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Antigravity Gear
Pepsi Can Stove
Owner Review by Rick Allnutt
13 September 2004
Pepsi Can Stove and wind screen in "3-cup" (0.9 L) pot
Risk's full ultralight cook kit
PERSONAL BIOGRAPHICAL
INFORMATION
Rick Allnutt
51 Year old male
6' 0'' (183 cm) in height
198 lbs (90 kg) in weight
Trail Name: Risk
Personal Home Page: Risk's Ultralight Hiking
Email address: rick (at) BackpackGearTest (dot) org
I live in Dayton, Ohio
BACKPACKING BACKGROUND
Over the last several years, I have become an ultralight
camper with a three-season base pack weight of about 15 lb (7 kg) and skin out
weight of 23 lb (10 1/2 kg). I have completed many section hikes on the
Appalachian Trail (AT) in all four seasons, with a total mileage of about 525
miles (850 km). I am a gearhead, a hammock camper, and make much of my own
equipment.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Antigravity Gear
Year Manufactured: 2004
MSRP: US$12 (including wind screen)
Manufacturer's Link:
http://www.antigravitygear.com/
Listed Weight: 0.4 oz (11 g)
Measured Weight: 0.36 oz (10 g) (stove)
0.6 oz (17 g) (windscreen as modified)
Listed
Dimension: 1.75 in (4.5 cm) high
Measured
Dimensions: 1.6 in (4.0 cm) high x 2.5 in (6.4 cm) diameter
CONDITIONS
I have
used the Antigravity Gear stove as my only cooking heat source on a 75 mile trip
along the AT; from Clingman's Dome to Hot Springs, North Carolina. I have also
used the stove for a number of meals at home and while day hiking. I have used
it in cool rainy weather, and hot steamy humidity. I have used it in shelters in
the Smoky Mountains and in primitive campsites where no one has ever camped.
Temperatures ranged from 48 F (9 C) to 90 F (32 C). I cooked food
friendly to alcohol stove techniques - boiling water for noodle dishes and using
a pot cozy.
REVIEW
This stove is a Pepsi can stove. But that fact belies its
perfection. This is like saying that a Bald Eagle is a bird. Its "genus"
may be lumped with many other home-made stoves, but this one works first time
out of the box, and has several advantages which no home-made stove of mine has ever
demonstrated.
Tinman, AKA George Andrews - proprietor at Antigravity Gear - has built a stove
which I feel comfortable using as my only stove for extended hiking. It has
never failed to give me a hot meal or a hot cup of coffee within minutes after I
decided to cook.
How I use the stove - Technique
I carry the stove and the wind screen inside my "3 cup" (0.9 L) pot with lid. That
pot has a custom fitted pot cozy. The pot and the cozy are a portion of
Mama's Kitchen which I tested a year ago, and which is also made by
Antigravity Gear. At that time, I tested the cook set with several of my
own stoves. I now have the pleasure of using it with Tinman's stove. Also
inside the pot, I carry a metal pot holder, a lighter, a small spoon, and a 12
cc (roughly 2 tsp) plastic disposable syringe which I bought at a farmer's
supply store. The Antigravity Stove comes with a small plastic cup for
measuring fuel, but I prefer the convenience of the syringe.
Speaking of fuel, for a summer week long trip, I carry an 8 fl oz (240 ml)
recycled "spring water" bottle about 2/3 full of denatured alcohol. That
gives me enough fuel to cook one meal (2 cups (0.5 L) of water) a day. For cold spring
and fall trips, I double that so I can have hot oatmeal and coffee in the
morning.
This is what I do: I find a flat piece of ground (or shelter bench or floor) and
arrange my cooking gear and food pouch to one side of the stove. I set up
the windscreen around the stove, and put the required amount of water for dinner
in the pot.
Note the overlapping folded ends of the windscreen
Only then do I add fuel to the stove and light it.
Having carried the fuel for many miles, I do not want any more of it than
necessary to evaporate before being lighted.
When I am heating 2 cups (0.5 L) of spring temperature water for a noodle dish, I use
the syringe to put 20 cc (2/3 fl oz) of alcohol in the stove. This fills
the stove's inner chamber between the two rolled lines on the inner cup. The time
to light the stove has come.
Early in the lighting process,
The alcohol in the central well is burning.
