Having tried canister and alcohol stoves, this evening I decided to broaden my horizons with a solid-fuel stove, specifically the Esbit pocket stove and Esbit-branded hexamine fuel tablets. Conditions were a 65F ambient temperature and 5mph winds gusting to 10mph. The goal was to bring two cups of water to a rolling boil inside the Evernew TI Mug Pot 500 with lid. Note that, having a relatively narrow base, this pot doesn’t heat as efficiently as a wider-bottomed pot would.

Weights

  • Esbit pocket stove: 88g
  • Esbit fuel tablet: 15g each

Experiments

The first round consisted of using the pocket stove itself to hold the pot, which is the intended usage. After around ten minutes the flame sputtered out and the water had not begun to even steam, let alone boil. It would appear that some sort of windscreen or reflector is required.

For the second round I swapped out the stove for a Trail Designs Caldera Cone, one of the most efficient cooking systems, and burned the Esbit tablet directly on the ground beneath the pot. This yielded a boil time of eight minutes and five seconds but you could hear the water bubbling inside at around 7 minutes. This left around 2g of the 15g tablet unburned, hardly enough to heat up a beverage (using the Trail Designs Kojin alcohol stove I can typically boil two cups of water and then warm up two more to make a tea or other drink using a single fluid ounce of denatured alcohol).

Seeking to increase efficiency I went for a third round, this time lining the ground under the cone and tablet with aluminum foil. This decreased the rolling boil time to seven minutes and twenty-two seconds with audible bubbling around six minutes. That’s forty-three seconds faster, just under a 10% reduction.

Savings

My fuel bottle weighs 29g and holds around 8 fluid ounces, a fluid ounce of alcohol is 24g, and my carbon felt ground insulation is 17g. Esbit fuel tabs require no bottle, so a 2g zipper bag would do. The tabs are also 15g apiece, lighter than the alcohol in a per-unit-typically-consumed fashion but, as noted earlier, the Esbit doesn’t produce quite as much heat as the alcohol does. Finally, the aluminum foil ground liner doesn’t even register on my scale, although there’s really nothing stopping me from also using it with the Kojin (the carbon felt is really only necessary for winter, come to think of it). Assuming I swap out the carbon felt, on a two-boil overnight (dinner and then breakfast the following morning) I’d save 47g. On a two-nighter this increases by 18g to 65g, and so on. Hardly earth-shattering but not negligible either.

When it comes to costs, REI is selling a 12-pack of Esbit tablets for $7.95 or about $0.66 apiece. Off-brand Coghlan’s come in a 24-pack for as low as $3, although it sounds like you might need two to match a single Esbit. So, either $0.12 or $0.24 per boil. On the other hand, 32oz of denatured alcohol will run you $7 at the hardware store, or just shy of $0.22 per boil. Assuming you shop wisely, solid-fuel tablets might actually be even cheaper than already-cheap alcohol.

Smellings

Esbit emits a fishy scent not unlike tuna, both when each fuel tablet package is opened and while it’s burning. It definitely makes you not want to sit anywhere near your pot, which is unfortunate. This would appear to be the biggest downside.

Conclusion

So, what to make of all this? I wouldn’t say I’m a convert, but I’m intrigued. There’s a simplicity in not having to worry about measuring out or spilling alcohol: just throw a fuel tab under the pot and go. The slightly longer burn time doesn’t annoy me, although the difficulty of lighting the fuel tablets does (it takes several seconds to catch whereas alcohol is almost instantaneous anywhere above freezing).

I think I’ll go ahead and order me some more tablets.

History

  • 2021-05-17: Updated Savings section with new lower pricing for Coghlan’s tablets
  • 2021-05-14: Original version