MYOG - A Smaller, Lighter Cook System

My MSR Titan Tea Kettle has an 850 ml. capacity, and I never used more than a half that during my, uh, shakedown hike this spring. So I boiled water in my old 600 ml Snow Peak cup over my backpacking stove to see if the flame pattern was ok. It was.  I have one of Tinny's aluminum lids for the cup, and together it weighs about an ounce less than the MSR. Takes up less room in my pack too.  Now I needed a cozy/pouch.

I had built one for my MSR Titan Tea Kettle. It's a simple, insulated pouch with a drawstring top, that serves as both a cozy and as a bag to carry the pot with stove, lighter and misc cooking stuff inside.  It's made of a light ripstop cotton duck, and insulated on the side and bottom with Insul-Bright, a hollow polyester fiber with a metallized film backing. 

It's over-built, and I figured I could get away with a lighter material. I still wanted cotton, cause I didn't want it to melt from a hot pan.  I broke out some scraps from a Ski Patrol project, the leftover Insul-Bright, and Mary's sewing machine.

In my MSR system, the stove canister dosen't fit in the pot with the stove, so it was always loose in the pack. As it turns out, a 4 oz canister nests perfectly with my cup and lid.  So I designed this one to be tall enough to enclose the whole stack.  I put a double layer of fabric just around the side of the pot and the bottom, and sandwiched insulation between the layers. I added a couple of hook and eye fasteners to help keep it closed.

The old cozy weighs 2 ozs, and this one came in at one. I put the stove, lighter, and a small flint in the cup, put the cover on, packaged it up with a partially used fuel cartridge, and it came in just under 11 ozs.