Stoves What do you use

[corvus]

I am a bit of a gear freak and collect stoves what do you use and why??
My last purchase was an Optimus Crux and as a light weight cannister stove I rate it highly because it can simmer and I can use a toaster with it however as I really only boil water for my meals now my MSR Pocket Rocket seems to be the winner (it is excellent for roasting capsicums at home as an added bonus) it boils faster and it costs less than the Crux.
What do you think.

[Joe]

kovea camp 3 titan. its a ripper. havent tried anything else to compare it to though so not very objective. do love my kovea though.

[Son of a Beach]

As I posted in the other topic, I've been using a metho Trangia for the last 20 years or so. But I'm thinking of going back to using gas. Not sure if I'd get the Trangia gas kit, or a whole new kit. Actually, my Trangia is so old, it doesn't have the hole in the side for the gas kit.

I've got the large Trangia which is ideal for me, as I sometimes take groups of inexperienced people with no gear of their own. When taking a large group, I carry a large steel wok, which sits nicely on the Trangia with the pot prong thingies hinged up and out (frying position) instead of down and in (boiling position). I can cook enough for about 5 people at a time on the one stove that way.

Not sure I'd want to try to balance that full wok on anything taller and thinner.

[norts]

I have used a Trangia then a MSR Superfly. I now use the Kovea too. It is a great stove.
I use a wind shield made out of a disposable aluminium roasting dish. Makes the stove much more efficient.
I always carry a metal mug(titanium now) and a metal bowl(also titanium) and use those to boil water and to cook in. I carry a piece of foil to put on the bowl or the mug to make a lid. I use my trangia billy grips.
No billies or kettles.
With this setup I can usually get about 6 days from a gas bottle.

Roger

[Son of a Beach]

hmmm.... those Koveas look good. I like the look of the Kovea Solo (smallest and lightest of the range).

Although the Hiker could be good for larger pots when cooking for a group, and it is still quite light and small... just burns the gas a bit faster with the larger burner (which presumably, brings things to the boil faster?).

How much do these things cost? And who sells 'em in Tasmania?

[corvus]

Kovea stoves are available from Allgoods and I suspect all of the Bushwalking Stores in Tasmania.

[sarge]

I use a jetboil partly because I like gucci new fangled equipment and partly because I got talked into it by a fellow hiker. I have the saucepan attachement rather than the 1 Litre cup.

pro - It is quite good for boiling water (super fast in fact) which means I dont have to carry much gas.

con - you cant regulate the heat as much as other stoves and the saucepan attachment makes it hard to fry anything.

I usually only use "heat and eat" or dehydrated meals though so it suits me fine.

[flyfisher]

For extended malks of 4 or 5 days or more Iuse an MSR wisperlite internationale which runs on shellite or kero.

The advantages are fast boil time and very economical so not requiring large amounts of fuel.

The disadvantages are the startup preheat routine ,with occasional flareup unless v. carefull, and my model (which is a few years old) doesnt have good simmer adjustment
John

[Joe]

anyone tried the DIY style coke can stoves? They floar around the usual diy sites every few months...i rekon ill give one a go when i buy my next carton it fits with my budget walking thread and also I like DIY gear.

[Joe]

http://zenstoves.net/LinksGeneral-DIY.htm

incredibly detailed list of DIY stoves.

[tasadam]

I mentioned my stoves here.

An extract from that post -

My stove is shellite based. I have an Optimus 99. I bought an MSR Simmerlite, but it doesn't simmer (it roars even at its lightest setting which burns the bottom of dishes like pasta, and makes them boil over) so went back to my Optimus, a great stove. If money was no object, then perhaps the MSR XGK would do what I require. But only because the Optimus is getting old...

[kantonysen]

I'm happy with my trangia; the two person set. There is not much that can go wrong with them. If you have chef like tendancies; then, it's not the best choice as adjusting heat levels is not easy. While other stoves might be compact you still need cooking utensils,the trangia is great in this respect as pieces snuggly fit into each other with the possibility of adding a few extra small items.
The trangia has a wide base and so is quite stable, a consideration if your using a tent in poor weather conditions.
They work well in Tassie, but in colder and rougher conditions would not work quite so well.
I guess there are pluses and minuses in whatever stove you choose to use. Some can be great flame throwers I noticed on recent trip to Pelion East.

[Lynda Moir]

We have two stoves:

1. MSR Whisperlite
This is great for extended walks - fast, small amount of shellite fuel required and works well at higher altitudes and in different temperatures.

2. Caribee Back packing stove - uses gas cannisters
This is great for shorter walks and less extreme conditions. You can even wear the stove pouch on your belt!

