yes we decided they were a bit crap. The crap bit being the stove. The pot is fine (maaaan...).
this may seem like a daft question but do you cook with the neoprene sleeve attached to the brupot?
I would be using it with a trangia mini. has anyone else used one with a meths burner? does it boil quicker than the supplied pot?
I wouldn't use it with the neoprene condom in place, unless you like the smell of burning rubber...
I don't use meths so dunno on the last point.
Anyone know how this compares to the rest of the market inc the AlpKit?
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[url=www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/primus-etapacklite-stove-97110004?id_colour=180]Primus EtaPackLite[/url]
its designed to be used with the neoprene insulation in place. Be a bit daft if it didnt.
@stoner. Are you sure? It is a pain putting it on and off taking it off but I can't see how they'd sell something that could catch fire if the stove flame catches it...