Vargo Decagon Titanium Alcohol Stove Review

Overview

The Vargo Decagon is a rugged little Titanium alochol stove that weighs in at a measly 34g. It's a little heavier than the Triad that it replaces and is designed to address the issues with the fact that the triad is quite small and wimpy for extended use.

Indoor Testing

This stove has a nice deep reservoir in the centre of the stove with a hole in the bottom. The reservoir is not actually where all the fuel is stored, instead it's used during pre-heat to start to create vapour in the vapour chamber.

Filling is easy, you just pour fuel into the stove, allow it to settle and then refill if you think there is insufficient.

You light the fuel reservoir (just like most alcohol stoves) and then wait for a minute or two until the side-jets ignite.

It takes about 10 minutes in total to reach a rolling boil. About half the time I find that the stove just stops working - it loses heat and so the alcohol is no longer vapourised.

Outdoor Testing

I've not taken it outdoors. It's proved to be too unreliable for me indoors.

Early Conclusions

This stove is not I think very good as a stove and it's even worse as a frisbee.

In perfect conditions I've not managed to get it to boil consistently and about half the time the stove just stops.

The heat output from it is not wonderful and even in perfect conditions it does struggle to boil the water.

Before I assigned this stove to the art museum I checked on one of the main US backpacking sites to see how others had faired. Ther problems were the same as mine.

The conclusion is that this stove should be treated as a work of art - beautiful but of limited use.

I badly wanted this stove to work but it doesn't seem to...