With the whisperlite we needed to replace the pump and get it serviced recently. I think we left it idle too long, as we had mainly been doing short walks.

[Lynda Moir]

Just remembered the last edition of 'Wild' has a good article on stove - outlines the pros and cons.

[whiskeylover]

I know this topic was a while ago but thought you might be still interested .We use a Trangia with the shellite conversion ( optimus nova without the legs)
it is great ,has great simmer control, will seal steaks and meat with ease as it pumps out heaps of heat .Lights easily just prime with shellite lite and let it warm up and then away you go .No waiting for ages as with the metho burner and it still can run low enuf not to burn the puddings.I am unsure of the weight but don't reallly care as I like the Trangia set up and the burner fits both the big and small cooksets. Only downfall is if is on flat out it is fairly noisy like an f1-11 taking off but thats all I can fault with it.

[Ent]

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Last edited by Ent on Thu 11 Nov, 2010 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

[alliecat]

anyone tried the DIY style coke can stoves? They floar around the usual diy sites every few months...i rekon ill give one a go when i buy my next carton it fits with my budget walking thread and also I like DIY gear.

Funny you should mention this. I spent friday evening test-firing 4 different home made metho ("alcohol") stoves that I had made over the last couple of weeks. I made a J Falk's cat stove, "Fuzzy's l'il stove", the "cyclone" stove from zenstoves.net and, and a "supercat" stove (see jwbasecamp.com). All of them worked well, they all boiled water in about the same time and they cost me nothing. I didn't do any sort of controlled trials to measure fuel costs and boil times; I just couldn't be bothered, but it was a lot of fun to fire up these little home-made beasties and watch them go. The "cyclone" stove was very cool to watch. If you are into home-made gear at all and want to have a crack at a DIY stove, I highly recommend zenstoves as a resource. Gonna try the "V8/redbull" mini-sideburner tonight

To actually make this post on topic; I have a mini-trangia (the tangia "28") which comes as a set containing the burner, a windshield/potstand, and the small aluminium trangia pot+frypan/lid and pot grabber. This I've found more than adequate for one or two people. I do use a home-made windshield made from aluminium foil though as the supplied potstand is really not adequate with even slight wind.

If I had my choice of stove, I'd go the packafeather featherlite (http://www.packafeather.com/stove.html) because of the nifty simmer control.

Oh, BTW - what budget walking thread? - I'd be interested in following that...

Cheers,
Alliecat

[shanehugh]

Has anyone using the Kovea stoves encountered a problem with the ignition gadget at all. I have been using one now for nearly a year and all was well until the last few trips where it has gradually become harder to start with the self ignite button. Is there any way to fix them? Its only a minor gripe and I get more annoyed that its supposed to work,than that it doesn't work.

[Joe]

They (piezos) are a pretty simple device...crystal gets hit with hammer, distorts, creates high voltage (in the 1000's of volts) which arcs. The one in our oven here at home plays up when it gets dirty as it doesn't arc as well. Bit like a spark plug in car getting gummed up. In fits of motivation I will get inside the oven and clean the ignitor points...its a shirty job so alot of time I just use a flic a bic instead.

The only other part i could think of that would go wrong is the spring...but i would be more inclined to think a good scrub of the points with something abrasive will do the trick.

My koveas igniter still going strong.

Good fun can be had with the piezos...I built one of these years ago...scared poo out of my dog

http://www.instructables.com/id/S9BO16GF0CWGG9Y/

[Tony]

My stove list.

I am a Stoveus Freakus, my hobby is designing, making and testing stoves, I make both canister and alcohol stoves.

My stoves
Canister stoves commercial

MSR Pocket Rocket x 2
Kovea Eagle (modified from 4 leg to 3 leg)
JetBoil
Coleman Xtreme remote canister

Shellite stoves commercial

MSR Whisperlite

Alcohol stoves commercial

Trangia 27-1 23 hole burner (very old and my first stove)
Trangia mini 24 hole burner

Alcohol stoves commercial/cottage industry

White Box
Gram Weenie

Alcohol stoves Cottage industry

StarLyte
Furylite

Homemade stoves Canister

Double pocket rocket remote canister dual control
14.2-gram upright
Low profile remote canister
Modified JetBoil to Remote canister dual control
SUL 23.5-gram remote canister
SUUL 8.8-gram remote canister

Home made Alcohol stoves

Volcano (my own UL very efficient design)
Side burner cat can stove (called blast furnace)
Open Top burner
3,5-gram side burner + very light pot 28-gram total
Various other alcohol stoves, to many to mention.

I also make canister stove valves for most canister types including little deodorant canisters that I clean out and reuse.