I use a lighter or match (matches work better when it is
cold) to light the middle of the burner. So as to not waste any heat, I
hold my pot over the gentle flame for half a minute, while the stove warms up
and begins to vaporize the alcohol in the outer chamber, which is a circular
doughnut shaped void between the inner wall and the outer wall of the chamber.
After blowing the stove, the jets quickly light.
(Photo in a dark room to show the flame pattern)
After that half minute of pre-heating, I blow on the
flame, much like I might do to try to blow it out. (Actually blowing out
the stove is quite difficult once the alcohol is boiling and being vaporized.)
This blowing action actually lights the vaporized alcohol emerging from the jets
along the outside wall of the outer chamber of the stove. The photograph
shows the jets fully ignited.
Once the jets light, I put the pot directly on the stove, covering the central
well. It is its own
pot stand.
Here, the wind screen is removed for clarity in the
photograph.
Watch out! It does not look like much of a fire, but in daylight
the alcohol flame is nearly invisible.
I put the top on the pot to decrease the time to boiling.
The fuel is normally enough to bring the two cups of water to the boiling point
in about 5 minutes. Actual times to boiling are not of much interest to me, but
in the field, in cool or warm temperatures, it takes very little time for the
"watched pot" to boil.
I pour the noodle mixture in the boiling water, take the pot from the stove, and
put it immediately into the pot cozy, putting its lid on again. I look at
my watch and plan to eat in about 15 minutes for most noodle dishes.
(Whatever the cooking time on the noodle package says, I usually double the time
for cooking in a cozy.)
The stove usually burns its last alcohol within a minute of removing the pot.
Sometimes it burns out while the pot is still on the stove. I let the
stove and wind screen cool while waiting for the "cooking" to occur in the pot's
cozy. This is a good time to munch on a couple pieces of beef jerky, to increase
my protein intake.
Technical Details of Construction
The stove's outer wall is made from two recycled aluminum soft drink cans.
Tinman says the joint between the cans is sealed with high temperature epoxy and
then taped with aluminum tape. The inner well is separated from the outer
vaporization chamber by a sheet of rolled aluminum, also from the recycled soft
drink can. On this sheet are rolled two lines, which can be used as fill
lines if not using an exact measuring device like my syringe. The top edge of
this sheet is glued to the outer wall with epoxy and the bottom edge has a
quartet of small notches which allows the fuel to flow from the inner well into
the vaporization chamber, yet maintains a liquid "valve" separating the
vaporizing alcohol in the doughnut shaped chamber from the inner well. (The top
of the notches are below the fluid level whenever there is more than a tiny bit
of fuel in the stove.
The stove is inscribed with an engraving pen on its bottom side with the warning
to only use alcohol as a fuel and with the date of manufacture and serial number.
(0704 1597 BCS-2 is what mine says.)
When I received my stove, it still had the ink of the soft drink can visible on
the outer wall. After the first burning, all the ink at the level of the
burner jets and above had burned off. This can be seen in the photo
above these paragraphs.
The wind screen is a piece of thin aluminum 2.5 x 21 in (6.4 x 53 cm). The
windscreen came in a larger size (now unknown) and I cut it this length for my
pot. Its original size was perfect for the larger pot of
Mama's Kitchen - however I do not carry that pot for ultralight hiking now.
Each of the ends is folded over 1/2 in (1 cm) and they overlap and seal. (See
the near edge of the second picture.)
WHAT I REALLY LIKE
- This stove is light... Really ultralight. Its total weight,
including wind screen, is less than an ounce (27 g). This allows my entire cook
kit weight to be kept below 9 oz (252 g).
- It fits in my cook pot with lots of room to spare for the other tools I need
for fixing a quick supper or cup of coffee.
- The wind screen is effective and comes with the stove.
- The price is rock bottom low.
AREA FOR IMPROVEMENT
This is a really well built stove. However, it is limited to one speed of
cooking: FAST. That works for my cooking, since I am only interested in
bringing water to a boil quickly. However, for those who want to actually
cook over a fire, the heat production may be a bit much. It would be great if
Tinman came up with a modification to the stove which allows simmering instead
of blow-torch fast cooking.
Read more reviews of AntiGravityGear gear
Read more gear reviews by Rick Allnutt
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