[Closed] AlpKit BruKit out of the box review and test

Was it sent by postypost or courier?

I at home today awaiting mine and the postie has just been not parcels:-)

recorded delivery by my postie, the most excellent Wes.
Got a text first thing this morning from RM saying it was at Malvern depot to go out for delivery. He usually arrives around 9:30ish in these parts.

poo, i'll have to find something else to set fire then.

stoner - I use a Primus clip-on windshield with my Optimus Crux. It definitely reduces boil time and gas usage.

that looks nice.
http://www.backpackinglight.co.uk/bushcraft/QE105.html

TBH, Im a bit more low-tech/tight and use some 4-5x folded foil and a rubber band 🙂

Bob (at that there ^ backpackinglight) pointed me towards some heavy guage foil, but Ive never got round to buying it:

http://www.backpackinglight.co.uk/bushcraft/QE101.html

Hmmm, bit of a minus point. I know I said that the burner and the cannister can fit inside, well they cant both fit inside at the same time. At least not a 220g Primus.

On the previous thread AlpCol mentioned the Coleman 250 being recommended for stability purposes but I cant believe it's any smaller than the Primus 220g, so even that wont fit. Obviously the 100g can will.

AlpCol - I'll ask AlpKit support the same question, but if you get this first: what size and brand of cannisters have you tested this with for nested storage?

Mine has just arrived 🙂

Homer meths stove or Trangia all the way, who's in a hurry for coffee when bivvying? 😛

Some brands of canisters are slightly narrower (1 or 2mm) than others.

A good source of thick tin foil would be those disposable roasting trays from your local supermarket.

Thx, missed the feeding frenzy of the first batch but will click sooner when they're back.

A good source of thick tin foil would be those disposable roasting trays

good thinking, tonto.

Its not the can diameter that's the problem (although if it were a couple of mm narrower I could probably sit it inside the burner lip, giving me another 5mm height). But that's still probably not enough. The primus 220g is about 85mm tall, and that's about 10mm too tall.

Anyone bought a Koro? I'd be interested to see how it compares to a Pocket Rocket, especially with the Brewpot on it.

V quick reply from Alpkit: "Having played around the 100g/125g is the best fit. " so small tins best. Probably leaves enough room for some can legs though for additional stability.

That sounds like a pretty major fail for the sake of a few mm. 100g cartridges aren't anywhere near as easy to find when travelling

aye. There's room in the burner design to lose 5mm+, the rest could come from the pot.

Hmmm after that review....i'm out.

The little titanium remote canister stove still looks good though - something to pair with my Trangia mini for times when I am in a hurry

Why do you think that it is slower? Because it has more mass to heat up before the water boils?

It's more stable than the pocket rocket with a lower CoG, but both would be improved with some stabilisers for £6 or make your own.

I normally use 3 tent pegs around the sides of the gas canister, makes it pretty much bombproof, and is totally free and no additional weight for those of us using a tent (assuming you can spare a few pegs whilst cooking).

Of course if I'm on a proper lightweight trip carrying stuff I'd be using my solid fuel stove made from a tin can along with foil takeaway containers for boiling water in...

So would it be correct to summarise that the new brew kit is pretty much worse in every respect than the thing you tested it against?

Slower
Heavier
Uses more gas
Doesn't fit together properly with a gas cannister inside.

That's a pretty impressive fail Alpkit..

1/3rd of the price.Utter fail.

Why do you think that it is slower? Because it has more mass to heat up before the water boils?

Yes, I think so.

The Ti pans are thin (yet strong) and the Pocket Rocket produces a ferocious cone of concentrated heat which conducts to the water v quickly.

Im guessing the BruKit heat exchanger captures spilled flame heat better, and of course smoothes out the heat around the whole pan bottom more effectively. The centre still the hottest though. But there's just greater losses from all the material at the bottom before it gets to conduct to water. My uneducated guess, anyway.

However, I still think it would be far better for cooking a thick sauce/food on than the pocket rocket, which has always been tricky to control meaning I usually end up heating water rather than food in the past. The BruKit will encourage me to take more pre-prepared meals.

It's such a fail that I'm forced to question stoners abilities 😀

Still, they sold them all and have a few things they can feature as "upgrades" for V2, V3 etc.

thegeneralist - if one was being brutal, yes those are the facts of the test. But there are less numerical things at which the BruKit is better:

1) gentler cooking
2) insulated pot keeping food/drink warmer while being consumed
3) drinking/straining lid
4) cheaper than a mytipot & burner.

It's certainly not a slamdunk, but I'm happy with it. Id be miffed if it was £80-100 like the jetboil. But I wonder how the jetboil peforms. Anyone?

