March 4, 2019

Backpacking Stoves

Think of your stoves and pots and fuel as an integrated cooking system. As with so many things, you may end up wanting more than one for different trips or moods. For me, making coffee is a priority. And in general, all I want to do is to boil water, mix and eat - no actual cooking. If you plan to fry eggs, cook trout, or do anything involving the word "simmer" you are in the wrong place.

Take a look at this great site which describes how a backpacking stove works (and a lot more!).

After much fiddling with various stove alternatives, I am back to using my Jetboil on a regular basis. No, it is not the ultimate ultralight option, but it sure is convenient. For a longer trip, it may pay off due to fuel economy. The issue of "canister quantization" is an issue though -- you cannot take 1.6 canisters.

The Jetboil Stove

Before I get started, I should mention that MSR has a stove you ought to consider. It is amazingly like a Jetboil, but has a giant burner and does better in the wind. It also cleverly provides a multitude of holes to latch the vessel onto the burner (unlike the Jetboil where you have 3 choices and always have to fiddle). But if you already have a Jetboil (like me) it isn't worth $150 to upgrade. For that matter, a new Jetboil "zip" is only $80, so the MSR costs almost twice as much -- I don't think so.

I have a Jetboil (now ancient), and like it quite well. (My cost was $65.00) It is not what one would call ultralight, and the whole business of canisters does rub something in me the wrong way. The piezo lighter stopped working the week after I bought it, so I always pack along a lighter. Or two. I replaced the piezo igniter (which is not all that hard to do). It worked for a few days then failed during my next big trip. I should just remove it and save 15 grams. I am not even sure that current models include a piezo igniter, but let's not talk any more about this wretched topic.

The stove and pot rig weighs 14 ounces (excluding fuel) on my scale Some descriptions claim 12 ounces, maybe there are older models that saved 2 ounces somehow? Or maybe they are just liars.
One 100 gram fuel canister boils 12 liters of water The two canisters I have weigh about 6.7 ounces (each)
My stove along with the coffee press and one fuel canister weighs 22 ounces (1 pound, 6 ounces).

Invented and made in New Hampshire (better than Gary, Indiana, eh?). Like any canister stove it is balky at temperatures near or below freezing and at elevations at or above 12,000 feet, making it somwhat of a fair weather stove.

The competition is the MSR pocket rocket and the Snow Peak GigaPower. Neither of these has the integrated cook pot with heat exchanger. A quick abstract from the "howzone" article below shows the boil times for a liter of water to be 5:45, 5:45 and 5:68 minutes for the jet, rocket, and peak respectively. The kicker is the fuel consumption (in ounces), namely 0.294, 0.489, 0.494. The Jetboil uses about 40 percent less fuel to achieve the same result. This is from a 4 ounce fuel canister, so this verifies the claim that you can boil 12 liters of water with 4 ounces of fuel (about 113 grams).

Compatible with any standard threaded canister.

Jetboil Canisters

How many do you need to carry, and how big? I just got back from an overnight trip, where I cooked dinner with several batches of tea and breakfast (including several batches of coffee) for two people. I burned 1.6 ounces of fuel. This is and was extravagant use, but puts a sort of upper bound on potential fuel use. On another overnight (just me) cooking dinner and breakfast, I burned 1.0 ounces of fuel. This was something like 4 or 5 full boils: dinner meal + raman + tea + oatmeal and coffee

You can buy a small (4 ounce) or a large (8 ounce) canister. The 4 ounce can fits neatly into the jetboil kit (into my jetboil anyhow). The rub is the cost. You pay $4.99 for the cute little 4 ounce can and $5.99 for the 8 ounce can. That's right! An extra dollar gets you twice as much fuel -- so a cheapskate like me now always buys the 8 ounce cans. I usually buy the MSR brand, they are either the same price or cheaper, and they mark the gross weight on the can, which just earns them my business. For some reason the price on the monster 16 ounce can jumps to $9.99 so just forget that thing.

I have one of the ridiculous immense 16 ounce canisters. Someone (the Boyd) gave it to me, and I have yet to use it -- but it would save a couple of ounces over a pair of 8 ounce cans. Just the thing for the 2 week trip I will never do.

With an 8 ounce canister I am carrying an extra 4 ounces of fuel, along with an extra 1.6 ounces of metal. Having extra fuel seems like a good idea, but the true ultralight maniac cringes at the thought.

The smart reader will have already realized that you can weigh your canisters and figure out how much fuel is in partly used canisters. I weigh mine, and mark the weight on them with a sharpie. I have a box with around a dozen full and half used cans that I rummage around in before each trip. I shove an extra pair of socks, or something inside with the stove so it doesn't rattle around and get damaged and carry the (possibly partly full) 8 ounce can alongside. I bought a little AWS-1KG digital scale I use to weigh my canisters.

