Has anyone tried boiling water in a titanium bottle? Is there some way to stabilize one on a canister stove?

A few years ago, I found a cheap, promotional stainless bottle in the cabinet that was very thin-walled and even had a silicone band near the top. It fit down into my conical wood stove/windscreen so I used an alcohol stove to boil some water in it. I remember it was very fast, but the silicone band did nothing to protect my fingers. I figure a leather glove or small pliers might work for picking up the bottle, but if anyone has a better idea, please let me know.

It seems like it would be useful to be able to boil water in the bottle since I generally bring dehydrated meals on overnights and then I could leave the pot at home. I'll probably try the old bottle on my next overnight to prove the concept, but I worry a little about the lid and the mystery steel.

It's a simple question: does the bottle weigh more than the pot and water bottle (if applicable) it replaces?

I’ve not used my titanium bottles on a canister stove but one must take into account a narrower vessel will be inefficient at boiling water. In all my tests the diameter of the vessel made much more of an impact on performance than the material. In short my titanium bottles will need much more fuel than a wider pot for boiling.

But I bet you could get it to boil. I can see how it would be teetery and toddery up on a canister stove. Might pose a serious risk.

That's what I was hoping someone had solved; a way to stabilize a bottle on a canister stove, since it will probably be a long time before alcohol stoves are allowed most places in the West.

The test burn, years ago, had the bottle fitting down into a Vargo Hexagon which kept it stable and low and channeled heat like a caldera cone. It seemed to work very well, but I was worried about the cheap steel so I never used it. The cheap bottle also had a weird outer threaded cap which means that I was stuck with the one cap.

I thought maybe someone had tried a bottle on a Whisperlite or something with a remote canister, but it sounds like not. I may try some stuff, and if I come up with anything, I'll post here.

Well it’s flooding here today. Extroidinary drought then water, water everywhere. They have shut down most of the canyons so people don’t get washed away.

I have seen first hand a tall, narrow titanium Snow Peak mini solo cook set pot on an Optima Crux canister stove. It has a very small diameter burner. It heated up everything and never tipped over. But that pot has handles making it easier to pick up. I think your experimenting is a good idea and will be productive.

For a standard canister top stove it would definetly be a safety hazard. Even if you were able to attach it securely to the stove that would just make the whole contraption tippy. Lot's of people do this with alcohol stoves (as you mentioned the caldera cone). I think the key to efficiency is having the windshield extend up the sides of the bottle (.... just like a caldera cone). I think what you are looking for is a Caldera Cone type windscreen for a remote canister stove. I don't know of one of the top of my head. It will be intersting to see what you come up with.

BZH that is an excellent idea with the Caldera Cone. I use a version of it for my Snow Peak 1400 titanium cook set for its high versatility. I bought the entire Caldera Cone setup more than 10 years ago. The wood burning insert works perfectly for a windscreen with my Kovea remote canister stove and that pot. I just need to turn the titanium insert/windscreen upside down. The fit is amazingly perfect like the larger correct cone, tight to the pot and plenty of ventilation with its precut slots top and bottom. It is super efficient for long, low simmering. It works perfectly with the Trangia stove too for long, low simmers with the excellent simmering ring.

Since all canister stoves and titanium bottles are different this would be proprietary for each individual setup including the tippiness factor.

I'm going to try one of my current stoves with a canister stabilizer to see if that is viable at all. It would be a cheap experiment and I was thinking of grabbing one anyway.

I was also looking at a remote canister stove, which would be lower, more stable, and allow me to safely put some kind of cone around the burner. It might also be a nice stove to have if I wake up to very cold temps, which does sometimes happen in CO.

Either way, the titanium bottle is the biggest problem. Looking at them online, I am not seeing anything that comes with either a sport or a straw cap. I feel like the whole setup is built around a bottle that I might hate because I'd have to unscrew it for every sip. I sent a question to the folks at Vargo about this, and they did reply with more questions, which was hopeful. I hope they come up with something because I get the feeling that a screw-top-only is a non-starter for a lot of people. Maybe they'd sell more ti bottles if they were more versatile.

That is an intersting conundrum. I see plenty of stainless steel bottles with sipping/drinking lids, but none in Ti. Then I thought maybe you could get a Ti bottle that has the same threads as an ss bottle. Buy both and repurpose the lids, but I can't find a company that makes both It doesn't appear like REI even sells a Ti water bottle where you might be able to try and find a fitting cap in the store. Perhaps you could bring the Ti bottle to REI and see if you could find a bottle with a matching threaded lid?