EDIT: Despite the sterile lab conditions that are my kitchen, Im willing for my deeply scientific methodology to be repeat tested by other researchers for validity 😉

PS good idea aracer. I can see those profile pegs being perfect for that.

Is it a height problem with the cylinders? How about putting the cylinder in last so you don't waste the domed space on the bottom of the cylinder?

Ive tried it every which way. any order or orientation does not allow the 220g can in with the burner and the lid to close over.

Well I have a bit of a stove obsession - about 7 at the last count and I've never been tempted by the Jetboil ones. I suspect these are best when it's very cold and you can hang them up and get the gas canister away from the snow/cold ground.

Best all weather gas stove will always be one with a hose:

[img] [/img]

There is a neat way of getting the cylinder warm when the weather turns cold 😆

Best summer gas stove is:

[img] ?v=1341431809[/img]

It folds flat and fits into the hollow bottom of a 250 cylinder. Cylinder and stove then slip into a Snow Peak/MSR titanuim pot. Not the lightest option, but it takes up a very small space - and I need one!

Marko

Presumably the burner casing and heat exchanger add up to a nice effective windshield? I wonder how the comparison would fare if you were outside on a breezy day, even with a windshield around the pocket rocket? Foil windshields are always a bit fiddly anyway, and I've never found them to be super effective around a gas stove mounted on top of a canister (although considerably better than nothing).

I'm using a Crux at the moment (well, not actually whilst sitting typing this....). The folding feature is great.

[img] [/img]

The stove is an Optimus Crux. It folds so that it can be stored in the concave underside of a 250g gas cartridge. It seems to be very efficient but suffers from not having a great simmer. If set low it will often go out altogether.

For lighting the stove I have a Light My Fire Swedish Firesteel. This works in all conditions so I'm less worried about trying to keep matches dry or having a lighter simply fail on me.

I have a windshield that clamps onto the gas cartridge. It's made by Primus and I reckon it pays for itself in fuel saved in windy conditions.

The Titanium Spork is handy as a single eating implement and, being foldable, stores in the pans. However, the wire handle collects bits of food and eating off titanium isn't the most pleasant sensation (or maybe that's just me).

The wee sponge scourer is handy for getting the remnants of last nights meal off before breakfast and also for mopping up any spills and leaks.

The pans are the Optimus Terra Weekend HE cook-set (271g). I find some of the smaller "solo" options a bit small for decent portions sometimes. The Terra Weekend is large enough to take all the items I've mentioned above.

The pot cosy is home-made from silver "bubble wrap" and duct tape. It's an efficient way of cooking whilst using less gas as it keeps everything hot. Even cook in the bag meals work better as they remain warm while rehydrating.

If going lighter, simpler, more compact, the stove and a 100g canister will fit into a Mytimug which I team up with a home-made foil windshield and a similar pot cosy.

If you're not bothered about posh brands, Hi Gear do a tiny ti stove available at Go Outdoors - weighs nowt, costs peanuts. Got one and it's great.

onion: what's the purpose of the green wire on the Crux?

That's the control "lever"

It's certainly not a slamdunk, but I'm happy with it. Id be miffed if it was £80-100 like the jetboil. But I wonder how the jetboil peforms. Anyone?

JetBoils are okay, they have a new one coming out early next year with better simmer control and low temperature performance - which you don't really talk about here - but the thing about the all-in-one stove units / PCS or whatever you want to call them, is the one-pot convenience thing. They're a bit like a mutant gas-powered kettle.

If you want proper fast, I suspect the answer is the new MSR one which uses the burner design from their bonkers fast-hearing Reactor mountaineering stove. But it's really expensive.

You also need to compare the performance / ease of use in windy conditions I guess.

Oh, and surely a more like-for-like comparison with the Pocket Rocket would be Alpkit's little canister-top stove, the Kraku.

Nutballs. I was looking at getting one of those for work2, but forgot. Does anyone know when they will be coming back in?

