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Stoves..
#11329 03/04/11 02:57 PM
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So my water purification question was very informative! I thought i'd ask another gear related question. What types of stoves or cooking gear would everyone recommend?

My plan now, if i am lucky enough to get selected, is to stay a night or two at horseshoe, before having an overnight trip in the Whitney zone, probably Trail Camp.


Last edited by Sublatum; 03/04/11 02:58 PM.
Re: Stoves..
Sublatum #11335 03/04/11 05:15 PM
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stoves are almost a religious thing, especially among the long distance hiking crowd. You're gonna get a dozen different answers...

Personally, I never owned anything other than a canister stove. They are reliable, safe, easy to use, and over the distances you carry a food and fuel load in the Sierra, the weight to BTU output of the entire system is about as good as it gets. You can control the flame well, they pack nicely, and if you need a stove in winter, the inverted canister remote setups are also very competitive.

Meanwhile you can find small wood stoves, Esbit stoves, alcohol stoves made out of pepsi cans, massive flame spewing pressurized white gas stoves, and all will heat your food or water.

For short trips, a small gas canister (110g) and a super light stove like my Vargo Titanium is all I need. Never tried the Jetboil, but I read enough about it to know that for single hikers who don't need to simmer food, or fry fish on their hike, it is probably one of the most efficient solutions.

here's my solo summer setup with a 220g canister (good for 4-5 days of hot breakfast and supper) - stove is 2.7 ounces, pot is 6 ounces, plastic support is 0.9 ounces but worth its weight in gold. Add two Bic lighers at 1.4 ounces, a titanium spork at 0.3 ounces and a titanium mug at 2 ounces and the kitchen is complete.



for more than one person and in winter, I use a Snow Peak remote canister stove with a stronger and larger Montbell pot. Heavier, but super reliable and works in any temp. In 30+ years of using canister stoves, going back all the way to a French Bleuet Gaz made of sheet metal, I have never had a single problem. I do enjoy watching others trying to light these liquid fuel bomb stoves, though.

Re: Stoves..
Sublatum #11339 03/04/11 05:52 PM
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I use a Snow Peak LiteMax and it has been a great little stove. 1.9 ounces and it's valve system is very solid and smooth.

After about a 100 days of use though I need to tighten a small screw on it that has been working it's way loose.

I have tried the classic Jetboil cup stove and it boils water great but that is about all it does and is not worth the weight.

Re: Stoves..
RoguePhotonic #11341 03/04/11 10:30 PM
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I have to put in a plug for my favorite summer stove:

    The Firelight Esbit Wing Stove from Backpacking Light:
      ...folded:       ...fuel:

It weighs under half an ounce, and an ounce of fuel (two tabs) will boil a quart of water. Add an aluminum or titanium mug/pot, and your total system weighs in at less than 4 ounces -- about 100 grams! (Beware those canister stoves -- they NEVER state the weight of the canister, only the weight of the fuel inside.)

Each trip, I make a disposable wind screen out of a foot or so of aluminum foil.

I put the fuel (in a snack bag), lighter, wind screen (rolled up), AND the stove all into a single sandwich ziploc bag. The aluminum cup serves as both drinking cup and single-meal pot.

That ounce of fuel heats 3 - 4 single meals, since I blow out the flame when the meal is hot.

Here's what I've written before:
I bought the Mountain House freeze dried meals with four servings, and repackaged them into 3 zip loc bags. I found I wanted a little more of those meals than a "single serving".

I would pour the contents of the bag into the cup, add water, and set it on the stove. Some of the meals wouldn't completely fit into the 2 C cup, so I'd add more to the cup after I ate some.

My appetite was good enough that I started eating the gruel as soon as it got warm. So the meal was still heating as I ate. Once everything was hot enough, I'd blow out the flame.