The Bushbuddy

This is the answer to the ZZ Zip stove (see below) and is a fascinating piece of gear. It is hand made by Fritz Handel in Iskut, British Columbia (this is about 120 miles inland from Juneau, Alaska. Take a look at the Bushbuddy website as well as this interview with Fritz.

There are two models, the "ultra", which is a special lighter model made for BPL, that you can buy for $115 direct from the maker, or pay $143 for it at the BPL site (your choice). The ultra weighs 5.1 ounces. The regular model weighs 6.5 ounces, and costs $95 purchased direct from Fritz online. This is $95 Canadian, and after I placed the order, the Paypal charges to me (February, 2010) were $91.50 given the present exchange rate. I figured that a somewhat sturdier stove, that weighed only 1.5 ounces more (dimensions are identical) and that saved me $20 (or $51 depending where you buy things) was a good choice.

Alcohol stoves

After showing my gear list to some ultralight backpackers, I have been scolded that the Jet Boil is by no means ultralight. I suppose this criticism is accurate, though one has to consider the fuel consumption advantages and the fact that the weight includes the only pot I would carry. What really carries the day though is the french press option.

Alcohol stoves are amazing. You can build one from a couple of soda cans. They will work just fine in sub-freezing temperatures (more than you can say about canister stoves). They are absolutely quiet. They just take a little longer (maybe) to boil water.

There is no end of information online about them, and endless homebrew designs. In fact there seem to be more commercially available stoves than a person can shake a stick at!

Homebrew Alcohol Stoves

If you want stainless steel mesh (handy for stove making), go to K-mart (or wherever) and get lantern globle replacement mesh for $5.00 (enough for two stoves).

Commercial Alcohol Stoves

I ordered a Gram Weenie Pro for $13.00 plus $3.00 shipping. That price fetches a windscreen and a little (6 ounce) fuel bottle with squirt nozzle. Seemed hard to beat. The stove is made from some kind of aluminum bottle with fairly thick walls, and seems decently sturdy. My trials (warm weather) have been entirely satisfactory, but I read some reviews after buying it that indicate that it won't bring really cold water to a boil. For Arizona summer use it is fine. The windscreen weighs more than the stove. The stove is 16 grams, windscreen is 27 grams, together they are 43 grams (1.5 ounces). The fuel bottle full is 4.5 ounces, so along with a lighter and my 1 liter stainless steel pot ($2.50 at a thrift store), the rig is 13.3 ounces, saving me about 10 ounces over my jetboil setup. However it doesn't have a french press option! When and if I someday upgrade to a titanium pot, I will be saving close to a full pound over the jetboil, with perhaps greater benefits on longer trips when more fuel must be carried. 1 ounce of fuel is just about right to boil 0.5 liters of water in about 12 minutes.

Fuel (for alcohol stoves)

Do not use isopropyl (i.e. "rubbing") alcohol, it does not burn cleanly and is usually mixed with water. You want some form of ethanol and or methanol, either denatured alcohol or 200 proof booze (taxes make booze outrageously expensive). Yellow bottle "HEET" is almost pure methanol, deadly poisonous, and wonderfully clean burning. Red bottle "HEET" is isopropanol, and does not burn cleanly (i.e. sucks big-time). SLX "Kleenstrip" comes highly recommended. I simply went to Ace hardware and bought a gallon can (128 ounces) of their "denatured alcohol". Both the SLX and Ace brands are supplied by W. M. Barr according to the MSDS sheet. The label led me to believe the Ace stuff was pure methanol, but a look at the MSDS sheet shows that it is more or less a 50/50 mix of ethanol and methanol. The same is also true of the SLX brand, so unless the formulation of one or the other is changed (which is always possible, and perhaps almost likely) you can use either "with confidence". My use of the Ace stuff has been entirely satisfactory, it burns hot and clean. Both contain about 2.5 percent of methyl isobutyl ketone (apparently as required by the ATF), not that you would be likely to know or care when using it as a stove fuel. I suppose this makes it even more impossible to abuse it in some way. Tests (not mine) indicate that ethanol produces a bit more heat than methanol, but price and availability usually carry the day. Any water in the mix is just excess weight to carry.

You don't want any water in your fuel (apart from some hazards while burning, you are carrying dead weight). Note that alcohol can be carried in almost any container (unlike white gas).

The Caldera Cone

This is an integrated cook system: an alcohol stove, a pot, and a cone shaped support that holds the pot and serves as a windscreen. Sounds pretty slick and people like them. The stove has been carefully tuned (well the whole system has) to work inside the cone, the spacing is set right above the stove, and so on. Some call them an alcohol stove version of the jetboil system, which sounds pretty apt.

The "system" is the stove and cone (along with fuel bottle and some other goodies) and costs $35 for the pot about to be mentioned, and weighs 1.7 ounces. The pot that I might choose would be the Evernew Titanium Ultra Light 0.9 liter pot ECA252 (uncoated!) weighing 4.2 ounces.

