Trangia 25-7 UL/HA
I’ve used the Trangia 25-7 UL/HA for a year now, and it’s as reliable as sin. Since I got it, I no longer use my MSR Whisperlite stove. This model comes with a frying pan lid (which doubles as a pot lid and serves as the top to the kit when it’s all packed up) and two pots; the pots and burner combine in a neat, self-contained package. The stove itself is basically an alcohol burner (think Sterno can) with a custom top by which you semi-regulate/extinguish the flame. The stove sits in a two-piece extremely stable wind screen (picture two pots bottom to bottom, with a hole through the middle for the stove).
The Trangia uses denatured alcohol, which is easier and quieter than white gas. Easier because you don’t have to prime the stove or pressurize the fuel canister. To start the Trangia, you set up the windscreen, put the stove in the middle, add fuel and light the top. To turn it off, you slide the lid on the custom top, cutting off the oxygen. And it’s quieter because there’s no hissing or roaring -- again, think Sterno.
Another advantage the Trangia has over the MSR stove is the windscreen design, which makes a far more stable cooktop than the MSR’s three-wire tripod. As for weight, since I usually pack stove and cook pots together, the combined weight and size of my MSR and REI cook pots is about the same as the weight and size of this Trangia kit (around 2 pounds).
Negatively, you can’t regulate the Trangia's flame very well. The Trangia is a little slower, too: it takes a few minutes longer to boil a couple of cups of water for tea. Without a stopwatch, both the Trangia and the MSR take about the same time to boil a pot of water for dehydrated dinners, always too slow for whoever isn’t cooking that night.
Video of how it works and packs up here:
Wilderness Survival: How To Use A Trangia Camping Stove
Available at Campsaver
Favorite (15)
PaulD
The folks at Rivendell Bicycles are big fans.
sucotronic
It's a pity that this kind of products aren't available in most of European countries, because they are very useful.
PaulD
Really? Trangia is a Swedish company.
Carl Lumma
Explain how this isn't vastly superior (and cheaper):
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003640.php
-Carl
JordyJ
#4: for exactly the reason mentioned in the first comment on your link, "This stove is fine where open fires are permitted."
AC
I found one of these kits on sale years ago and found it to be the most reliable, quiet, useable commercially available stove out there. I've used MSR, Svea, Coleman, and various canister stoves.
It's quietness really sets it apart. Easy to pick up and move if need be. Zero maintenance, too. The windscreen setup works perfectly with the pots.
Carl, if you're concerned about $$, build a beer can stove for next to nothing, put the pot up on some rocks and go for it.
Stefan Jones
How safe are alcohol stoves for indoor use?
It would be nice to have a little stove that could be used in the kitchen to heat up food and boil water during extended blackouts.
Andrew
Stefan,
For indoor use, butane burner stoves are cheap ($10-20), safe to use indoors, and commonly available. They look like stovetop gas burners, and you power them with small cans of butane (refills run $1-2) that look like cans of hairspray. They are usually easy to find and cheapest to buy in Asian grocery stores, as they are commonly used for for tabletop cooking, as in Chinese hot pot, Korean BBQ, or Japanese shabu-shabu.
Here is an example of one from Amazon.com for $13:
http://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Butane-Burner-Stove-Free/dp/B000BVC4NY
Mu
i own a trangia and live in germany. Backpacking stores keep them very often!
In my opinion this definitely qualifies as a cool tool, because it's worth the money. It actually gets a booth from wind blowinto the shield and it also takes non-liquid fuel which is great if you need to go by plane (liquids are problematic because of security paranoia)
efftee
...or for 100% cheaper:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/06/a_better_soda_can_stove.html
JGB
I would love to add an alcohol stove to my gear, thinking about the Varga titanium version @ 35$, but this is nice with the flame control, and windscreen. Definitely an alternative to consider, while it won't replace a good multifuel stove(mine runs everything from Diesel to Gasoline with the same jet) for quick cooking and lightweight backpacking alcohol is king. For larger groups, or better fuel choices, nothing beats a multifuel stove.
Alan
We used these in high-school for cooking on camping trips etc. They are very common in the UK and widely available in camping stores. They are virtually indestructible since they are just sheet metal with a small (and sturdy) burner in the middle. You can bash out any dents and it packs itself inside the bowls in a very compact fashion.
