Comparing two homemade alcohol stove designs: Unican (left) versus Supercat (right)

To save weight for my End of July Pacific Crest Trail attempt, I am going to take a homemade alcohol stove instead of a heavier and expensive commercial unit.  The ‘best’ two models I found were the Supercat, which is made from a cat food can, and the Unican, which is made from a single soda or beer can. On a side note, Heineken is not my favorite beer, I just had a lot of those cans handy from previous alcohol stove experimentation.  Also, please be aware that playing with fire and flammable liquids is dangerous, so don’t go blaming me if you burn your patio down or set yourself on fire.

Read on to see who wins the Supercat versus Unican challenge:

Oh, before we get carried away with this challenge and the rules, regulations and fairness, let me just say that I made the rules up as I went along while seeing which one would be a better fit to come on my backpacking trip.  I built both stoves for fun.  So, now that my disclaimer is out of the way, let’s fill ‘em up with some Denatured Alcohol and fire ‘em up!

The Homemade Supercat and Unican Alcohol Stoves getting their Flame On

Here are the two Alcohol Stoves in full flame, side by side.  I’m using a small Heineken can-pot for both of them.  The Supercat pressurizes and sends the flames out to the sides of the can, and doesn’t do a very efficient job of heating the water.  The Unican, however, takes an extra 30 seconds to pressurize, but once it does, it gets the water boiling in half the time as the Supercat.

Supercat Alcohol Stove heating up a pot of Water

The Supercat did a better job with an actual larger pot, where the flames would still hit the bottom of the pot.  This won’t work, because I’m not bringing a larger pot than the 24oz Keg Pot.

Unican Alcohol Stove with 24oz Keg Pot

The Unican alcohol stove won the day by doing the best job heating up my 24oz Heineken Keg Pot in about half the time that it took for the same test with the Supercat.

Since my Unican stove was golden, on account of it being made from a Miller Genuine Draft can, I have dubbed it c3po, after everyone’s second-favorite droid in Star Wars.

In case you’re interested, here are some of the links that I used:

• The Supercat Alcohol Stove
• ZenStoves – More Alcohol Stoves and Pots
• The Ultralight UniCan Alcohol Stove part of the Troop 73 Alcohol Stove Project
• Low cost backpacking cook kit

This tent is not really a backpacking tent. It is better suited to be packed, by car, to a campground, where it is set up at the base camp for an expedition from the campground to the day trip of your choice. It does pack up into a breadbox-sized space, which makes it easily portable among your other campsite equipment.

Wenger Dome Tent at Newberry

My favorite feature of the tent is the fast set-up time.  It takes less than 10 minutes to go from packed to pitched.  There are four thin hollow fiberglass poles that link together in metal slots using an elastic string that holds the poles together, eliminating missing links.  Next these four long poles slide through color-coded slots and match up with color-coded clips.    The rainfly also has two poles that clip to the front and back, with clips to the four corners.

The Wenger Dome tent also has optional windows on the two sides, which gives it a cabin tent feel.  One of my tent’s shortcomings is that the poles you pop in to the window slots are so tight, that you risk breaking the poles during normal setup.  Over the course of ownership, I’ve broken two poles.  I’m happy to report that Wenger has made it right both times and sent me new poles free of charge.  Most recently, we dealt with a broken window pole in the field using duct tape. The duct taped section of pole is not as rigid as the others, so that specific window pole goes in more easily than the unblemished one.  These two windows, plus the front and back doors of the tent, and lastly, the open roof, allows for very good ventilation, keeping the tent cool.

The open roof, even with the rainfly, while an asset in hotter weather, is a liability in the colder weather.  During our trip to Lost Lake in the Hood wilderness, we got rained on, snowed on, and blown on by frigid winds down from Mt. Hood.  The Wenger Dome Tent barely kept the wind, rain and snow out, forcing us to rely on our sleeping bags for warmth.