Yeah, I may have to do just that. I'd hate to buy something and then find out that there's a different bottle that has available drink caps.

I'm still going to step through some quasi-scientific testing. It's just tricky to get the time and money to gather the gear. Going to pick up the canister stand tonight, as it looks like REI has them back in stock.

I had a few minutes to myself over the weekend so I dug out my SP GigaPower stove, the SP windscreen and my new canister legs. The stove is short and has a small burner head, so marginally less tippy and better for a small diameter bottle. The legs are very wide, so that should keep the stove from tipping.

The SP windscreen fits around the bottom of the burner head and has slots for the legs to go through and has a small lip. My vision is to build a cone-shaped piece that will fit inside the lip of the windscreen and hug the bottle a few inches up to both channel heat and stabilize the bottle.

I roughly cut up one soda can for cone material and manually molded. With only one can, I was not able to make a cone that would fit all the way around the bottle, so it ended up being half a cone.

The test was a failure, but I learned some stuff. First, I learned that I will need to sand off any paint, as this caught fire briefly and probably exacerbated the second issue, which was that the aluminum deformed visibly in the heat. I think I'm gonna need stronger metal. Maybe a soup can for continued prototyping.

Oh, and just for reference, two cups of water boiled in about 3 1/2 minutes on 3/4 power

Excellent experiments. I’ve had that same stove and windscreen for around 20 years and used it zillions of times. It still works. I’ve moved on to the remote Kovea but tried my ti bottle on it after your thread and didn’t find it safe enough. It is really intended for a wider vessel. It will be interesting to see what you come up with.

I have to admit it was a little scary to see the soda can burning and visibly waving a few feet from my face. I did have gloves, pliers and water handy, though. Safety third!

I also wasn't excited how little margin of error there was in the placement of the bottle on the stands, thus the design requirement for a cone to center and stabilize the bottle.

I also want so I do want to see if I can find a much shorter remote canister stove, but that will have to wait for the minister of finance to approve.

I was able to nab a remote-canister stove (Fire-Maple Blade 2) and try out the bottle on top of it. While the stove itself is very stable, the bottle stability still isn't great. For this particular combo, the arms have to be folded in and the indented area on the bottom of the bottle centers the bottle, but it's still tenuous.

I don't have an old windscreen to wrap around, and I've found that aluminum cans melt too easily, so I'll have to dig out some flashing or other durable metal to concentrate the heat into a smaller area.

I think this is one of those, 'Don't try this at camp, kids!' kind of situations. Still fun, though.

It also might be appropriate to point out here that that women are smarter than men because you almost never meet women who are missing fingers.

This setup is working well for me but don’t know about a tall narrow water bottle. It from an older tri-ti Caldera Cone, the wood burner insert turned upside down. When I use the mesh grate they send with the wood burner option even a smaller cup works stable and safe. The Trangia is under there with the simmer ring working. It is a very efficient and versatile combo.

What's the diameter of that cup? I can't quite make out the marking on the inside of the cup.

That setup looks pretty similar (but much lighter) than a test I did with a Vargo Hexagon and a bottle inset, which I recall was very quick. And if I ever get to use an alcohol stove again...

The diameter of the 600 ml cup is 3.6”. The largest pot this setup will handle is the Snow Peak 1400. Some windscreens don’t have enough room for the simmer ring to work but it works at any configuration and degree with this windscreen. I think they want $45 for this at Trail Designs but they don’t use it like I do. It is supposed to be the wood burning insert to the larger cone.

Recently bought a Firebox Nano titanium stove that uses wood, Esbit, Trangia alcohol and Trangia canister fuel. This is my water bottle and is about as small diameter as they come. It feels stable enough for me with the feet all turned inward.



I really like the Trangia alcohol setup the best and me can fully use the simmer ring in the top, Nano pin configuration. Got a wonderful hot latte after low simmering for 15 minutes. I’m really digging it. I kind of want the remote canister line and burner for some crazy reason. It threads through and snaps in place, accepts MSR type iso/pro. They also offer a Lindal valve that converts it to a Colman canister burner. Maybe I better stick to 5e alcohol setup now that I’m using a 95% ethanol fuel. Lol

That looks fun! I love the versatility of these folding wood burners. And Trangia burners. I have a Vargo Hexagon that I've used for wood and alcohol. I'd like to try it with a remote-canister I got last year, ironically to see if it would work better with a bottle balanced on it.

I am looking at the Firebox site, but I can't tell if you would be able to invert the canister for extra cold conditions. It looks like you should, since there is a heating tube next to the burner head, but make sure it's okay before you try.

