like it or not the Germans invented these fantastic tablets that
can be burned to heat up our meals in the outdoors.
Esbit is solid fuel in form
of a fuel tablet and its main ingrdient is something called hexamine. We
don´t know for sure if hexamine is extracted from dead fish or if it´s
something else but it sure smells like this.
My confrontation with Esbit looked different though.
It was pretty common for boy my age to get a steam engine and let it´s
do its work by heating it up with Esbit.
Another way Esbit found its way into the hearts of the Germans was
Y-Travel. Y is the first letter on every vehicle the German army owns
so you might guess what kind of a travel agency Y-Travel might be ;-)
The classic way to heat up an MRE was and still is by Esbit
Esbit tablets are well accepted amongst hikers because of their
light weight, easy almost foolproof reliable use and pretty
straight forward measurement. Just take a tablet for half a
liter and you are good.
These days I stumbled upon Esbit´s website and was suprised. It looked
pretty modern and the company added a lot of new products. Foldable
stoves (old and new styles), reasonably light pots and even pots
with integrated heat exchangers. Wow!
Funny enough most German hikers opt against lighweight stove
solutions and go for multi-fuel burners that burn whitegas,
kerosene and gas canisters.
Will we go back to our roots and start to go light?
Kind regards
Yours Sauerkraut