Wenger Dome Tent at Crater Lake

While it takes a lot to do so, the fiberglass poles splinter.  These really fine splinters are very difficult to pull out of fingers, resulting in annoying attempts to fine and extract them, which eats up perfectly good day-trip time.  The newer tents seem to have better poles that are a little more durable and less prone to splintering.  The tent designs are also better, eliminating the unnatural bending to get the windows set up.

Another handy feature of the tent are the “shoe slots” in the front of the tent.  These are compartments you can put your shoes through, or passages you can pass items into the tent without opening the main doors to let in mosquitoes.

My Swiss Army Tent has seen action on many trips, from the mountains and forests of New England, to the Oregon Cascades and Coast.  Dan and Brian should remember this tent from Mt. Monadnock and Black Rock.  More recently, over the past two seasons, the Wenger Dome Tent has seen action with me and Paula at Crater Lake, the Newberry Volcanic Monument, Lake Simtustus, Nehalem Bay, Silver Falls, Lost Lake and Paula’s parents’ back yard!

Wenger Tents like mine can be purchased at these online retailers below:

So far, it has been put to use smoking beef jerky, trout, steelhead and salmon, nearly all of it has been excellent.  I’ve even skipped the smoking chips and have used it as an outdoor dehydrator to make all-natural banana chips.  However, the smoked meat has been, by far, the most delicious outcome.  Let me just come out and say that this smoker is AWESOME!  It’s virtually foolproof!  You can make up a nice brine, toss in your meat and let it go unattended and you’ll still get something good–obviously, the more attention you pay to it, the better quality you get, but it takes all the work of a Traeger or a traditional wood or pellet smoker, and packages into a useful and handy unit for people who want quality, in less time.

One of the gripes that I have about the Little Chief is that on the racks that come with it, there is a little too much space between the rungs, which means you have to have long enough strips of meat to reach all the way across multiple rungs to keep it from falling down.  For banana chips, I had to go out and buy some plastic grids to put on top of the metal rungs.  These worked properly and my banana chips came out well.  I’ve also been able to use this same setup for smoked fish.  The other gripe that I have is that if it is cold out, or windy, it is hard to keep the smoker warm enough to do its job.  I’ve been experimenting with a briquet of charcoal and hardier wood in the smoking chip pan to keep the heat smoldering.  There are lots of sites on the Internet with contraptions and smoker wraps to keep the smoker warm in the winter.  I’ll post a few links when I get some time to find them.

Little Chief Smoker

Here are some specs on the Little Chief Smoker from the Cabela’s Product Detail Page:

• Create tantalizing meats that will make your mouth water with this Little Chief Electric Smoker. This front-loading unit includes a recipe book, instructions for use and hickory chips for up to six loads. It uses 110-volt household current and holds up to 20 pounds of meat.
• Dimensions : 11-1/2″ x 12-1/2″ x 24-1/2″.
• Weight: 16 lbs.

The Smokehouse Little Chief Electric Smoker is only $119 at Cabela’s.  Bass Pro Shops has the Masterbuilt Electric Smokehouse Smoker which is supposed to be pretty good, although it is $229.  This is current pricing as of 1/5/2010.

A few things that I have done with the smoker recently is trying organic meat versus regular meat, which has not produced significantly noticeable results.  I’ll post some more if we get anything good.  The other interesting variation that I’ve done is use dried clippings of branches from my fruit trees and using those in the smoker.  Those add a very nice, light and fruitful taste to the smoked meat, especially when mixed with some alder chips.  The fruit trees are all organic, so the smoke in the meat is certainly chemical-free.  Please post a comment below if you’re interested in buying some of my organic fruit tree chips.

Here are a few pieces of advice for anyone wanting to buy a smoker:

• Teriyaki is an extremely complicated flavor.  Whatever you do, do not try to make smoked teriyaki flavored anything until you’ve smoked at least 10 different things.
• Mesquite Smoking Chips are really good with beef, but are a little overpowering for fish.
• Allow at least 8 hours for your smoker to smoke the meat–less in the summer, more in the winter.
• Modern refrigeration is easily accessible, so you don’t need to make shoe-leather jerky.
• It’s always good to lightly rinse off the super-salty brine from the outside of the fish.
• A lot of people have asked, so I wanted to point out that the Little Chief, and Big Chief, for that matter, are made for smoking small amounts of fish or jerky, and for adding smoke flavor to meats to be finished off in the oven. The Chief smokers have a permanently set thermostat that maintains a temperature of about 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which isn’t hot enough for most types of smoking, and is too hot for real cold smoking.

