Re: Truncated cone basket grates and "boil offs"

["Crispin" <crispin@newdawn.sz>]

Dear Paul

We must have a 'boil off'!  Sounds like you got something pretty good there.
I am glad to have our unit alongside for comparison.  How is it faring?

I read Kevin's pretty good list of rules and only want to change the can
diameter.  It is too tall for its diameter to represent a real application.
In fact, my 'hot spot' under the pot will be bigger in diameter than the can
which guarantees terrible heat losses.  I favour the 9 inch diameter pot and
then any suitable amount of water in it.  1 litre isn't much but still OK
with me.

A 9 inch aluminum pot weighs about 620 grams without handles and has very
little heat stored in it even when it's boiling water.  It is a pretty good
'standard' because it doesn't interfere with the boiling very much..  I
think most countries can get one at any store.

I do favour putting the pot onto a running stove because if a test involves
the lighting up period, the fuel will play far too great a part in the test.
For example, I would make the stove out of very thin stainless steel to
minimize the initial warming of the grate and secondary air tube.  It would
be crafted to win the competition, not to cook well or efficiently.  If I
could build my own stove and pot combination, I am pretty sure I could boil
a litre of water in 2 minutes with only 50 gm of wood fuel.  It would be a
bit pointless.  I could certainly get most of the way to the boil with only
the 1 stick allowed for fine splitting into kindling.  I would shred it and
leave out the other wood so as not to have to heat it.

A similarly styed Bar-B-Q lighting competition got going with the staff from
one of the universities (Illinois State?) some years back.  Match to a
glowing bed was the test.

They started to get out of hand about 5 or 6 years ago.  Last year's winner
(meaning 2000) I think used compressed acetylene or hydrogen and liquid
oxygen to start up the fire and it took only about 0.5 seconds, and that's
official.  Everyone had to stay back about 500 yards while it was lighting
up.  There are pics on the net showing the conflagration if you know where
to look.  It is rather like holding a Saturn V launcher over a Bar-B-Q.
They have a stash of entries each year at their annual 'picnic'.

I am pretty sure we don't want to get to that stage.

Can we bone-dry the fuelwood and store it in a pressurized tank of hydrogen?
Jes' askin'.

Soon there'll be more rules than NASCAR which started with a 'run what you
brung' attitude.

"Ahh-h-h the good ol' days...when people just brought in their stoves and
lit them up for make coffee!  That was before they went 'professional' and
brought on ringers from overseas with titanium parabolic heat reflectors and
'trick' high density silicon-aluminum ultra thin pots and 30 foot
chimneys..."

I may try one just for fun!

Regards
Crispin


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