You also need to compare the performance / ease of use in windy conditions I guess.

indeed, windshields can be a bit of a pain to set up right.
I guess the heat exchanger/wind shield mechanism makes that a lot easier. Bound to find out up Snowdon! 🙂

Can I have the spreadsheet for results and graphs please

E-mail in profile

Seriously ta for the info..interesting thread

Had been meaning to test mine out again, so thought this was the ideal excuse:

[IMG] http://i.imgur.com/UHioWcAl.jp g" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/UHioWcAl.jp g"/> [/IMG]
(though I forgot the foil lid which is another couple of grammes)

[IMG] [/IMG]

This is actually going full bore - you can't see the flames which are coming out of all the holes as they've gone blue rather than yellow (though you can just about see where the edge of the foil is starting to melt/burn from the flames):
[IMG] [/IMG]

Used 18g of fuel to boil 500ml of water in 8 minutes, so a lot slower than the gas burners, but still a lot faster than usual with solid fuel or meths, and as al points out, what's the hurry? In case anybody suggests it's using a lot more weight of fuel, here's an empty gas cannister:
[IMG] [/IMG]

Here's a final weight for Stoner 😉
[IMG] [/IMG]

Oh and I normally use a foil windshield (either normal thin foil, or I have a thick foil one which came with my XGK), but since Stoner hadn't used one in his testing I thought I should follow the same procedure.

His was inside whereas yours was outside

Different Methodologies

go back inside and do it in your kitchen

Stoner, it looks like you're using different size canisters on the two stoves. Were they both full?

In either case, if the canisters were supplying gas at different pressures perhaps not a comparative test.

Stoner - were both gas cylinders new? Just the gas mix could be a variation..

Having questioned it, my cheap n simple Edelrid ti pocket rocket sequel stove and windshield is mega reliable, and light enough and efficient enough.

And for good weather, bothys or one nighters, the 6g titanium Esbit is ace....

You'll more than make up the difference between a ti esbit and my stove in how many esbit tablets you need to carry, unless you're just brewing a mug of tea.

Stoner, it looks like you're using different size canisters on the two stoves. Were they both full?

In either case, if the canisters were supplying gas at different pressures perhaps not a comparative test.

Fair comment. A bit later today I might have ago at repeating the test with swapped canisters.

But FTR, the BruKit was burning with valve fully open (clean flame) and the Pocket Rocket with the valve about 3/4 open for optimum flame shape. Both cannisters were "half full".

I receive my Brewkit this morning and I'm afraid that I'm a bit disappointed. The issue is that the section of the pot that the stove attaches to just came away from the pot with the very first attempt to build the thing. In the photo blow, that grey ring should be attached the the pot:

[img] [/img]

Probably just an isolated manufacturing issue and I know Alpkit have excellent customer service but the fact that they are sold out will mean no Brewkit for me.

I suspect the hot spot you mention results in a higher deltaT so you get a better heat transfer rate, especially in a lossy situation such as this (like having hot rads in an old leaky house V gentle underlfoor heatpump heating in a well insulated house). The lower heat transfer means longer cooking times and more wasted fuel in addition to more heat going directly to the atmosphere giving the lower deltaT.

Also not a fan of cooking on aluminium but it's not like you use it every day and the annodising should be pretty inert.

For the price though it does look very good for the occasional and more casual (ie not arctic explorer). Looked at the titanium ones a few years ago and was put off for the price as I would hardly use it.

I'm very tempted to get in on this act of good fun - as a complete beginner into this cooking malarky - So from the Alpkit range, which one would be a good starter? Kraku or the Koro - I suspect it won't get used that often but I reckong it's a handy thing to have.

My cooking skills are truly awful so anything being cooked on it is likely to be a one-pot surprise.

The Koro looks good as it has a hose to keep the gas away from burner; but the Kraku packs away tiny and probably better from a space saving point-of-view.

Anyone any experience of either (or ideally both and can say avoid to either of them)?

I also posted on the bike and bivi facebook group and a nice guy from alpkit confirmed that the one I received is actually faulty and just slipped through the QA net. In classic Alpkit customer service stylee he's going to provide me with a freepost address to sent it back for a replacement

@ DickBarton - I got the Kraku when they first released it. There were some problems with them not sealing properly on gas canisters, but I never had an issue with my one, so just carried on using it. It's a really nice little stove, packs up tiny (will go in the bottom of a 250g gas can along with a lighter) and is pretty powerful. Not as quick to boil water as my friends pocket rocket due to the flame being more spread out, but efficient enough. The only issue is the pot supports aren't very wide, so you need to be attentive if using a big pot in case it topples over.

Thanks for the response (and sorry for the slight hijack)...I'll order up the Kraku and see about a pot set as well...thanks.

I just did a boil test with my Brukit - 14m 45s for a litre. That's indoors with a half full gosystem butane propane cannister. Pretty poor.

Just tested my Jetboil Flash with 500ml of water at room temperature ish, came out the tap that hadnt been run in a while.

I used a Coleman Butane Propane mix canister.

It took 3:50 to get to a rolling boil. So not as fast as the MSR but a fair whack quicker than the BruKit. But I did pay twice the price for mine!

Well I succumbed to the BruPot after witnessing the effectiveness of McMoonter's Optimus equivalent...and it being cheap.