Here’s one of my more recent smoking attempt on the Little Chief Smoker, smoked tuna!  These went REALLY well with medium to dark beer while watching football.

Smoked Tuna

OK, try THIS on for size:  Alder-Smoked Albacore Tuna, attempt number 2!

Alder Smoked Albacore Tuna

Here are some other links to some of the fish that have been on my smoker:

• Clackamas River Winter Steelhead
• Nehalem Bay Coho Salmon
• Estacada Lake Rainbow Trout
• Lake Simtustus Rainbow Trout
• Albacore Tuna from the Oregon Coast

Here are some places to buy a Smokehouse Little Chief Electric Smoker:

Carrying water is a pain in the butt.  I wanted to find a water solution that used carabiners, so I could simply clip the water to my belt or day backpack and have my hands free to use the camera, climb or read a map–just not carry the water.  Our first stop was at Sportsman’s Warehouse, where we found the Camelbak Better Bottle. We also ended up at REI where we also found these bottles, but we had already purchased them.  We did end up purchasing some smaller carabiner-based water bottle holders, so you could take a store-bought bottle and clip them onto a rubber loop, so we decided to test those alongside the Camelbak Better Bottle.

It has a nice nose with a hole to put a large carabiner through.  It also has a long straw that hits the bottom of the bottle for drinking.  The bottle’s mouth is very wide, allowing me to first fill the bottle with ice and then fill the remaining space with water, allowing me to keep the water cold longer.  The bottle’s plastic is apparently BPA free, which is also good.  The Camelbak Better Bottle is also really sturdy and durable, as it did not break despite being dropped on the Big Obsidian Flow, and banged around on Smith Rock.

The Camelbak’s competitor, the lame carabiner water bottle clip with generic store-bought water, failed to meet my expectations, breaking almost immediately on Crater Lake.  I’m glad “do not use for climbing” was etched on, because it barely clipped on to my belt for 10 minutes before the movable metal piece snapped.  Fortunately, I was able to dump the generic store-bought water into the Camelbak bottle and proceed with my hike.

The Camelbak Better Bottle is available from the online retailers below:

She bought th ExO Dri shirt because I was looking for a shirt that I could wear on a trip to work on a hardware and software implementation at the Motosport Distribution Center in Southaven, Mississippi.  During previous implementations in the middle of the summer, with the 100+ Mississippi heat and 90+% humidity, I found myself drenched in sweat, so I asked Paula to find me a shirt that I could comfortably wear in the middle of the desert to fight off the heat but also had wicking action to combat the humidity.

On my most recent trip, I put the Exofficio ExO Dri to the test.  The heat was in the upper  90’s outside, with high humidity, but the ExO Dri let the breeze through and let the moisture evaporate easily, keeping me relatively comfortable.  Inside the distribution center, however, there was increased humidity and heat.  Working atop the scissor lift, I got extremely hot and sweaty despite the shirt, but, to my surprise, upon returning to the ground level and outside, the shirt dried out very quickly, making me very comfortable.

However, you are probably not reading this to find out whether or not it works in a Distribution Center environment.    Well, you’re in luck!  The Exofficio ExO Dri shirt went on my latest trip out to Eastern Oregon and took to the trails at East Lake and the Lava Cast Forest.  The temperature was warm, but was not extremely humid.  The ExO Dri kept me cool and dry as advertised.  The shirt is also extremely lightweight yet durable.  Unlike other shirts with wicking action, the ExO Dri does not have any mesh, making it very comforatable to wear even on days where the temperature is under control.

