I was recently asked to give a stove presentation to a group of scouts. One stove that was missing from my collection was a Esbit solid fuel stove. I felt the presentation would not be complete without mentioning a solid fuel stove. So I purchased an Esbit stove for the presentation. Now solid fuel stoves are fairly cheap, especially when compared to LPG stove systems and liquid fuel stoves. You can basically use a solid fuel tablet on a "Kerr" lid, all you need is a pot stand.
The only solid fuel tables (14g) available at my local outdoor stores were packaged with a Esbit box stove for a price tag of just under six dollars. The box stove came with six tablets. The box stove is a small steel box that opens to a pot stand, and solid fuel platform with venting to allow good air circulation. The stove can also store up to four 14g individually packaged tablets. Another store sold only the 4g tablets in a package of 24 without a stove.
The packaging for the box stove, and some internet research states that the 14g tablets will burn for about 12 minutes and boil water in 8 minutes. The packaging for the 4g tablets claimed 9 minutes burn. Past experience has shown that packaging and real measured performance rarely come close to matching. My tests with the 4g tablets show that a burn time, for a complete tablet, is about 5 minutes. Boiling water, using three 4g tablets, took over 12 minutes and never achieved a roiling boil for two cups of water. I have not tried the 14g tablets yet. The packaging for the tablets also stated that burning left no residue. A false statement. Both the stove and the pot were left with a brown tar like residue. I was able to remove this residue from the pot using denatured alcohol and some elbow grease.
A couple of observations about the stove. First, the tablets stink. They smell like fish, at least that is how everybody describes the smell. Now I do a lot of backpacking in bear country, not sure I want my fuel smelling like fish and attracting bear. I left the tablets, still in there packaging, in a closed container for a couple of days. When I opened the container, the smell was over-powering. Close inspection of the blister packaging of the 14g tablets reveals a row of small factory made punctures. I assume they are there to equalize the air pressure so that the blister packs do not balloon as you go up in altitude. But they sure let the stink out!
Second, the little 3" x 4" x 1" box stove weighs 88g, same weight as the Optimus Crux. Esbit does make a lighter titanium stove that weighs 12g. You can make your own stove, unless you are a Boy Scout (see BSA Scout guidelines about home made or altered stoves). Be careful using aluminum foil. The fuel burns hot enough to melt aluminum foil. I know it happened during one of my tests.
During my first test with the solid fuel I noticed a subtle issue. The fuel takes a little effort to ignite, but once burning, it burns well. The issue I noticed is that, the longer the fuel burns, the weaker the flame. This only makes sense. As the fuel is consumed the tablet shrinks in surface area. Less surface area, less flame. I smack myself for not realizing this before I even started.
While I will continue to present the stove during my presentation as an option, I will never actually take the stove into the backcountry. The little testing that I have done was enough to convince me, that solid fuel is not for me.
