Trangia cooking

[YellowDinosaur]

Ok so inspired by another thread I am thinking of getting a trangia burner to use in my Cobb to increase the versatility and stop me having to always take our camping grass cooker.

I know nothing at all about trangia cooking or if this would really be a good idea so i'm keen to learn more! In particular how quickly does the fuel burn so how much would I need to take fora weekend?

Cheers!

Camping grass? Gas obviously!

Come on surely some of you lot have trangias? Please? :)

We've got one - don't have a Cobb though, so don't know how well that set up would work.
Trangias are great, really fast, effective little burners - we use meths and a bottle should see you for a weekend. You can either take it in the plastic bottles it comes in, or decant it into a little aluminium flask (like a drinking one) which is more robust against breakages.
We usually take a 2 gas burner and a trangia, as the trangia is fab for heating up water for drinks. There are usually 4 or 5 of us though so need the extra burners too.

I have one, have had for many years, but have only ever used it by itself. I have a litre fuel bottle of meths that just lasts, well, ages. DH also has his gas MSR from his single-student-backpacker days, and that's all we still use for family camping!

Cheers! :) Now just need to decide whether to go for this or a storm kettle as it seems a little pointless to get both...

Beamur, we have a Trangia and it is so SLOW we have given up using it - what am I doing wrong?? The last time we used it I had all my rellies pointing and laughing as it took half an hour to boil a small kettle of water!

We have the gas version- I love it. Can do everything in it with bit of ingenuity.

The storm kettle is absolutely fantastic, I use mine all the time BUT I wouldn't really want to take it backpacking, its a bit bulky.

Haven't used a trangia for years, but I remember it being fine

I have a trangia and frankly it is only useful for boiling a kettle if you don't mind waiting. I don't like not being able to see the flame and it doesn't seem to last long. I used it as our main camping stove one weekend and never again.

I adore my trangia but I have a gas adaptor for it. With meths they are shite but with gas they are seriously speedy.

We have a trangia too and use it as the only cooking stove. Does very well for 3-night trips for family of 4. But you need to plan ahead ...

Curious. We have a meths one and I agree with the comment about not being able to see the flame in daylight is a bit danerous - but I've generally found it to be highly effective at quickly boiling a kettle - quicker than the gas burner. I can only think there's one way to use it so difficult to say why it's not working well.

Beamur - do you mix the meth with a bit of water? And do you know the fine art of how to orientate the thing so it takes advantage of the wind direction? These are the only two things I know you could adjust, but I don't actually know how to adjust them ... Have been dicing with the idea of actually reading the instruction booklet...

I've never added water, I had noticed it behaves slightly differently with wind, but hadn't thought how to use it to advantage! Trangia is very elderly and belonged to PIL and I've never seen any instructions.

I guess the main advantage of a trangia is that they're super lightweight - I used it for hitching/backpacking. Don't remember it taking ages to cook things but possibly my standards were lower and my sense of time less acute back then

If you're car camping (and will have access to fuel) then you can't get better than the storm kettle IMO for tea making. If you want an equivalent for cooking and you are a bit handy, you can make a little woodburning stove like this from paint cans.

ooh, interested if anyone has tips on making their trangia more effective because ours always takes ages to boil a kettle (10+ minutes for 1.5 pints I think). I was looking on youtube and some videos talked about lighting the stove and then waiting for a pop before putting the kettle on, but I have had a chance to try that to see if it made a difference (or if mine even popped).

Have just watch the vid on Trangia website - I always used the simmer ring - maybe that's a mistake!? Hmm. Will boil water without one next time! But it does cook rice to perfection with the simmer ring on. I love the trangia. What a beautiful concept. (Yes, willing to wait a bit longer for tea for love of a concept. )

I have a Lidl trangia style cooker (bought by accident, thought it was just a set of camping pans especially as it was cheap for that). Yes, it is slow but it is compact and stable. I am usually not camping with a car, so no table and my little gas stove always fills me with fear that it will topple over with a kettle on whereas the trangia can be set up and cooking risotto while I erect the tent with the help of 7 year old DS. I would never feel comfortable leaving the gas like that.

I usually use the gas and trangia in combination, ie heating up the beans for breakfast on the gas then switching to the trangia while I fry the eggs or sausages on the gas.

Great for sticking the kettle to boil water for washing up on while you sit back and eat, not in a hurry.

You can also see exactly how much fuel you have left unlike the gas and handy having both options as you can't always find the right sized gas bottles.