The crusader mug I have had for some time and has been a constant companion when I am gaming or camping. I personally believe it to a must have item in any kit and despite its appearance you can fit a ration pack meal in it.
After seeing the cooker unit and realising it is designed to fit in your water bottle pouch along with your crusader mug, water bottle and pat 58 plastic mug, I decided to try one
Previously to this I have been using either a butane cooker (if I had the space) or a hexamine stove with the crusader mug adapter. Both of these required a separate pouch to be stored in and for short game's at a commercial sites I could not be bothered. At Spartan depending on the days scenario’s and how much kit we needed to carry depended on which I chose at the time.
So next thing I needed to decide on was which fuel to use. I bought the green heat gel fuel when I bought the cooker unit. The blurb said it is environmentally friendly and does no blacken your pots so I thought I would put it to the test.
Strait away I thought “I don’t like this”, it comes in a packet that I have to keep hold of for the rest of the day dripping with left over flammable gel snot stuff! and I started to think ill be using the hexy blocks instead. So I tore open the packet and squeezed the green snot out of the packet into the little receptacle in the bottom of the cooker. Of course you can not get it all out of the packet so my fears of a flammable waste product came true. I had decided to try and light the gel with a match, as I knew hexy blocks are difficult to light with matches. I put the first match to the gel but it did not seem to want to light. So I lit another match and this time I decided to put the match at the centre of the blob. To my astonishment I burnt my finger. The first match had lit the gel but with no easily visible flame! I had already filled the crusader mug to the 2nd increment up so I placed it on the cooker. It took about 10 min’s for the water to boil, the gel finished burning after about 12 min’s. It had left a hard bright green residue on the inside on the inside of the receptacle which I picked out with ease after it had cooled.
The bottom of the mug was still clean
Ok now I decided to do the same but with the trusted hexy block I thought “they don’t leave a nasty mess in the cooker and I don’t need to carry any nasty waste afterwards and I was sure it would cook quicker”, “good old hexy” I thought…. How wrong I was. A full hexy will not fit in the receptacle so I had to snap it in 2 and place the 2 half’s on their side next to each other. These did not light easily with a match as I already knew but I did no burn my finger either. After about 15 min’s the water was boiling (slightly slower than the green goo) after about 22 min’s the hexy stopped burning. (allot longer than the goo) to my dismay the blocks had left even more residue in the receptacle than the green heat fuel and was a lot harder to remove (now I know why there are so many holes in the bottom of a hexy stove).
The bottom of my mug was filthy.
After later reading the full instructions on the green heat fuel packet I realised that you are meant to burn the packet as well. I was dubious about doing this as the packet appeared to be made of plastic but I tried it anyway it worked just as well and gave off a flame you could see. No extra residue was left. God I need to learn how to read instructions FIRST!
So in conclusion you can carry all your cooking gear in 1 water bottle pouch, be eco friendly and have cleaner mug at the end of it.
