Wednesday 7 November 2012

When a MytiMug ain't no Mug

I got out in the Peak District at the weekend, on the hills overlooking Langsett Reservoir. It was a day for testing a few new items. The first was my new, lighter camera. Its a Fujifilm Finepix S2980, a baby version of my S9500. I wont be reviewing it here, but it did a pretty good job of taking the photos for this review. Plus it's a lot lighter and more compact than the S9500. So all plus points so far, more to come later.


A Panorama shot with the new camera.

In this post I'll be taking a little look at the MytiMug, a 750ml capacity titanium mug from Alpkit.
 
Anyone that has ever seen a Blackbird SR-71 will know what an awesome plane it was. It's airframe was constructed using Titanium. Titanium, has special properties, it is very light, but most importantly, it is highly heat proof. As a cooking pot, this can have both negative and positive side effects. Besides the lightness of the pot, Titanium's resistance to heat makes the pot easy to handle shortly after heating. Unfortunately, this resilience to heat can make heating anything inside a little more of a challenge than something like an aluminium pot.


The MytiMug with the dodgy handle sticking up.

For the last 18 months I've been using a cheap kettle from a well known retailer when I go camping. Up to now it has performed perfectly, with a kettle of water boiling in around 4 minutes tops. But now it's winter and camping is partially on hold, I wanted to look at the options of being able to have a hot meal while out walking. A few months ago I went along to Alpkit's Yard Sale, and while there purchased one of their MytiMugs. It's been sitting in my cupboard patiently waiting for this time of year. So this weekend I took it, and a small gas stove, out on a walk.

The stove was a Coleman F1 Lite, along with a Coleman micro 100 gas canister. Wrapped up in a small cloth, both the canister and the stove fit snugly inside the mug. With a titanium stove the weight would be lower. But all this combined adds up to around 322g plus the small cloth. I also took 500ml of water in a pop bottle and a dehydrated meal, Fuizion's Savoury Minced Beef with Potatoes and Vegetables......yum! The MytiMug itself comes in a small mesh bag that holds it all together and stops the pots outer from getting scratched.






I found a nice picturesque location, somewhere to prepare my meal and relax for a little while before continuing on my way. The stove was set up, water poured into the mug, and the stove was fired up. I tend not to go full blast with a stove and it took around four minutes to boil up 500ml of water. I will look at doing a head to head test in the future to fully compare an aluminium pot and a titanium pot to see what the real difference is. The great thing about a titanium pot is the handle doesn't get too hot to hold and the body of the pot cools down quickly after boiling.

The water was boiled, the meal prepared and enjoyed. I plan to do this more often during the winter months. A hot meal on a cold day out in beautiful countryside is very enjoyable. A dehydrated meal suddenly tastes incredible. The only down side to the MytiMug is that handle on the lid, a small wire triangle shaped affair that wont fold flat to the lid. It sticks up slightly and it worries me that it may snap off sufficient weight presses down from above. I can see a reason for the handle to stick up a little if it is by design. But it still makes me uneasy about it possibly breaking.





So other than what may be a slightly longer boiling time and the lid handle, the MytiMug is a great little piece of kit.

Specification

• Mesh storage bag
• Weight: 110gr
• Material: Titanium
• Thickness: 0.7mm
• Max Capacity: 750ml
• Height: 110mm
• Internal Diameter: 95mm
• Lid included

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