Also, latte? I think I need to know how you're doing that. It would be really nice to have something better-tasting than instant coffee.

Did a search for Trangia Gas Burner Inverted and got an immediate hit with a guy going under the screen name Knobby. He encountered problems with pulsating flare ups. He had a whole thread on it. Then he did a video and no adjustments would prevent this dangerous behavior. So looks like a no go for inverting.
However he said the burner was made by Primus for Trangia and showed how extremely good it works in normal configuration. It goes from very intense to super low for simmering. I’ve used canister stoves for decades and never had a problem at all in my southwestern haunts. The propane they mix in does fine in the temps we use it, hardly ever below freezing. With a Lindal valve they are burning Pure propane in them now. I have not tried that yet. Propane has a boiling point of -40° so that should cover most areas even in winter but there would still be a couple colder. Lol

As for the latte, we use coconut milk, chocolate, various spices like cinnamon, turmeric, cardamom, cloves, sweetener, a a few ingredients like Maca powder or any other kind of favorite ingredient. One can use tea or coffee too. I’ve found powdered coconut milk in Asian stores but like it canned at home or near home.

Bummer about no-go for inverted use. That was an important thing for me when I grabbed my remote-canister stove because it can turn from summer to winter on the same day, up high.

Even so, having a burner built into a windscreen like that looks really stable and well protected. How high is the bottle sitting in the pic above?

And your latte sounds more like milk-tea, which is also very good. I was imagining you were going to describe an Aeropress recipe.

The stove is about 4 7/8” from ground to top supports and the bottle is about 7 7/8” from bottom to the top of the lid. The bottle’s diameter is about 2.6”. I have two of those titanium bottles marked to hold 550 ml and another titanium bottle that holds 1.2 l and is bigger in diameter as well. Of coarse.

We make two of those “lattes” a day for both of us. I have an “awake” body chemistry so I don’t need coffee but we will have simple green tea twice a day as well. A portable stove is important and we do bake cakes and scones with the stove and Snow Peak 1400 pot and nesting bowl. It works real slick.

I have the Trangia gas burner on the way and figured out a super light windscreen of crafting foil to attach to the flame guard with miniature paper binding clips. It is rock solid in stiff wind, the windscreen will not budge. This works with the Trangia alcohol burner and will with the coming gas burner too. The heat is retained and focused on the pot. All my pots from 600 ml to 2 L work with this system.

I was looking at the Firebox site and it looks like the little box adds a lot of support to the bottom. I'll be curious what the distance between the burner head and pot will end up being when you get that.

I still want to dig out my Hexagon and see if the remote canister stove will fit inside. If that fits, it should allow the bottle to be recessed into the cone, which would be very stable and concentrate the heat. I'll try to dig that all out this weekend.

The x-case does add stability and if you are using it with wood fuel it acts as a dandy little fire pan. Some areas in the southwest require fire pans if you are burning wood. I like the extra safety because little coals do drop through the ventilation holes. Heavy crafting foil makes a good lightweight base so the wire feet don’t sink into the soft earth and sand. That saves some weight.

The Trangia alcohol burner boils the quickest when sitting on the floor of the Nano. At the top position using the Nano sticks the simmer ring can deploy in any position. I’m very happy with the overall performance there. They consider an alcohol stove an open fire in the National Forest and Parks here so it can’t be used in any fire ban.

One can burn LPG in a stage II fire ban. So the Trangia gas burner will be very useful under those restrictions which must be coming with our current severe drought. They say it should be here next week so I’ll measure the burner to pot clearance then. I chose free shipping so it’s USPS and they might get it here a couple days quicker but then again they have shipped some of my stuff to all corners of America before turning around and finding Arizona. Lol

Yeah, I'm pretty much giving up on alcohol stoves, for the time being, since it sounds like they will be banned in CO for the foreseeable future. It's sad because I love my Trangia and other stoves. I even came across some steel soda-style cans that I was planning on building into burners...

Even so, it's nice to have a viable backup stove type for emergencies, and at no real weight penalty.

The case seems like a really good idea. Does it seal up fairly tight so that soot doesn't leak out?

The case clasps up tight but not completely sure if it will not sift some fine particles. I’ve done two burns boiling water but each time here at home scrubbed everything with vinegar and Borax. That case easily fits into a quart freezer bag. That will protect your pack. The Nano really does burn twigs well but needs constant attention as those twigs need to be pushed in kind of often. Same with all smaller twig stoves. It is an excellent emergency backup.

