Hi There,
I was using my canteen cook kit earlier and thought i would post a couple of pics of the set up in comparison to the popular crusader 2 system, along with a quick review of some of the fuels I've been using.
The kit i use is pictured below. It's made up of a standard US GI canteen and cup with a stove from the pathfinder canteen kit. Many of you will probably know the the US kit is designed to work with a small aluminium "stove" attachment, but i found this to be very flimsy and it bent easily. The stove i use is the same as that supplied with the popular Pathfinder cook set from the canteen shop, which can be had for reasonable money on its own from ebay, rather than pay the extortionate amount for the full set. The lid is also from the pathfinder set. The US kit comes with its own lid, but this is a "snap fit" type and can be awkward to take off when the waters boiled and the mug and lid is hot. The pathfinder lid sits on top of the cup very nicely and has 3 small holes to be used as a kind of strainer. Beside the lid is the Heavy cover lid for the crusader and a handmade aluminium lid from Ebay.
I find this set up to be very compact compared to the crusader system. Crusader 1 wasn't that bad, with the mug, stove & bottle nesting nicely together and fitting in a water bottle pouch easily. The 2nd system however is very bulky for what it is, even without the black mug on top of the bottle you can see it's much taller than the US/Pathfinder kit;
This prevents it from fitting in a water bottle pouch. With the lid at the bottom and the black mug on top the pouch will barely close, and that's before you put anything else in like a spoon or a spare rat pack etc.. A massive failing in my opinion since this kit is marketed heavily towards the armed forces.
The US / Pathfinder kit can be used in many ways. The most obvious being how it's shown on the canteen shops site set up as below;
Using it like this it can be cooked on over a fire, trangia burner etc.. I find this a bit poor, the issue i believe is that although there are holes cut into the stove at the top to let the heat get to the mug, a lot of it is wasted simply heating the stove itself up. This isn't really an issue with a fire, or a trangia perhaps with enough fuel as they put out fierce heat, but it severely hampers solid fuel like hexy etc from working well. You can see in the pic below the dis-coloration at the center of the stove where the heat as built up in it, rather than the mug;
I've seen a few ideas to solve this. The most common has been to cut the center holes out leaving open space. This may work but i'm not really up for trying it. What i do instead is keep the cooker upside down and simply turn the mug the other way. This way it presses into the cooker nicely (but firmly) and can be adjusted to a decent height from the fuel used. This way there is no material between the mug and the fuel source, but the cooker is still acting as a stand and effective wind break;
Set up like this I've found the cooker very efficient and stable with solid fuel blocks, but i could still use it over coals etc. if needed. Which you cant do as easily with the crusader systems.
You can use any type of fuel tablet with this kit really. I use the bcb fire dragon the most, since now that it's on issue I've been able to get a few blocks free, and its supplied on exercise, hexy also worked well, but of course is messy to use. I thought i would try a few different fuels out and post up some results, these are: BCB Fire dragon, US issue Trioxane, and something new for me, Chafing fuel;
Fire Dragon
Most of you will know this fuel. Alcohol based and in a solid block form, i don't have anything to say about it that most likely hasn't been said before. If i'm honest i'm not a huge fan of this fuel. It lights well and burns cleanly but the blocks given simply aren't big enough. They'll do a brew nicely but they don't burn long enough to heat a boil in the bag when its in the mug along with a bit of water, and are even worse in mess tins, meaning you need to use 2 blocks per pouch. You could cut them up, but its not ideal and you have to find a way of keeping the spare half from drying out. They are also quite expensive to buy;
BCB claim that this fuel will boil 0.5L of water, and that seems about right. To make sure i tried it and timed it. It took the fuel 7mins 45secs to bring the water to a rolling boil and it burned out at 8mins 38 secs, so only just in time. The fuel was put in a large tealight holder to burn, to prevent it spreading out too far. It leaves a white burned and solid residue that's easy enough to remove, along with a bit of soot, nothing like the hexy it replaced however.