The one risk with all alcohol stoves is that the soft blue flame is very hard to see, especially in daylight - you should never refill a burner until it is really cool. I know people who have only just escaped *serious* injury when refilling a lit/hot burner.
meika
Trangia now make both use-once gas canister AND multi-fuel stove inserts for the large and small Trangia stove & pots sets. Alochol takes about double the time of gas and multi-fuel stoves. Gas canisters work better at altitude than alcohol. Multi-fuel work better in extreme trekking conditions, at very high altitudes and on a number of fuels and so have more sources of fuel in places with less developed economies. Multi-fuel can require more maintenance though.
Ash
I've used the previously-reviewed JetBoil (http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000374.php) in a wide variety of situations -- from mountain trekking to heating up our baby's bottle around town. The original reviewer of the Trangia stove mentions making tea and dehydrated dinners; since the JetBoils raison d'etre is to boil water, it's extremely efficient at tasks like those.
NickS
Anyone ordered from the source mentioned in this article, Campsaver? I placed an order yesterday for one of the Trangia Hard Anodized sets for a motorcycle camping trip in the Cascade mountain range in a couple of weeks, but I'm having second thoughts about ordering from a completely unknown site with very few reviews available online. Just wondering if charges from the Ukraine are going to start showing up on my credit card bill!
Disappointing that REI has such a limited selection of alcohol stoves -- the Mini Trangia 28-T and a poorly rated Vargo is all they carry.
Jeanne Thelwell
#4 The homemade woodburning stoves are really impractical for backpacking. As someone pointed out, open fires are prohibited in many camping areas and, if you've ever been caught in the rain while camping, you'll know that finding dry wood for cooking in the dark is *not* fun. Nor is packing wood for your fire.
Timo Kiravuo
Pros: indestructible, easy, foolproof, hard to tip
Cons: heavy, alcohol has low heat value, slow
I use mine with propane or gasoline burner and when paddling or skiing. For lightpacking I just take a pot set and a small stove. For any kind of outdoors organization Trangia is great.
Wood burning stoves do not really compare, as they assume wood is available. Trangia can also be used indoors, but it can leave a mark. In winter you need something underneath to prevent sinking and a small candle or Trangia's winter adapter to warm up the alcohol cup.
kiravuo
Sam
I was going to point to a soda can stove like #10 did, although the one I was going to point to was the one I just made: the penny stove. http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/penny.html
The stove is free (re-use empty budweiser beer cans/soda cans), except for the penny you loan it to regulate the pressure (which makes it a big improvement in terms of efficiency over the soda can stove linked by #10).
The site lists a bunch of tests showing that the penny stove heats water as faster or faster than many commercial stoves like the whisperlite. And it's really easy to make -- I made one just the other night for my friend going to the Bonaroo festival.
And it's free.
Fuzzy
I've used the homemade alcohol stoves for years now, and they really do kick the pants off commercial jobs, especially where fuel is concerned. HEET, a fuel line antifreeze that comes in a yellow bottle for about $3 per 4 pack here in the US, is nearly 100% methanol, and burns in such stoves really clean. Considering the excessive weight necessary for pressurized fuel canisters, they rate at about 1/2 the weight even with the decreased fuel value of alcohol.
Zwack
Having camped in the UK and Europe I have used Trangias before (In fact I own one and am surprised that I've never been able to find one in a US Camping store).
They're not as fast as gas stoves, but I have never had one blow out or fail to work for me.
I also have a pair of propane burners that I use for car camping/power outages and they are fine, but they are significantly heavier than the Trangia and don't include the cookware. The inclusion of the cookware in a neat, easy to carry package makes them truly handy for backpacking.
My wife and I used one while travelling around Ireland without any issues.
Z.
Mark
I own a trangia stove for when I go cycle touring around Europe. A typical 1litre of fuel lasts about a week of use for a cooked breakfast & tea and evening meal.
Bear in mind different countries have different names for the fuel (Methylated spirit or denatured alcohol) and common locations where the fuel gets sold. This website
lists some of the names and location which I found handy in my travels
http://www.trangiastove.co.uk/fuelavail.html
Mark B
Good post. I have a few camping stoves - my trailname is StovieRay - and the Trangias are great. Simple and quiet. The alcohol fuel is available all over the place, like yellow Heet (Not the RED), and I add a spoonful of water to the alcohol to help it burn more cleanly. Another advantage is that if the fuel leaks out in your pack, it's just alcohol, not white gas, so it doesn't destroy everything it touches. Cooking times are slower than propane and white gas stoves, but isn't the whole point of a walk in the woods to slow down and enjoy the surroundings? My other hack is to take a 3 inch piece of solid copper wire, strip off any plastic insulation, and twist it into an S shape so one end can sit in the fuel and the other is in the flame. This heats the fuel and gets it to burn better. Peace and Walking!