I can't figure out if AGG and TD are the same outfit or what. The Ti Tri is a caldera cone set up to also burn wood! (or esbit tabs, hence the "tri" for 3 types of fuel). Titanium Goat sells the whole package, pot and all. ( I would probably go for a 0.9 liter setup (12.1 ounces) $125. If you already have a pot (I like the looks of the Evernew 0.9 liter) you can buy a ti tri setup for it from Trail Designs for $80.

Another choice is to save some money and get the Caldera Keg. In this system you are using a recycled beer can in lieu of a titanium pot (which as you might imagine is lighter and cheaper). The whole thing sells for $60 and the stove, cone, and pot weigh 2.7 ounces. Including all the goodies they sell as a kit, it weights 6.3 ounces.

Esbit stoves and tablets

I don't have one of these (yet), and am not sure what niche they fill that isn't filled by an ultralight alcohol stove. My suspicion is the solid nature of the fuel (no bottle, no spills) and that these are ideal for a short (overnight) trip. The downside is that they make bad smells when burning and deposit sticky gunk on your pots. I cannot see a reason to use them instead of an alcohol stove.

Esbit tablets are little white bricks of some substance that can be ignited with a match. A tablet weighs 0.5 ounce, and costs about 50 cents. One tablet will burn for 12-15 minutes, and it is claimed can boil a pint of water in 8 minutes.

The Zip Stove

The amazing thing about the Sierra ZZ Zip Ztove is that it burns wood! This implies of course that as long as you manage to forage around and find wood (or better yet, charcoal left behind from other peoples fires), you will never run out of fuel. Likewise, you won't have to carry a load of fuel either (apart from what you feel inclined to gather up and tote with you for the days cooking. It uses a fan to really get things going, which of course means that you do need to carry batteries. I find it a very appealing concept, but I haven't bought one. The regular version weighs 17 ounces, the titanium version weighs 9.9 ounces.

There is also a "bushbuddy" woodburning stove available at BPL. It is designed to work with the Firelite SUL-1100 pot (1.15 liters, 3.03 ounces). The bushbuddy weighs 5.1 ounces and fits inside of the pot. The stove costs about $140 and the pot costs $70. There is also a Caldera cone available for this pot for $35.00.

Another option is to make your own Bushwacker stove using the plans at Trail Gear.

Articles

The following links are to articles on the BPL website (which you may not be able to access, unless you have paid for a subscription, sorry). But they are very good comparisons of the weights of various stove and fuel systems, with analysis of fuel consumption, weight of botles and canisters, in other words the whole game, including data that can guide you regarding the quantity and weight of fuel to carry if you know how much water you need to boil. These articles make fascinating reading, but here are some of the bottom line conclusions. The alcohol stove is the all around ultralight winner in essentially all summer hiking scenarios. The tab stoves are similar in weight, but loose on the basis of expense and stinky/messy aspects. The integrated canister stove wins on the basis of convenience, and comes close to matching the initial carry weight of an alcohol stove on long trips. A bad choice for short trips unless convenience and speed are the main concerns. Gasoline stoves are only justified for winter camping when you have to burn lots of fuel to melt snow.

Pots and such

Titanium Cookpots are all the rage. And outrageously expensive too! If you don't mind the weight and are short on cash, you cannot go wrong with stainless steel. Comparing two more or less identical MSR kits with 1.5 and 2.0 liter pots, the stainless version weighed 26 ounces, and the aluminum version weighed 18 ounces, so you are carrying 8 extra ounces with stainless steel (about 40 percent heavier).

I used aluminum for many years and was entirely satisfied. It seems that every aluminum pot I find these days has a non-stick coating, which I won't buy due to toxicity issues that the big corporations lie about. There used to be worries about aluminum and health (in particular an alzheimers connection that now seems discredited). Also, you can melt a hole in an aluminum pan with a stove if you let it run without contents (don't ask how I know).

Titanium has a huge "I am a cool dude" factor, but you pay through the nose for it. Titanium does have an amazing strength to weight ratio (so my mechanical engineer friends tell me). You won't melt it with any conventional stove. Titanium is similar in weight to aluminum, typically just a bit heavier for the same item. In other words, if you have issues with aluminum and don't want to carry the extra weight of stainless, you pony up the cash and go with titanium.

An interesting article compared two titanium 0.9 liter pots. One was a tall and thin snow peak, the other a short and squat evernew. The conclusion was that the short and squat pot was a lot more efficient (water boiled in 4 minutes rather than 8.25 in one test). The reason being that the large bottom surface of the pot allowed much better heat transfer from the flame to the pot and contents.

Here is a good deal on a pot/stove combo: Evernew 1.3L pot

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's hiking pages / tom@mmto.org