More Christmas Day Thoughts

On a more gear-related stream of thought, I need to carry some aluminum foil for my Trangia to use both blocking holes in the windscreen and as a temporary lid for the smaller of the two mess kit components. The "lid" fits into the "pot" but not vice versa and on a cool day with wind blowing you need a lid to speed up boiling time.

The question of the day as the sun went down, the temperature dropped, and the wind picked up:

Can a Swedish Army Trangia (stainless) boil up water for tea and still burn long enough to purify some of that stream water which is still frozen in spots?

This was about as unscientific a test as I could possibly have done as I didn't know the air temperature, the water temperature, the burn time to get water hot for tea, or the amount of fuel I had put in the stove.

I scooped up a pot-full of icy cold water from the stream while waiting for my tea water to boil and set it on the ground in front of my stove. Once I dropped the tea bags into the hot water, I set up the pans in a double-boiler configuration with the tea steeping on top and the pot of stream-water below. Now, would it come to a boil for five minutes?

Part of the selection criteria for my mess kit since the Primitive Skills class involves the ability to boil a useful amount of water. Previously it was simply the ability to boil water. However, boiling six ounces of water at a time would become a full-day project to get enough water to remain hydrated. Boiling up a quart (or more) at a time is more efficient and more useful (especially if you've only got the one container.)

The minutes leading up to a boil were filled with excitement and anticipation. I, of course, kept checking to see the progress of the water which slowed down the whole process. In the end, it did boil the water for a full three minutes before sputtering out. A slight bit of fuel back into the stove and I had boiled it for a full five minutes with fuel to spare.

So, on a single fill, the burner can make your tea and provide you with a useable amount of purified water for later use. I dumped mine into my Nalgene bottle and determined that I'd brought 23 oz. of water up to a rolling boil for a little more than five minutes rendering it inert.

Not bad for a spur of the moment experiment.

Thanks for reading,


B