The new Trangia gas burner performed today making a two person scone. The Pathfinder skillet I’ve had for a few years and lid worked well. The X-case definitely makes everything much more stable. The burner snaps into place perfectly.
The top of the burner is about half an inch from the bottom of the pot. The looping gas tube is close to .2” from the pot. The burner head is wide and really delivers heat even when turned down as far as possible.

I thought the scone might be burning some and I could have taken it off the flame in 10 minutes instead of 15. It was a little dry but didn’t burn. The stove is very near silent on super low, more than other ps I’ve used burning canister fuel. On medium it’s the afterburners of a fighter jet like most.

We’ll do this again in the wilderness later this week at a very strange place we discovered last week, a circle of paved stones that are flat and have four sitting stones at the cardinal magnetic directions. It’s in the middle of nowhere without any faint path. Looks to be built long ago.

How was the modulation on the stove? And did the burner clip in and make the whole structure more stable? Is that skillet aluminum?

10-15 minutes to make scones is about the same amount of time as boiling water and then waiting for a salty freeze-dried meal to rehydrate. I should probably try something like this with my old Trangia cookset.

I happened to have an opportunity today to gather my remote-canister stove, the Hexagon and a very thin aluminum water bottle. I'll work out how to post a pic sometime, but for now I can say that it all worked, but not well enough to replace my other kits. The FireMaple Blade barely fit inside the Hexagon with the hose trailing out the little door. The bottle was maybe 1/2" inset into the cone. I tried a burn test with about 500ml, but shut off the stopwatch at about 5 minutes. It isn't speedy, so I'll have to see if it's efficient.

The boil in a bottle experiment may end up being a failure, but it has been fun. At least I've got more ideas.

I’ve found the easiest method to post a picture here is to get a free Flickr account, upload there and copy the embedding code.
The modulation is pretty good. I could get it low enough to bake in the lidded skillet. The burner head is wider than any other canister stove. That kind of puts out more heat. It does go from low to high quickly so one has to barely turn the valve to make a difference but it is doable. We’ll see how it does outside of a sheltered backyard soon.
The burner clips in solidly but I’m not sure if it adds stability. The skillet is about 8” and is stainless steel with a thin disk of steel on the bottom to spread the heat evenly and it does. The lid makes it amazingly versatile outdoors for things like pizza or chicken. It’s very similar to the MSR Alpine skillet but that one doesn’t have a lid choice.
All of this makes a wonderful kitchen but comes with enough weight to give some pause for some trips but light vs performance cookware is walking a tightrope. With this and the Snow Peak 1400 pot/bowl setup we can cook just about anything. For car camping it’s a backcountry bistro. Sometimes it’s fun on a dayhike.

The Trangia gas burner in the Firebox Nano showed perfectly good performance on a knoll in a canyon of the mountains. The breeze was very light and didn’t have to use the flame guard or extra windscreen. The modulation is fine, valve not quite enough resistance when adjusting. But it does stay put and goes very low.
The scones were so good. It’s a solid setup that will hold just about any size pot. We’ll try the double boiler method next week with the Snow Peak 1400 with nesting bowl. We have baked a bunch of cakes, lots of lattes and countless chocolate Pot de Crème in that pot setup.

It may be advisable to not leave your scones unattended, especially if a bald guy wanders into your camp asking, "Can I check out the modulation on your stove..?" That looks ...tempting.

I think you've convinced me to finally move away from just boiling water and toward actual cooking. Or at least camping next to someone who does cook...

This is what my remote canister stove looked like inside the Hexagon. The stove barely fits with the legs open and the bottle is inset maybe half an inch.

[img:right]https://share.icloud.com/photos/0bcEAVDLjHDdca7_fJ-6y8oiA[/img]

You are welcome in our camp, scones will be hot off the pan.

That is a nice setup. I’ve always liked those hexagon stoves. What is the water bottle sitting on, the gas stove supports or a mesh grate on top of that? That’s probably as good as my Nano could do.

Is that a faint mountain ridge in the background? I’m a third of a mile from National Forest and a half mile in the designated wilderness trails start going up vertically into the mountains, canyons everywhere.

The Hexagon is fun. It's not the most efficient wood burner, but it's versatile. I can use it as the windscreen/pot support for alcohol and now this canister stove.

The bottle is sitting on the canister stove arms, folded in. When using alcohol stoves, I can lay stakes in the notches and inset the bottle. Ironically, I did this test on top of a Solo stove. [img]https://share.icloud.com/photos/0094M_1rITxSc1Gd5WqMOUaEA[/img]


That's a small state park across the street. It's a nice place for a quick bike, run, boat... They even have a little beach over there.