US Trioxane
Trioxane is the old US issue fuel, similar to our old hexy, before they brought the flame less heaters in. Trioxane bars are far larger then the old hexy tabs, and are purple in colour with a crumbly texture. A word of warning that trioxane is nasty stuff and it along with the fumes it gives off can cause harm, so be careful. Just like fire dragon, trioxane turns to a semi-liquid as it burns so really needs some kind of solid holder. I had to break it up a bit to fit it in. It lights very easily and burns with a clear blue flame, not unlike meths. The tab burned for only 7mins 5secs and nearly brought the water to a boil but not quite. Again you would need just over 1 bar to get it there. I have had 1 bar bring the water to a rolling boil before so i can only assume it was down to the high wind we have up here today. A larger windbreak may have helped. The bar left no residue on the bottom of the mug but a black solid mess in the holder. Not unlike the kind of stuff hexy leaves behind;
Chafing Fuel
This is a new one for me but I've been looking into it for a bit now as a cheaper alternative to the fire dragon stuff. Basically its jellied ethanol, although many out there say that it is useless as a stove fuel, i thought it was worth a go. Chafing fuel can be found in many places and i bought my tub from the local cash and carry. To buy the big 4KG was only £20 (with tax) a massive saving on the fire dragon. But pointless unless it can deliver results. I filled the container up with a similar amount of fuel to a fire dragon block, about 1 and a bit spoonfuls and tried it out. It lit very easily as you would expect from alcohol fuel and burned with a completely invisible flame. To my surprise the chafing fuel actually did very well. It brought the water to a roiling boil at 8mins 22 secs and went out at 13mins 38secs. So a bit slower than the BCB stuff but it boiled the water for longer overall. Definitely a fuel i'll be trying more often now to see how it performs. It left a kind of dry residue on the container after it burnt out that was easy to remove, easier then the BCB stuff actually. I've heard that it doesn't work well in the cold, but i use a petrol stove when the snow or ice starts to appear anyway, so this shouldn't be much of an issue;
And that's it. I hope some of you find this useful when your considering a lightweight cooking or brew kit.
Tonyuk
I was using my canteen cook kit earlier and thought i would post a couple of pics of the set up in comparison to the popular crusader 2 system, along with a quick review of some of the fuels I've been using.
The kit i use is pictured below. It's made up of a standard US GI canteen and cup with a stove from the pathfinder canteen kit. Many of you will probably know the the US kit is designed to work with a small aluminium "stove" attachment, but i found this to be very flimsy and it bent easily. The stove i use is the same as that supplied with the popular Pathfinder cook set from the canteen shop, which can be had for reasonable money on its own from ebay, rather than pay the extortionate amount for the full set. The lid is also from the pathfinder set. The US kit comes with its own lid, but this is a "snap fit" type and can be awkward to take off when the waters boiled and the mug and lid is hot. The pathfinder lid sits on top of the cup very nicely and has 3 small holes to be used as a kind of strainer. Beside the lid is the Heavy cover lid for the crusader and a handmade aluminium lid from Ebay.
I find this set up to be very compact compared to the crusader system. Crusader 1 wasn't that bad, with the mug, stove & bottle nesting nicely together and fitting in a water bottle pouch easily. The 2nd system however is very bulky for what it is, even without the black mug on top of the bottle you can see it's much taller than the US/Pathfinder kit;
This prevents it from fitting in a water bottle pouch. With the lid at the bottom and the black mug on top the pouch will barely close, and that's before you put anything else in like a spoon or a spare rat pack etc.. A massive failing in my opinion since this kit is marketed heavily towards the armed forces.
