Originally Posted by
Lasse
That's why every Trangia burner includes a simmer ring that can be regulated manually to alter the opening of the burner (the part on the right in this picture:
http://zenstoves.net/TopBurner/Trangia2.jpg ).
I find the simmer ring less practical than just turning the valve on a gas stove, but it's no problem to operate and it's really simple and durable. Not much to go wrong. When making pasta I usually operate the Trangia without simmer ring (burning gasified alcohol, at full power) until the water boils after which I put the simmer ring in place at a setting I want (easy job with the included pot holder, no need to turn off the fire) and throw in whatever is to be cooked.
Both gas and alcohol stoves have their advantages and are perfectly capable to be used cooking a proper meal. It's really situation dependent and subjective to say which type is better overall, not to mention huge differences between different gas and alcohol stoves...
As to the speed to get to full heat which is slower with an alcohol stove because it's a moderate flame until the burner is heated to the point at which the alcohol starts to gasify enough for the jet flame to start: most people I know don't mind sitting around, cooking in the evening for 1 or 2 minutes longer when they're camping... In which situation would you care? We're not even talking about 5 minutes longer. Even when cooking next to a friend who is cooking with his gas burner, I never even noticed the speed difference.
And in case you like the stability and windscreen and pots and pan and pot gripper of the Trangia that all fit into each other but would like to use an other fuel, e.g. when cycling around the world, you can just buy their gas or multifuel kits and use those instead of the alcohol burner: multifuel:
http://youtu.be/39RfXfuVj2g or gas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay3MpRKUgdA
First, you are using the wrong term. The fuel is volatilized, not gasified. White gas, alcohol, gasoline and other liquid fuels all evaporate to take a gas
like form. The material isn't a real 'gas' in that it could be recovered to the liquid state by simply cooling the vapors. Without heat, the material would remain as a liquid.
Butane, on the other hand, does form a gas that can't be simply condensed to liquid without going through a much more involved process. If you puncture the container, the liquid butane would escape and form into what we chemists call a 'permanent' gas. Methane (natural gas), oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, butane, carbon monoxide, etc. are all permanent gases. They can be made into liquids but not easily and not usually by cooling the gas. I don't know anyone in my field of study that would use the term 'gasify' to describe even turning a condensed liquid 'gas' into a permanent gas. Gasification usually implies something very different like converting a solid material like biomass into permanent gases like carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
Now on to the stove. The Trangia site doesn't make clear that the stove has a simmer ring nor how to use it. Your link clears up a misconception on my part. That said, the simmer ring looks like a crude method. And having to lift the pot contents off to set the simmer ring on seems very cumbersome. Not something that seems easy to do on the fly nor offers much in the way of fine control. Even the worst stove for control I've used...the MSR Whisperlite... is easier to regulate than dropping a ring of metal onto the fire and bumping a metal flap open and closed as needed.