That may sound a bit spartan or crude, since I didn't boil the water first, add the meal, and let it set the required number of minutes. But heck, sitting on a rock out in the middle of nowhere, tired from walking all day long,... It works for me! grin


Here's some good reading:     Lightest weight hiking gear   and   Alcohol stoves

Re: Stoves..
Sublatum #11355 03/05/11 09:50 AM
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My standby is the MSR Whisperlight Internationale (about a pound plus fuel). Bombproof and burns any liquid fuel. Two coolest things I found recently are variations on the TLUD: wood gas campstoves, one with a small fan, like the Zip Stove but way more efficient (1.5 lb), and one with natural draft, no moving parts, dead simple and weighs 7 0z. w/o the lids, 9 all packed up/ See the powered one at http://www.woodgascampstove.com/
and the simple one at http://cgi.ebay.com/SURVIVAL-CAMPING-WOO...#ht_1160wt_1141

These will all cook for groups and are overkill (or luxury, depending on your perspective) for solo. I really like that little Esbitt for solo/ultralight.


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Re: Stoves..
Sublatum #13814 05/07/11 05:21 PM
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I use a Jet Boil for summer when we are only boiling water to do the eat out of the bag thing no cookset. It works great for that.
I use a Pocket Rocket if I am planning to cook real food.

Winter I carry a Peak 1, its a heavy but no parts to assemble, I put some fire paste on the generator tube and light it up. It puts out the BTU and I have never had a problem. If I really want to impress people I pull out the SVEA 123 30+ years old and has never failed.

For summer use I would go Canister.

Re: Stoves..
Sublatum #13839 05/08/11 04:12 PM
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For another stove I like my Soto stove its good in el. and windy conditions coupled with my evernew pot set I'm happy..

  many to choose from good luck..




mark

Re: Stoves..
So.BayMark #13916 05/11/11 10:34 AM
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just found this thread again - update from April, when I used a new stove for the first time:



For cold weather and more efficient snow melting, I scored a new Jetboil Helios on ebay. Also useful for summer hikes with the growing hungry kids (1.5 L pot was getting too small, this one is 2L). It's heavier than anyhting I've used before at 29.3 oz including pot and windscreen and two plastic plates (double as covers and frisbees). Most of that weight is in the pot, which is heavy for two reasons: aluminum (better heat conductor than titanium, by a longshot)and copper heat exchanger on the bottom to extract the most out of your flame. This makes it much more fuel efficient and on longer hikes saves enough weight to offset the big pot luxury

I've not done any fuel use testing, but others have done so:

http://www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/...ill%20Rietveld/

I tried it at home with a near empty canister that didn't really do anything on my old stove, but on this thing it ran for another 20 minutes in the upside down position.

things I don't like are the fact that you can't pour from the pot without spilling or getting the neoprene cozy all wet. It's bulky, too, but then a 2L pot won't just disappear in your pack.

For solo hikes, I will be soon be adding the new ultra light Jetboil Sol to my gear kit. Am pretty impressed by the Helios and don't like my dinky and inefficient Vargo stove setup (picture in post above) for heating water.

Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #14672 05/31/11 11:29 AM
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some interesting test data, this time focusing on the material the pots are made of - aluminum versus titanium.

If you look it up, you'll find that titanium isn't really a good transmitter of heat energy, although if used thin enough, it should not make that much of a difference, or so at least the potmongers will tell you grin

So since I was itching to buy a fourth stove during REI's 20% off days, I did this test with my two large pots, one a Montbell Titanium 1.5L pot, the other the JetBoil Helios aluminum pot.

So let's have a look at the truly geeky stuff I went through to see how fuel efficiency is affected by titanium compared to aluminum, which is 10x better as a heat conductor.


The setup, Sunday afternoon on the kitchen table:

Stove 1: Jetboil Helios, with canister upright, 10 ounces without windscreen

Stove 2: Snow Peak remote canister stove 10.7 ounces
Fuel: MSR large canister, reheated between tests with warm tap water to
maintain pressure

Water: 1 liter tap water, 68F room temp

All stoves turned up 100% output (i.e. as far until no visible increase in output)

window fan in patio door blowing a light breeze over the setup


First Test Stove 1 on full blast output:

Stove 1: Jetboil Helios 100% flame
Pot 1 - Jetboil Helios 2L aluminum
Boil time: 4:45 mins
Fuel used: 9.9 grams

Stove 1: Jetboil Helios 100% flame
Pot 2 - Montbell 1.5L titanium
Boil time: 7:15 mins
Fuel used: 12 grams


Control test with a second stove, to rule out unfair advantage of
Jetboil Helios pot being designed for what appears to be a relatively large distance between flame and pot

Stove 2: SnowPeak at full output (what a torch!)