You definitely have some good cooking gear and a versatile setup.

Having a State Park so close is nice! Getting in a hiking fix is super important. I gotta have it several times a week. Came across the second lion/deer kill site in four days. I love having monsters in surreal hiking terrain.

I tried some lighter equipment for another blueberry chocolate chip walnut scone so the experiments continue.

Having a place close by to get a dose of wilderness is very nice, especially if you don't have to drive. It's like the trail starts at your door, that way. I don't get out there as much as I'd like, but since I've resurrected a couple of bikes it's been more frequent. Mostly, the wilderness comes to me, though. A couple of weeks ago, a bobcat trotted past the spot where I did my boil test, in fact.

I've struggled with what cooking setup to bring because a wider pot heats more efficiently and is easier to cook with, but a narrower one is easier to pack and fits the canister and stove more easily. I thought maybe I could avoid the whole thing by using a bottle and end up with a lighter overall setup. It seems like the things I need to do to mitigate the inefficiency of heating a narrow bottle are adding up to more weight and bulk.

I think I'll go back to my compromise solution: a 4.5" wide 500ml pot I got with a Soto Amicus and a plastic lid scavenged from a different set. It fits a small canister, spork, lighter, etc. but the stove has to go into the bear can. I should be able to cook a little in this one because it's anodized aluminum, so sorta non-stick.

We got in a good steep canyon climb and a few hours later descended to an old cut off table for some revivifiing tea. The table was built by the WPA in the mid 1930s and is no longer used, plants and weeds growing up around it everywhere. It is nice and level so before we started I stuck my 1.2 liter ti bottle up there and it felt pretty stable.



Still too risky for me so the 600 ml cup that nests with the bottle did the work. I heated up girlfriend’s water first and then mine right after. This does make a compact kit for the pack.



Then we ambled back along the shady creek trail. We have also been working more on the perfect scone. Lol I acquired a Banks Fry-Bake pan & lid and put the old Outback oven to work with it and the Firebox setup. We are under Stage 2 fire ban here so no alcohol or wood, but LPG (canister fuel) is okay.

If that bottle didn't seem stable on concrete I'm sure it wouldn't feel stable on a dirt patch or uneven rock. I"m redirecting my hunt for cookware back to wide pots.

Wise course of action. Wider pots are much more efficient with water boiling. Tall bottles are way too top heavy and boiling water is very dangerous. In my 20s a petite and feisty little redhead pulled up to a red light next to me, both of us on bicycles. She was in her 20s as well.
We got to know each other. She had long hair which covered burn scars on the side of her head and down her neck. It happened in the kitchen when she was a little girl her father and boiling water involved and burned stays burned forever. Best to protect the dermal layer as much as possible lol.

What size pot are you looking at?

I have a number of pots to choose from because I've been experimenting with this stuff for a long time. The size will be limited by which bear canister I take, since I like to store my cook kit in the can.

I'm mostly doing overnights nowadays, so I grabbed a Contender bear can. That can fit the venerable SP Trek 700, which is 4" diameter. Or maybe the GSI Minimalist. A compromise for cooking and drinking.

For longer trips, I can fit about anything into the BV450. The 5" diameter Soto set that came with my Amicus stove have pretty decent anodizing. I can get away with just the 500ml with a lid from a different set. That seems to be the tipping point where cooking and drinking are about equal.
If I decide to bring real food, I would opt for the Vargo Sierra 750, essentially a mini wok. It goes from 4" to 6". Better for cooking than drinking.

I am also bikepacking-curious, which seriously limits the size. For that, the Soto Thermostack will fit in the frame bag. It's only about 3.5" diameter, so only good for boiling.

The bottle experiment was an effort to combine drinking and cooking vessels, but it seems like the amount of extra gear I'd have to bring to mitigate the diameter disadvantage would negate any weight or bulk savings. It's not worth the hassle, nor the added risk.

For safety reasons, better to use steel bottles. It's not clear yet if titanium has some health effect on the organism.

uhh... what? Artificial joints use titanium because it is so inert in the body. I've never seen anything to indicate adverse health effects from boiling in a Ti bottle. Do you have a reference for that statement?

Maybe Pasc was thinking of aluminum. I know there's been a lot of discussion about that.
All I've ever heard about titanium is that it's inert. And expensive.

To my knowledge titanium is far, far, far less reactive than stainless steel or aluminum but I would be willing to read any study you can link.