Cooking with the Trangia 27
French Toast and Sausage Links
Fixing and enjoying a French Toast and Sausage Link Breakfast!
2018-04-19 Not sure what the indications of the onset of "second childhood" is but I am getting a bit concerned about myself. I can't seem to quit playing with my new Trangia-27 UL Cooking System! This morning the thought of French toast caught my attention. As I was letting that thought sink in the next thought was, "Yes, on the Trangia!" So I had at it. As the pictures above show it worked. Twenty minutes from that second thought and 1-1/2 oz of alcohol later, I had "done it" including licking my plate clean! And don't tell anyone, but it was fun!
It also provided a legitimate opportunity to use my newly hand crafted wooden spatula, which worked great. It brought up a challenge I've had with the Trangia all along. When you finish your cooking, how do you go from using the simmer ring to slow down the fire, which it does nicely, to using it to snuff out the fire with nothing but a wooden spatula, wooden spoon and pot grabber?! The simmer ring lid, that sets the simmer level, doesn't move freely enough to just tap it closed. If you try to remove the thing from the burner it is very hot and awkward to handle and invariably flips over on its back making it even harder to grab. There has to be a better way using the "tools" likely to be at hand in the wilderness!
My Final Boil Test
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2018-04-13 Well, there is no end in this stuff! I ordered and received today the 0.6 liter Trangia Kettle Series 27. It weighs 4.5 oz. So of course I had to test it out. It took 4-1/2 minutes to bring one cup of water to boil. Mystifying, as that is more than twice as long as it took to do the same with the 1.6 liter kettle. The only thing I can figure is that the space around the edge of the smaller kettle is considerably greater than with the larger one and perhaps allows more heat loss.
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600 ml Trangia kettle in use with Trangia 27 Cooking System.
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Not sure if I am disappointed but I am scratching my head. Looks like I might be trading fuel usage for compactness of kit. I'll do it again keeping track of the fuel weight difference between the two pots and hence overall weight gain or loss.
The definitive test is done. I boiled one cup of water once more in the Optimus and twice more in the Trangia 0.6 liter kettle. The time to boil varied but the weight of fuel was the same. It took a quarter ounce of denatured alcohol to boil one cup of water in both pots, while the time varied from 2-1/2 to four minutes. The Trangia always took longer but each burn used exactly 1/4 oz of fuel by weight.
One factor that affects boil time is how hot the burner is at start. From a cold start it took four minutes to boil the Trangia. The next boil was with the Optimus kettle and took 2-1/2 minutes. I let the burner cool down between those two burns to where it was just warm to touch. My final burn was back to the Trangia and took three minutes. Again I tried to cool the burner first but it was somewhat warmer than before.
My conclusion is that in the overall scheme of things either kettle is fine and efficiency is not the primary issue. Since the Trangia pot nests into the two pans and then into the whole kit, it is the most convenient so will most likely be the kettle of choice.
How Fast?
2018-04-12 This morning I decided to do a different test of my Trangia Cooking System. How long does it take to fix a meal with it. So I set the timer. Then I went to "my room" and got the Trangia brought it to the kitchen and opened it up. The burner still had about half an ounce of fuel so I didn't add any more.
I got the oatmeal and put 1/4 cup in the smaller Trangia pan. Added a tablespoon of dried peanut butter, a tablespoon of chia seeds, about half a tablespoon of brown sugar, a pinch of salt and a cup of water. Just before adding the water I lit the burner to give it a few seconds to bloom and assembled the wind shield/pot hold onto the stand.
While the burner was getting ready I added the water, stirred the concoction and put the pan into the holder, set the frying pan on top and waited. In just a couple minutes it was boiling so I stirred it, removed the pan and put the simmer ring on and then stirred it from time to time until it was ready. That whole process took about ten minutes.
Twenty-five minutes from the start time I had peeled and eaten an orange, washed up everything, packed up and put away the Trangia with no trace I had ever been there! And in its own odd way, it was fun!
More Soup!
2018-04-11 OK, one more soup test! I put two cups of 40 degree left-over ham and bean soup from the refrigerator into the smaller of the two Trangia pans. I put the Trangia outside in the 48 degree weather, in the shade with a bit of breeze. I carefully added one ounce of alcohol (by weight) to the burner which had just a little in it already and lit the fire. When it was well bloomed, which took about a minute, I put the pot on with the skillet as a lid. Six minutes later the soup was boiling. After I removed the lid and pan and snuffed out the burner I weighed it again. It had consumed exactly one half ounce of alcohol. And the soup was good!
Trangia 1.4 liter kettle
Trangia 1.4 liter kettle on the Trangia 27 stove. Boiled one cup water in 2 minutes.
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2018-04-10 The Trangia 1.4 liter kettle I ordered on Amazon came today. It was not exactly what I expected. I thought it would fit the Trangia 27 system to both transport and use, based on photos I've seen. Well, It definitely will not store in the system and like my Optimus kettle, it sits somewhat unstably on top of it. The Optimus one fits just a bit better as its bottom is slightly tapered. I set about to send it back but turns out the refund amount after shipping and handling is not worth the bother. This is one case where buying it in a physical store would have been better.
So I put a cup of water in it and gave it a try. It boiled in two minutes flat! That compares with three minutes with my Optimus kettle. I'll keep testing but it has me scratching my head. Perhaps its aluminum is actually better at conducting heat than the anodized aluminum of the Optimus?