Stove 2: Snow Peak 100% flame
Pot 1 - Jetboil Helios 2L aluminum
Boil time: 3:15 mins
Fuel used: 10.6 grams

Stove 2: Snow Peak 100% flame
Pot 2 - Montbell 1.5L titanium
Boil time: 4:35 mins
Fuel used: 15.3 grams


And since I wanted to know if I could save weight by using the Jetboil pot on the Snow Peak stove, running the stove at lower output, I tried setting that burner to about half the power it can put out (so the metal wasn't completely glowing red hot)


Stove 2: SnowPeak at 50% output

Stove 2: Snow Peak 50% flame
Pot 1 - Jetboil Helios 2L aluminum
Boil time: 5:05 mins
Fuel used: 9.7 grams

So because that was better than full blast on the Jetboil stove, I did another control run of that pot on the original stove, this time low power flame to see if the lighter stove can also be the most efficient with the Flux pot

Stove 1: Jetboil Helios 50% output

Stove 1: Jetboil Helios 50% flame
Pot 1 - Jetboil Helios 2L aluminum
Boil time: 7:05 mins
Fuel used: 8.6 grams


summary:
Jetboil pot and stove most efficient. Compared to my setup from last summer, I am easily saving 35% or more fuel. That is quite a lot of weight on longer stints and may save an entire cartridge (I will be cooking for 3 on up to 9 days without resupply)

Clearly, the aluminum fluxring pot seems to make a big difference - and the Helios isn't even rated as efficient as the regular Jetboil. Is the difference a result of that heat exchanger design or just because the pot is aluminum? To answer that, I will need to do another test with a plain aluminum pot, if I can dig that out of the bottom of my gear closet.

The test did make the choice between Jetboil Sol Al or Ti easy - got the Al version and love it: 10.6 ounces including pot, lid, cozie and it boils 0.5L 68F water in 1:50 mins using 4.8 grams of fuel. A 1/2 liter of water with ice cubes still floating in it boils in 2:10 mins, using 5.5 grams uf fuel.

And then there's the little detail that you can get a coffee press for the Sol...

Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #14673 05/31/11 12:30 PM
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Pretty amazing.

I have a Snow Peak Ti cup and an old Al cup, so I'll have to try the experiment with my Esbit tablet stove.

...Looking at the Jetboil pot, I am sure the heat exchanger makes a BIG difference. What is the weight of the two pots?


Last edited by Steve C; 05/31/11 12:37 PM.
Re: Stoves..
Steve C #14675 05/31/11 02:29 PM
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pot weight -


Montbell 1.5L with lid 9.7 ounces - 275 grams

Jetboil Helios 2L with lid 13.4 ounces - 380 grams

adding the second plate to the Jetboil pot makes it 440 grams for the Jetboil pot, and the Montbell with an extra titanium bowl that fits inside comes in at 330 grams. Now we're exactly teh content of 1 small container of fuel heavier for the Jetboil. But the container itself is about 80 grams empty, so if you can save carrying one of these, you're well ahead of the titanium setup

Now I am seriously interested in repeating this with a generic light aluminum pot that is already lighter than the Jetboil, since for most of our trips, that thing is actually too large.

The photo higher up is of another Titanium pot I have, but that is only 1.2 liter and doesn't really compare. It is too small for a group of 3




Last edited by Fishmonger; 05/31/11 02:31 PM.
Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #14681 05/31/11 03:25 PM
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COuld be too many variables between the two pots to be testing for Al v Ti. For example, the pot sizes imply that the Jetboil has the larger diameter bottom, which would heavily favor the Jetboil. As would the heat exchanger .

To get a true test between Al v Ti, you would have to do it with pots of similar construction and identical diameters, with only the materials differing.


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Re: Stoves..
Sublatum #16187 07/09/11 12:57 PM
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if you stick to climbing in the US and popular destinations internationally, the cannister stoves are great. once you get into extended backpacking & expedition mountaineering internationally, you will appreciate the white gas stoves. it is easier to find fuel and much cheaper. with an international MSR stove, different types of fule can be used including car gasoline & karosine. a 20oz fuel bottle can go a long way.

