One-Cup Spirit Burner Brew Kit

N

Nomad

Guest
I've been tinkering and came up with a one-cup brew kit that uses a spirit burner.

It mainly consists of a stainless cup from Decathlon for 3 quid...

1-Cup Brew Kit 01.jpg

And some sort of tealight holder thing (also stainless) from Ikea for £1.50...

1-Cup Brew Kit 02.jpg

...along with some heavy gauge stainless steel wire (welding rod), some small screws, washers and nuts, and a little bit of thin aluminium strip (once used to keep a hot water jacket wrapped around the hot water tank).

The three legs are curved to fit into the cup when it's packed away, and they're splayed when in use...

1-Cup Brew Kit 03.jpg

The pot support at the top hinges up to get access to the burner...

1-Cup Brew Kit 04.jpg

The two free ends push down into the holes in the side of the tealight holder and it all stays in place with friction...

1-Cup Brew Kit 05.jpg

Stick cup on top to brew up...

1-Cup Brew Kit 06.jpg

All works nicely. To extinguish the burner, I take the o-ring out of the cap and there's enough space to drop it between the pot supports to get it over the burner. (I tried a few times with a couple of lengths of the wire spaced apart with tape to find a balance between having room for the cap, and still supporting the cup.)

The pot supports made a big difference to the boil time. The cup was reasonably stable directly on top of the tealight holder, but it affected the draught quite badly. Indoors, with a bit of blowing from the side to simulate a slight breeze, it took about 16 minutes to boil 300ml of water. Raising the cup on the supports reduced this to an average of about 6 minutes.

The legs stay splayed quite well, more by accident than by design. The bottom of each leg goes into a small hole drilled in the base of the tealight holder, while the top drops into the tubular shape in the aluminium. The result is that the axes of the two vertical ends are offset. When partially splayed, they won't stay in position, trying to either close up or splay further.

Stability is pretty good - there's a small amount of bounce on the legs, and the cup stays in place when it has the weight of the water in it. Total weight is 420g with a full burner (stainless Tatonka in this case).

When packed up, it all fits together nicely with friction - nothing rattles or falls out. I'm on the lookout for a container of some sort that will fit into the space in the top, to hold some teabags and the like.
 

quietone

Full Member
May 29, 2011
821
93
Wales
Very nice. Always extremely satisfying to fashion an item yourself. All the more satisfying when that item involves a brew, or food.
 
N

Nomad

Guest
Thanks folks - I'm rather pleased with how it turned out (I had no clear plan when I bought the bits - just knew there was a brew kit lurking). I'm going to try 3D printing a little container for the top, so I'll see how that goes.

Janne, I think you could cook on it with a larger pot - the flames tend to come out of the upper holes in the tealight holder, so would cover a bigger pot base. It would be one-heat cooking, though, because there's no room for the Tatonka simmer ring to go in.
 
N

Nomad

Guest
The cup holds a bit over 400ml. It’s 83mm high, and 93mm in diameter at the lip on the top edge.

Getting the bits to nest was more down to luck, and maybe some selection. The cup was bought with nothing in mind, and I already had the burner. I bought the tealight holder speculatively, and found that the bits all fitted together. If they hadn’t, I would have fiddled with other stuff until I found bits that did.
 
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