The Optimus kettle weighs 5.15 oz. The Trangia kettle weighs 7.4 oz.
Follow up: Just to be sure I did a comparison again with one cup of water in each kettle. the results were within a few seconds of my previous test. The Trangia kettle clearly reduces the boil time by about 1/3 at the one cup level.
Still a bit puzzled by the results I put 2 cups of water in the Trangia kettle. That took 3-1/2 minutes to boil compared with 4 minutes with the Optimus kettle. So....
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2018-04-09 I had such success for breakfast that I decided to do lunch as well! We had some leftover ham and bean soup from last evening so I put a couple cups of it in the smaller of the two Trangia pots, filled the burner and lit it. After the burner "bloomed" I set the pot on, put the skillet on top as a lid (right side up) and clicked my stop watch.
The soup was at 40 degrees when I started, coming right out of the refrigerator. Five minutes later it was boiling!
Ham and bean soup ready to eat along with peanut butter and crackers! mmm... good!
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Ham and bean soup coming to a boil.
I'm not sure but I think the whole process from unpacking the Trangia and pouring the soup was about the same time as it would have taken to do it on the kitchen stove top. I suppose the microwave might have been quicker, but not nearly as elegant! I continue to be impressed with this thing. Used 1/2 oz of alcohol.
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2018-04-09 This morning I decided to make my oatmeal/powdered peanut butter/dried fruit/chia seed breakfast with water heated with my Trangia. I put two cups of water into my Optimus Terra Kettle and fired up the Trangia burner. Four minutes later steam was pouring out of the spout! I was surprised. Based on the fact that it takes three minutes to boil one cup of water, I expected it to take at least five, maybe six minutes. The amount of alcohol consumed was almost negligible. I'm impressed. Of course this is inside with 60 something degree tap water, but still!
One little concern is that since the kettle barely fits into the wind screen, with two cups of water it almost falls into the wind screen. I've ordered Trangia kettle that should fit properly. It will be interesting to see if it performs as well, the Optimus kettle is anodized aluminum giving it a heat absorbing dark color whereas from the pictures it appears the Trangia one is simply aluminum colored.
ALOCS burner in my Trangia Stove
2018-04-08 Some time back I purchased the ALOCS burner which is obviously a Trangia knock-off. So I decided to give it a try in my Trangia. It fits perfectly into the stand. With just a little alcohol in it from the last time I used it, I lit it and put my little Optimus Terra Kettle on it with one cup of tap water. Three minutes later it was boiling vigorously. That was exactly the same as with the Trangia burner a couple days ago.
Steam Baking with the Trangia
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2018-04-05 Tonight I decided to have another go at baking with my Trangia. The photos below show the ingredients and process. I didn't measure anything but I'm guessing I used about 1/3 cup of the baking mix, a small handful of the mixed berries and about 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. Doubling the sugar wouldn't be a mistake. I used milk this time instead of water, just enough to make it hold together. Not quite sticky.
I put a bit less than half an inch of water in the cooking pot beneath the cup with the dough. At about six minutes in I checked the biscuit with a toothpick. It was almost clean when I pulled it out. After ten minutes (four more minutes) I checked again and it was clean so I took the pan off the burner.
Observations? Steam baking works about the same as dry baking. When it was finished the water had all boiled away. I don't know when it was gone. I think I could have shut the simmer ring down more. It used a bit less than an ounce I believe. Well, the result is that my wife thought the berry biscuit was good and ate it all! She even said she would eat that on the trail!! That's the jackpot.
Frying and Baking with the Trangia
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2018-04-04 I've played with dry baking before. It is kind of fun and gets a pretty good result. So tonight I decided to give that a try with the Trangia. I cut a little 1/2 inch strip of very thin aluminum about four inches long and shaped it into a circle. That went into the bottom of one of the Trangia cook pots and put a little anodized baking pot on that. The Trangia skillet formed the lid of that make-shift oven.
Small baking pan sitting on the 1/2 inch aluminum strip inside the cook pot. The parchment paper is in the bottom of the baking pan.
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1/2 in aluminun strip in bottom of Trangia cook pot.
For the dough I added just a bit of watter to a baking mix with a few dried cranberries mixed in. After greasing the pot with olive oil and putting a little parchment paper cut-out on the
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bottom, in went the dough. I was really nervous about overheating so watched carefully as it baked. I set the simmer ring so it almost snuffed out the fire but things still got hotter than I liked. The resulting "biscuit" was pretty good, lightly browned on the bottom, baked through and moist.
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Next time I'll try the skillet upright rather than inverted which should vent the "oven chamber" a bit more. No harm was done but everything was extremely hot. I will also try "wet baking" too by adding a little water to the bottom of the cook pot. Overall it was a success.
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Fry pan sitting upright on the cook pot rather than inverted the way I used it for this baking experiment.
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Fry pan inverted over the cook pot and stove, the way I used it this time.
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2018-04-04 Today I fixed my lunch with the Trangia. I cut up a couple small, peeled potatoes and some onion and fried it in the Trangia skillet. When they were about done I added a little half-and-half and then put a chopped up piece of breaded cod in and kept frying. A little garlic salt and pepper topped it off. Not too bad. The burner with simmer ring seemed to work well. The whole thing took about 45 minutes and consumed about 1-1/2 oz of alcohol.