The US / Pathfinder kit can be used in many ways. The most obvious being how it's shown on the canteen shops site set up as below;
Using it like this it can be cooked on over a fire, trangia burner etc.. I find this a bit poor, the issue i believe is that although there are holes cut into the stove at the top to let the heat get to the mug, a lot of it is wasted simply heating the stove itself up. This isn't really an issue with a fire, or a trangia perhaps with enough fuel as they put out fierce heat, but it severely hampers solid fuel like hexy etc from working well. You can see in the pic below the dis-coloration at the center of the stove where the heat as built up in it, rather than the mug;
I've seen a few ideas to solve this. The most common has been to cut the center holes out leaving open space. This may work but i'm not really up for trying it. What i do instead is keep the cooker upside down and simply turn the mug the other way. This way it presses into the cooker nicely (but firmly) and can be adjusted to a decent height from the fuel used. This way there is no material between the mug and the fuel source, but the cooker is still acting as a stand and effective wind break;
Set up like this I've found the cooker very efficient and stable with solid fuel blocks, but i could still use it over coals etc. if needed. Which you cant do as easily with the crusader systems.
You can use any type of fuel tablet with this kit really. I use the bcb fire dragon the most, since now that it's on issue I've been able to get a few blocks free, and its supplied on exercise, hexy also worked well, but of course is messy to use. I thought i would try a few different fuels out and post up some results, these are: BCB Fire dragon, US issue Trioxane, and something new for me, Chafing fuel;
Fire Dragon
Most of you will know this fuel. Alcohol based and in a solid block form, i don't have anything to say about it that most likely hasn't been said before. If i'm honest i'm not a huge fan of this fuel. It lights well and burns cleanly but the blocks given simply aren't big enough. They'll do a brew nicely but they don't burn long enough to heat a boil in the bag when its in the mug along with a bit of water, and are even worse in mess tins, meaning you need to use 2 blocks per pouch. You could cut them up, but its not ideal and you have to find a way of keeping the spare half from drying out. They are also quite expensive to buy;
BCB claim that this fuel will boil 0.5L of water, and that seems about right. To make sure i tried it and timed it. It took the fuel 7mins 45secs to bring the water to a rolling boil and it burned out at 8mins 38 secs, so only just in time. The fuel was put in a large tealight holder to burn, to prevent it spreading out too far. It leaves a white burned and solid residue that's easy enough to remove, along with a bit of soot, nothing like the hexy it replaced however.
US Trioxane
Trioxane is the old US issue fuel, similar to our old hexy, before they brought the flame less heaters in. Trioxane bars are far larger then the old hexy tabs, and are purple in colour with a crumbly texture. A word of warning that trioxane is nasty stuff and it along with the fumes it gives off can cause harm, so be careful. Just like fire dragon, trioxane turns to a semi-liquid as it burns so really needs some kind of solid holder. I had to break it up a bit to fit it in. It lights very easily and burns with a clear blue flame, not unlike meths. The tab burned for only 7mins 5secs and nearly brought the water to a boil but not quite. Again you would need just over 1 bar to get it there. I have had 1 bar bring the water to a rolling boil before so i can only assume it was down to the high wind we have up here today. A larger windbreak may have helped. The bar left no residue on the bottom of the mug but a black solid mess in the holder. Not unlike the kind of stuff hexy leaves behind;
Chafing Fuel
This is a new one for me but I've been looking into it for a bit now as a cheaper alternative to the fire dragon stuff. Basically its jellied ethanol, although many out there say that it is useless as a stove fuel, i thought it was worth a go. Chafing fuel can be found in many places and i bought my tub from the local cash and carry. To buy the big 4KG was only £20 (with tax) a massive saving on the fire dragon. But pointless unless it can deliver results. I filled the container up with a similar amount of fuel to a fire dragon block, about 1 and a bit spoonfuls and tried it out. It lit very easily as you would expect from alcohol fuel and burned with a completely invisible flame. To my surprise the chafing fuel actually did very well. It brought the water to a roiling boil at 8mins 22 secs and went out at 13mins 38secs. So a bit slower than the BCB stuff but it boiled the water for longer overall. Definitely a fuel i'll be trying more often now to see how it performs. It left a kind of dry residue on the container after it burnt out that was easy to remove, easier then the BCB stuff actually. I've heard that it doesn't work well in the cold, but i use a petrol stove when the snow or ice starts to appear anyway, so this shouldn't be much of an issue;
And that's it. I hope some of you find this useful when your considering a lightweight cooking or brew kit.
Tonyuk
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