Re: Stoves..
kevin trieu #16205 07/10/11 03:27 AM
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Originally Posted By: kevin trieu
once you get into extended backpacking & expedition mountaineering internationally, you will appreciate the white gas stoves.


I grew up doing this in Europe - there it is much easier to get canisters than white gas. If fact, I don't recall anyone ever using such a stove there in the 80s. If you mean the other continents, I am pretty sure I will not "get into" that. Simply can't afford it. I can barely afford the gas to go to California as often as I want to.

Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #29424 12/20/12 09:37 AM
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Originally Posted By: Fishmonger
So because that was better than full blast on the Jetboil stove, I did another control run of that pot on the original stove, this time low power flame to see if the lighter stove can also be the most efficient with the Flux pot

Stove 1: Jetboil Helios 50% output

Stove 1: Jetboil Helios 50% flame
Pot 1 - Jetboil Helios 2L aluminum
Boil time: 7:05 mins
Fuel used: 8.6 grams


summary:
Jetboil pot and stove most efficient.


Since the above was all about large pots, here for comparison how efficient my Jetboil Sol (aluminum pot version) tested last weekend. The difference was that I had to boil 0.5 liters at a time, as the pot can only hold 0.7 liters, so I am doubling the numbers of that stove to comapare with the bigger (and much heavier) Helios above:

Stove Jetboil Sol 50-75% flame (most efficient)
Aluminum with cozy just as sold
Boil time 4:24 mins (2x 2:12 min)
Fuel used 8.6 grams (2x4.3 grams)

Exactly the same as the Helios, just much faster and a much lighter stove. For solo trips definitely my go-to stove.

I did the test since somebody in another forum claimed the Sol was most efficent at full blast 100% flame, but in my test it was about 30% more efficient with a slightly lower flame. The setting is pretty easy to find - once you feel significant heat come past the sides of the pot around the cozy, you have turned it too high.

The good news, at least for me, is that I can pick stoves based on needs (number of hikers and snow melt or not), while efficiency will be the same either way. On a long winter solo trip, the Helios may pay off, but for a shorter trip, the weight advantage of the Sol is tempting. If it's really cold, though, I'd always bring the (upside down canister) Helios.




Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #32845 08/22/13 12:37 PM
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I used a Jetboil Sol with 1.8 liter Sumo mug this summer. 13.5 days, two people, 4 cups of coffee in the AM, and 2 1/2 - 3 cups of hot water for dinner, sometimes double that for double food. We used most of one 110g Jetboil cartridge for the first 5 days, and little more than half of a 220g canister for the remaining 8 days. We even made hot water for dishes to use up the excess fuel. That stove is amazingly efficient. For anything longer than a few days, this has to be one of the most weight efficient setups.

And it's safer to use than this contraption grin seen on Muir Pass


Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #32849 08/22/13 03:44 PM
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That's an awesome picture. like!

Was there a leak in the stove or something?

If the Muir Hut were made of wood, it would be gone now. grin

Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #32850 08/22/13 03:52 PM
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Priming a Svea stove? grin


The body betrays and the weather conspires, hopefully, not on the same day.
Re: Stoves..
Steve C #32876 08/23/13 01:22 PM
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Originally Posted By: Steve C
That's an awesome picture. like!

Was there a leak in the stove or something?

If the Muir Hut were made of wood, it would be gone now. grin


just the normal startup of that stove, which is why he took it outside. He knew it was going to be big, and I had my camera ready.

Re: Stoves..
Fishmonger #33061 09/05/13 02:06 PM
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That looks like an MSR Whisperlite. I don't buy that this is the normal startup of that stove. The guy may say its normal, but that has to be leak.

PS: I did the whole second half of the JMT with my SVEA, on one fill plus an 8 ounce bottle , 2 days over schedule, with half the fuel bottle to spare. Don't knock the SVEA. OK, its a little heavy, 448 grams, but I'll put it up against anything for optimizing comfort, ease, reliability and just the cool factor of having a little brass and an old friend along.

PPS: If you know where to look, fuel is free. Check the hiker boxes: the one at WPSH was full of full canisters, and I left my half-filled fuel bottle among them. Easier than dealing with TSA.


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