I boiled a mug full of water (about 0.4l) from the cold tap in both my MSR Titan Kettle and the BruPot. Same settings, same gas, same Micro Rocket, lids on.

The Titan Kettle took 3 min 25 sec, the BruPot 2 min 25 sec to a proper boil. That's about the 30% improvement heat exchanger manufacturers claim.

Is convinced.

I also spent a happy half hour faffing with a Whisperlite, my new Omnilite Ti and trialing a butane Express Spider with White Gas. The latter worked much better than it ought to on the standard butane jet and without preheating. I'll go ahead and do the multifuel conversion now for the full 'must have 3 multifuel stoves' effect 🙂

My Optimus pot has a HE too and I'm convinced it makes the whole thing more efficient.

@scotroutes. Be interested in how long the Optimus He takes to boil 0.4l of water from the cold tap on a Rocket type stove if you have time/facilities.

On short trips, I wouldn't bother with the HE pan as it weighs 100g more and is bulkier. On trips over ~5 days, I'd take the BruPot as the gas saving would offset the extra weight. I'd also take it anytime I'd be using a 230g gas canister as it fits in the BruPot reducing overall packed volume.

As way of reference, I've just tried out my swedish army trangia cookset, 500ml from tap to rolling boil in 7min 20seconds

£12 brand new, fuel available at any chemist or hardware store, can be hung over a real fire if you run out of meths 8)

How big and heavy is a Trangia again? Not really suitable for bikepacking with 'normal' bike packing luggage.

Some interesting posts. Thanks Chris for getting the jetboil out.

Interesting to see the brupot perform reasonably well but another brukit not.

II wonder what the difference is in construction between the two. Maybe none, maybe just the burner.
I might re try the 500ml test with the pocket rocket on the brukit Pot to see if the burner is the weak link

I'm going to send mine back. If it's taking nearly 15 mins to boil a litre of water in the house then it's a waste of time.

Brukit Pot on msr pocket rocket, 500ml, 3m20s

So it's not the heat exchanger or the pot construction but the burner design.

And, a 200g+ cannister will fit in the brukit pot with a pocket rocket (without its red plastic box, so needs a small cloth)

[s]So what's different about the brukit Pot and the brupot, other than the neoprene sleeve?[/s]

Edit actually it's nothing as far as I can tell. So really the brupot with a correctly sized stove should work a treat.

[quote=boblo ]@scotroutes. Be interested in how long the Optimus He takes to boil 0.4l of water from the cold tap on a Rocket type stove if you have time/facilities. 2:05 using my Crux stove. (indoors, no wind, tap water, almost empty 230g Highlander Propane/Butane cartridge)

Probably just an isolated manufacturing issue and I know Alpkit have excellent customer service but the fact that they are sold out will mean no Brewkit for me.

Unfortunately this is the problem with Alpkit. For example, I wonder if you'll be able to get a replacement igniter when it fails at some point in the future. I feel the same about their tents as well.

Great company, great ethos, but maybe branching out too far into areas that are already pretty well covered? Maybe better off focusing on stock levels of the stuff they do really well. Like dry bags, stuff sacks, bouldering mats, etc.

If all companies thought like that on-one would never have got past the inbred.

I m a big Alpkit fan and at the last count had something like a dozen of their products. But they're a small young company. I dont mind if they make a few minor mistakes, most of the time they take those mistakes on the chin like their seconds dry bags or early down clothing.

Product support is not really a worry, especially given Alpkit pricing. I m far more interested in their continuing to develop products.

@scotroutes. Ta for that. I wonder if the Crux burner is more effective being less 'blowlamp' than the Rocket or if the Optimus pot is just more effective which would account for the improved timing.

I may buy an Optimus pot just to prove the theory.

How big and heavy is a Trangia again? Not really suitable for bikepacking with 'normal' bike packing luggage.

Not true...
I use my Trangia stove, triangle, and alpkit my-ti Mug for all my bikpacking adventures..

DrP

I've just tested the BruPot with my Express Spider on the tinned gas. At full tilt it took 1min to boil 0.5l of water from the cold tap. I'll run the Rocket test at full beans as well as it was turned down to non Saturn 5 levels.

that express spider looks pretty fierce. The pre-heat tube must really help get the most out of the fuel.

I thought I would join in.

I chose my kelly kettle trecker as my weapon.

Fuel: handfull of rowan and sycamore spoon shavings +strip of birch bark an 2no. Cotton balls.
Time: 5:36.07 for 1/2 litre from match hitting cotton.

Notes: required rekindling after i forgot to check it. Fire still burning so additional water could have been boiledand at a faster rate.