I have put together a stove testing setup where I can measure, log and compare the performance of stoves. (pic below)

I love the simplicity of the little MYOG alcohol stoves, for shorter walks they are out on their own for weight, with them you can cook for several days with a starting weigh including stove, windshield and fuel with less weight than some canister stoves burners alone.

The best performing stove that I have tested ignoring weight is the JetBoil with the Group cooking system 1.5l pot 4.3 g to raise 0.5l water 80ºC all in 2m 30s, the Pocket Rocket/Kovea Eagle uses 6-8 g depending on how fast you boil, the Whisperlite did not come up very good in the efficiency tests, using 40% more fuel than the canister stoves but still better than most of the alcohol stove which the Trangia is up there with the best.

My favorite stove/s
I am very partial to the JetBoil it is very easy to setup, fast, very economical but it is heavy (am going to work in it), I like my Double Pocket Rocket with my 1l Ti pot with cut down MSR windshield for cold weather and my modified Kovea Eagle for warmer weather. I am currently designing a sub 30g stove that I plan to use as my main stove, I am hoping to start to make it this week, it will use Coleman Max canisters


23.5g stove

Starlyte stove under test and my stove testing equipment

14.2g upright stove

Low profile side feed stove

Test equipment with double pocket rocket under tests

3.5 g alcohol stove with small light pot 28 g in total

remote canister liquid gas feed modified Jetboil stove in -7ºC

[Son of a Beach]

Wow! That's some very impressive work you've done there... thanks for sharing the results with us. I'm sure it will be very helpful for people here.

[Nick S]

Yeah thanks for that info, thats quite a setup you have there! reminds me of my old physics pracs..
Really enjoying the weath of info in these forums

[shanehugh]

Thanks for the advice on the piezo ignition TWF, will have a look at it later tonight and give it a brush up on the pointy bits and see if that helps some.

[corvus]

I use the Kovea Titan but still like my Optimus Crux ,2 pocket Rockets ( one belongs to Son) SEVA 123 (favourite) Optimus Explorer Multi Fuel, Early Trangia Gas Convertion,Tangia Meth Burner,Fantastic big heavy brass retro pump up kero Primus copy one Cat one Pepsi and one Red bull in the homemade varity alcho type.
Looking at a Cannister Gas MSR that nuts uses and will probably add that to my collection and I like the look of the Prolite ??one posted on this forum
Love your home made ones Tony but you cannot pinch my Atevar you may become Stoveus Minorium Manufaturum but I AM Gearium Superbus which includes all things including stoves
Do you even own an iPOOD!

[Joe]

Thanks for the advice on the piezo ignition TWF, will have a look at it later tonight and give it a brush up on the pointy bits and see if that helps some.

let us know if that is the fix...i have heard others complain of it being an issue. Im waiting to see if mine fails before i pull it apart and start poking around...always run risk of it not going back how it should when you start to dismantle things

[norts]

The piezo on my kovea has always been a bit touchy, my walking partner has the same stove and had no issues but he melted his on the last walk, you do have to be careful with the windshield.

Roger

[Joe]

I had heard that using a wind shield with gas stoves can be a really bad idea....is this the case?

[norts]

I always use one, just have to keep touching the gas canister to see if it is getting to hot. I have never had to remove the shield because I thought the canister was too hot. I don't have long cooking times though. Mainly water or some pasta. The shield improves the speed of cooking so that inturn leads to less gas used.

Roger

[Nuts]

Iv'e been using the MSR Windpro (As Corvus mentioned), havent seen them in Oz as yet though there are some reviews and piccys here: http://www.thebackpacker.com/gear/stove ... indpro.php

They look just like a whisperlite though they are a cannister stove. More stable than P-Rocket and you can tip/warm the cannister to get at the last of your gas so they perform better in the cold (can also use the bigger cylinders with no real dramas). Gas is cleaner, more sociable, quicker, arguably just as efficient and so far safer (Just make sure the flame really is Out before trying to change cylinders, and probably a good idea to remove thae cylinder between drinks). After many years using metho or white spirits I really dont think i'd go back.

They come with the same shield set as the liquid msr though because they have a feeder line there are not any issues with overheating etc. I (carefully) pack the stove, cylinder, shields and cloth into the Black-lite Pot.

[Tony]

I had heard that using a wind shield with gas stoves can be a really bad idea....is this the case?

If windshields are used correctly they are safe to use with upright canisters.

Roger Caffin on his site http://www.Bushwalking.org.au/FAQ has some very good information on using windshield with upright canister stoves,

http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_StovesTech.htm#Wind

Roger also has some excellent articles on CO and stoves, it is a particular interest of his and has published a extensive series of articles on BPL.

Some information on CO and stoves can also be read on his FAQ pages

http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_StovesTech.htm#CO

Tony