Got my Ti Emberlit today, so went to a nearby lake and had a bit of a play. THis included testing with a variety of woods - from small twigs and pinecones through to sticks nearly as wide as the feeder hole (which is quite big!). I stuck on a big old enamel coffee percolator to provide liquid refreshment, fired a couple of steaks and, as a piece de resistance, made some blueberry cheesecake muffins (and a "muffin-loaf", as the individual containers were taking too long). Also boiled up some water on a Walmart greasepot just for the hell of it. Used a frying pan, a s/s measuring pan and tin foil as my oven for the baking, some small foil bread tins and paper cup-cake cases, and the aforementioned Walmart greasepot. First impressions are that this is ridicuously light - less than 6 oz - whereas the S/S version is around 11 oz. And it feels much flimsier than the s/s one, although solid enough when put together. (There's videos on youtube showing it coping easily with a plastic container holding 6 gallons of water, and I have no reason to doubt its validity) Both had the two optional cross-members for using small pans/cups on it, although I didn't use them today. re the comparison between the two, they both cooked exactly the same, and unless the weight is really important to you, I'd personally recommend the s/s version as being half the price and just as good. Both fold down into a flat-pack that would go into a pocket, and it comes with a ziplock-type plastic bag which is perfectly adequate for me, although they do a case for it if you want one. You'll need something, as it does get a bit sooty!
what is immediately noticeable when using these is how easy it is to adjust the heat output. Smaller twigs = more heat but more feeding, and larger sticks less heat and less feeding. It is easy to go from a vigorous rolling boil to just a gentle simmer on these. THe big advantage of these stoves over their competitors is the ability to feed in very long sticks - I tried a couple that were over 2 feet long today with no problems at all - just poke them in a bit every five minutes or so. This also leaves a nice bed of charcoal if you pull the sticks out, ideal for keeping metal plates warm. THrow in a couple of pine-cones and you're back to a raging fire again. Another nifty feature is that it doesn't damage the table surface - the legs give good clearance and airflow under the cooker, and the bottom of the firebox is solid, so no ashes to drop onto the table. A Park Warden came over to make sure I wasn't buring holes in his table, and left happy! After three hours of non-stop burning, not even a scorch-mark on the wooden surface of the table.
Cooking was a bit of an anticlimax. Everything cooked just fine, apart from a bit of burning on one of the cup-cakes when I got too engrossed in a book to check the "oven". THe adjustability of the flame meant that I could have intense heat when needed, and lower temps ditto.
Overall conclusions? A really nice bit of kit - ultra-lightweight, and will burn just about anything organic. You can use any thing from a small mug to a dutch oven on this with no issues. As I said earlier, I'd go for the stainless steel one unless you really need to save the five ounces the Ti one provides.
A few pics below - click on them for the full-size. Apologies for the quality - taken on an old phone!
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