A Look at the Trangia Alcohol Burner

People have asked me what I think about the Trangia burner in and of itself.

A Trangia alcohol burner

I think the Trangia burner is a good one. It's meant to be used in conjunction with other components, but if we consider the burner alone for a moment:
1. It's brass. Can you say solid? Yeah, you can still break them, but the chances of it crushing in your pack are pretty much nil unless you fall off a cliff or something (in which case you probably have more to worry about than what shape your burner is in). ;)  Brass conducts heat well which is an advantage in cold weather where alcohol sometimes can be difficult to vaporize. Titanium burners, while lighter, do not conduct heat well.
2. It's an open design. You just pour your alcohol in. To light it, you flip in some sparks with your fire steel or use a lighter or match. The point being that it's really easy to work with. There are some alcohol stoves where you've got to get the alcohol in a tiny little hole, and you have to prime them even in warm weather, all sorts of fiddly stuff like that. No thanks. The Trangia burner is a practical, easy to use burner.
3. The Trangia burner is a nice balance between speed and efficiency. The Trangia isn't the fastest out there -- but that's a good thing. The faster burners tend to eat through your alcohol which means you're running out of fuel when the guy next to you still has a couple of days supply of fuel. Yet on the other hand they've got enough power that they aren't at the mercy of the slightest breeze. Some really efficient burners are such low power burners that unless you set the windscreen up perfectly, your pot will never boil.
4. The Trangia burner has a lid that can be sealed. Ever try to get left over alcohol out of a burner? It's a pain in the butt. Most guys either burn it off (i.e. waste it) or manage to recover only a portion of it (again, wasted fuel). With the Trangia burner? No problem. Just seal it up. Next time you need the burner, it's already fueled. As a precaution, I put my burner inside a Ziploc bag, sometimes two. They do leak a few drops some times.

The lid of a Trangia burner has an "O" ring which forms a tight seal so that alcohol can be carried in the burner

5. The Trangia burner can simmer when the simmer ring is used. Relatively few alcohol stoves can really simmer. Simmering means you can cook real food not just "boil in a bag" type meals.

The simmer ring of a Trangia burner (sitting in a pan).  The "door" can be nearly shut to get a low  flame or completely shut to extinguish the stove.

So, you've got a really solid burner that conducts heat well, that is practical and easy to use and is a balance between speed and efficiency that can be sealed so you don't waste fuel that can simmer. That's a half a dozen reasons why the Trangia is one of the most popular alcohol burners out there and why so many systems are built around a Trangia burner (Clikstand, Trangia Triangle, WestWind, plus dozens of home made ones).  For the weights of each component, please see the Technical Appendix below.

It's a good burner.

HJ

Related posts and articles:

• Getting Started with Alcohol
• DIY Alcohol Stoves -- Basic Design Considerations
• Cold Weather Tips for Alcohol Stoves
• Is Ethanol Worth It?
  
• Caldera Cone Alcohol Stove Review (on Seattle Backpackers Magazine)
• Caldera Cone Review Supplement -- Additional Photos and Technical Appendix with Weights
• The Clikstand Alcohol Stove System Review
• Caldera Cone vs. Clikstand Alcohol Stove Tests
• Trangia 27 Alcohol Stove System Review
• The Caldera Cone's 12-10 Burner
• The Trangia Alcohol Burner
• What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel?
• What Is Meths?  (And how is that different than Methanol?)
• Going "Green" with Stoves:  Alcohol and Biodiesel

Technical Appendix (with weights of all components)

• Trangia Burner:  67g/2.4oz
• Trangia Burner Lid:  21g/0.7 oz
• Trangia Burner Simmer Ring:  23g/0.8oz
• Total Trangia Burner Weight:  112g/4.0oz