Weather: Windy as ****

[img] [/img]

I just repeated my test with the Crux but using an Alpkit Mytimug 750. 3:12 to boil. That perhaps show the benefit of a heat exchanger, but I also had to turn the stove down a bit as the flame is otherwise wider than the pot and there is therefore a lot of "wasted" heat/gas.

Well to add to the debate I tried my Krakau stove on a 200 size gas canister (half full) with a brupot just now. Time to boil for 500ml cold tap water indoors was 3mins 5sec. The krakau is sufficiently small that it sits directly under the pot base rather than on the bottom of the pan below the heat exchanger which may explain the difference.

Just packing for my yomp up snowdon tomorrow afternoon/evening and Ive decided to take my pocket rocket with a 100g can inside the Brukit pot (which is basically the brupot)

BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?

BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?

They go in a bag for use when cooking out of the car. Hence the availability of an empty one 😳

(my PR last got used when I camped "rough" 50m or so from my car as I couldn't find a campsite anywhere near an event I was doing)

BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?

After collecting a substantial number of these and never getting around to using them for cooking from the car I've now found that they've usually got enough gas left to do an evening meal, hot choc, porridge and morning coffees (i.e. an overnight bivi).

So, I'm taking them along with me on my excursions, with a fresh canister in my pack if needed. If they run empty then I crush them with a rock to reduce space for the trip home.

BTW, what does everyone do with their 3/4 or 4/5 empty gas cannisters?

You buy one of [url= http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/G-WORKS-NEW-GAS-SAVER-R1-CARTRIDGE-EXCHANGER-Made-Super-Duralumin-/131297403365?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e91ef61e5 ]these [/url] and decant from canister to canister. No implied guarantee, values may fall as well as rise, E&OE etc.

^ Oooh. Bit expensive but clever.

That looks a bit dodgy.
I like the way they warn you not to fill past 85%, but don't tell you how to avoid it.

There's a reason why vehicle LPG pumps have got big warning signs telling you not to fill cylinders. Vehicle LPG tanks have got an automatic shut of valve set at 85%, cylinders haven't.
If you fill a cylinder, whether it's 47kg or 100g, too close to 100% and it warms up, by being left in the sun for example, the liquefied gas will expand and force it's way out somehow.

The only safe way to use this would be to weigh your cylinder when new, then never exceed that weight when refilling it. Even so, Propane and Butane have got different specific gravities, so you'd need to know the exact mix.

There's a blog somewhere of some bloke discussing filling canisters at an angle to ensure there's always a gap at the top (i.e. 85% full). He worked out the angle to be 35 degrees by filling one with water and waiting for it to leak out of a hole he'd made.

Made sense when I read it, less so when trying to repeat it. Google the thingy and you should be able to find it. $30 to reuse all your old part full cans? What are they about £3.00 each? Might be worth it just to save the planet a bit.

I'm not convinced that would work either.
Connecting two sealed containers, each pressurised with liquified butane is not the same as pouring water in to an open container of air.
If you pour water in to a tilted container, sure enough, you will get an air lock at the top and can achieve 85% water, 15% air.
An empty gas cartridge is still full of gaseous butane and my suspicion is that if a cartridge with liquified butane is connected above it, it will fill with liquid right to the top.

On a related point;
There's a couple of comments above about boil times varying with the amount of gas left in the cylinder.
I'm definitely not an expert, but this looks to me like a misunderstanding of how liquified gases behave.*
As I understand it, as long as there is at least some liquid gas in the cylinder, then the pressure is entirely dependent on temperature.
[i]The pressure in a butane cylinder doesn't vary as the cylinder empties.[/i]
Think of it as a boiling kettle, which will give off steam at the same rate, right up until it runs out of water.
It's not like a punctured tyre where the air slows down as the pressure decreases.

*But I know where I can find one. 😉

@mtg I think the 'pressure' point is more a symptom of the propane burning off first in mixed gas cannisters. What's left is less lively and looks like it's at lower pressure even though it isn't necessarily.

I haven't got one of those decanter thingumybobs, just came across it whilst searching for (ahem) some specialist items.... 🙂

Edit: just found the link to the 'how to fill without blowing yourself up' stuff [url= http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=58375&startat=40 ]BANG!! [/url]

IME the canister cools when cooking and so the pressure seems to drop. I've reversed this by warming it up with my hands.

As I understand it, as long as there is at least some liquid gas in the cylinder, then the pressure is entirely dependent on temperature.
The pressure in a butane cylinder doesn't vary as the cylinder empties.

Well otherwise that refiller clearly wouldn't work.