ExOfficio states on their website: “The ExO Dri Short-Sleeve Tee will keep you comfortable and odor-free in any environment. Gear up with this innovative Dri-Release fabric that dries quickly, resists odors, protects from the sun’s harmful rays and pairs perfectly with every active adventure. ExOfficio clothing field-tested and approved by the African Wildlife Foundation.”

The ExO Dri’s fabric does dry quickly and odor resistant, but it only keeps you as odor free as your deodorant or anti-perspirant does.  As a result, one should not rely on the ExO Dri alone to keep you odor-free.

One other item that I’d like to point out for all the male readers out there.  Paula reports that this shirt really makes me look skinny and look good.  If you’re like me, and need all the help you can get, how can you pass up the ExO Dri.  It’s a stylish, yet comfortable way to keep cool.

The Exofficio ExO Dri Short Sleeve Tee Shirt is available from the retailers below:

100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades by William Sullivan is a great book that outlines some of the better hikes in a given area.  This book covers the area between Salem to Highway 97 all the way south to Eugene and Diamond Peak.  Some of the key areas areas are hikes in the Santiam Foothills, Mount Jefferson, the Bend Area, The Three Sisters, the McKenzie Foothills and Willamette Pass.

One of my favorite aspects of Sullivan’s books is the fact that he lists the distance of each hike in terms of round-trip, or a loop.  This makes it very convenient for weekend warriors to just get out there and hike, as you don’t need to coordinate two cars or a pickup at the end of a trail.  Trails that do require a second pickup are clearly noted.

Another element that I enjoy is the additional options sections on many hikes.  There can be side trails off main trails that can make an otherwise short hike longer or more scenic.  Paula and I have been known to hike some of the longer, easy trails and then get to a point where we can extend it onto a moderate section, using the hiking options section.  It is a convenient size to stuff into my day pack and reference while on the trail.

For each of the hikes, Sullivan rates the hikes as Easy, Moderate and Difficult, depending on different criteria:

• Easy Hikes are generally between 2 and 7 miles round trip and gain less than 1000 feet in elevation.  They are generally not extremely steep or remote and are good hikes for novices.  These hikes are also very good day trip, or half-day trips, as the weekend warrior can just put on their boots and go without planning well in advance.  These hikes are generally extremely well marked.
• Moderate Hikes are generally between 4 and 10 miles round-trip.  Some of the longer hikes are flatter, but the shorter trails are steeper, about 2000 feet of elevation increase.  Sometimes, you even need to search for trailheads and turnoffs, so you want to be aware.  Lastly, Sullivan recommends hikers be in generally good physical condition to do these hikes.
• Difficult Hikes are 8 to 15 miles round trip and can vary 3000 or more feet.  These are pretty demanding hikes.

Each hike also lists the elevation gains on the hikes, the time of year the trail is open (some Oregon hikes are closed for the winter) and the Map that the trail can be found in.  In addition, details about whether the hike is suitable for children, mountain bikes and horses are also disclosed

For the Top 100 Hikes, Sullivan also includes a hand-drawn map of the area and the hike, with key points and landmarks on the hike outlined.  While they are informal, they are very accurate, and Paula and I have done many hikes following Sullivan’s books and lived to tell about it.

Finally, at the very end of the book, there is a section for some handicapped-accessible hikes in the area, as well as 100 MORE hikes in the area.  These hikes have short descriptions on where they are located, the difficulty rating and other important details, but no hand-drawn maps.

Paula and I actually met William Sullivan at the Oregon State Fair in 2007, and have two autographed books by him.

Some of the hikes from this book that Paula and I have done are:

• Silver Creek Falls
• Opal Creek
• Iron Mountain
• Cascadia Park
• Metolius River
• Bend Lava Caves
• Lava Cast Forest and Cave
• Paulina Creek Falls
• Obsidian Flow and the Dome
• Smith Rock
• Sahalie and Koosah Falls
• Mount Pisgah
• Salt Creek Falls

If you have read or used this book, please feel free to write some commentary below.

100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades by William Sullivan can be purchased at the retailers listed below.