UKC

What are the best stoves for use in the UK in a cold winter? I'll be melting snow but also doing a bit of simmering too. Should I buy the Whisperlite or is there anything better out there?

In reply to Iwan:

From my experience, XGK is the best thing for melting snow. When I need to simmer I just turn it off and then turn it on again for a second when the flame is about to die out. I have an XGK II which I use regularly for 14 years, only recently replaced by an XGK EX. The EX is even better. You have to clean it quite frequently if you burns petrol and watch out wears and tears on the O-rings.

I've used all the MSR models in the past and also the Optimus and Primus expedition stoves from climbing partners. None of them handles dirty fuel as good as the XGK. However in the UK fuel is so clean that I reckon any liquid fuel stove will do the job well enough.

I also have a Svea 123R for a while before the airport security in Riga confiscated it (they thought it was a gas canister). It is a lovely stove to use and handles dirty fuel very well. Problem is it takes a long time to prime in very cold weather but once it starts roaring it's as quick as the bigger stoves, even though the specification says it has a smaller power output. If I still have it, it will be ideal for UK solo use. Much more compact than my XGK. I normally fill it up at home and carry a 125m Zippo fuel bottle of spare petrol which is also handy for priming.

In reply to Iwan:

Jetboil I like. It's handy as you can hold it whilst it boils. Doesn't take much snow though.

In reply to Iwan:

id go somewhere in between with a reactor.

XKG without a doubt for expedition stuff but you can get less fiddly, jetboils nice but you can get more melting efficiency.

key is: you dont need to boil snow to melt it. take a little bottle of purifying drops to make it drinkable and save fuel.
reactors are a bit heavy, but make up for it with efficiency being able to churn out a liter or so at a time.

In reply to Iwan: Take a look at the Edelrid Hexon,very light for a multi-fuel.

When I had a gas stove I always ended up with lots of half empty canisters. I remember years ago you can get canister filled up in some shops but it's not available any more. I wonder what do other people do? When you camp high up you wouldn't want to carry extra canisters so I always had to use up the half empty ones when camping near the car. It's a bit annoying as the nearly empty ones become very slow.

I hardly need to melt snow in the UK. Even when the temperature drops to around -10C there are usually some streams that don't freeze completely. It's quite handy to have a string attached to your water bottle so that you don't have to get your hand wet when filling water. The old Nalgene bottles are handy as you can just hold on to the lid and the big mouth is easier to fill and less prone to freezing.

In reply to Iwan: Jetboil

In reply to jamestheyip:
I use them up at home making brews

In reply to jamestheyip: If you get a gas stove with a pre-heat tube which goes through the flames then you can invert the gas canister so it become liquid feed. That way it works well right to the end of the gas, and in cold conditions. My 20-yr-old MSR Rapidfire has a preheat tube, and I think most of the modern remote canister stoves do.

In reply to Guy Hurst:

This is absolutely correct. An inverted canister stove will work quite happily at -15C until the gas runs out, whereas Jetboils and all other canister top stoves will stop working when the canister is half empty and cold (less than 0C).
Whilst a Jetboil/other cansiter top stove *might* radiate enough heat to keep the canister warm enough whilst it is running, you will need to pre-warm the canister to get it going on a cold morning

In reply to ChrisHolloway1:

I am suprised at people recommending Jetboil

Personally I have had nothing but problems in the winter with the jetboil system:-

Refusing to light then once lit never a jet more of a fart of gas and then once your gas canister is only half empty chuck it away or keep until the summer as it doesnt work in the winter anymore.

Might just be me though?

G

In reply to jamestheyip:
You'll have trouble finding someone to refill a one hit gas cylinder on H&S grounds

You can refill them yourself with an adaptor that is available on the 'net, it isn't very safe and unless you can find a bulk source of butane/propane blend then you'll be stuck with straight propane. I wouldn't bother.

In reply to stupot:

Jetboil Helios has an inverted canister.

In reply to Reach>Talent:


What a fantastic piece of advice - I don't know why I didn't think to try that before now. The price of gas canisters is a total rip off and really annoys me.

In reply to Gav M:

Anyone got a link to a site that sells these adapters?

In reply to Gav M:
360200852438, but on fleabay US....

In reply to stupot:

Take a look at the Jetboil Helios. Inverted canister and pre heat and takes upto a 3 litre pan. Used it melting snow in a bothy, deep in the North East of Scotland last new year..

In reply to Iwan: my regular jetboil is pretty disappointing in the cold, I have an old epigas remote canister stove which is much better.

In reply to Gav M:
If you do decide to refill the cylinders yourself be really very careful, I can't emphasise quite strongly enough how easy it is to have a very bad accident when playing with pressurised gas!

However if you promise to be safe and not sue if anything goes badly wrong then some stuff for you to think about, some of this was learnt the hard way:

- The adaptor you want for a bog standard screw on cylinder is a 7/16" UNEF threaded lindal valve.

- I'm pretty sure that Butane/Propane blend cylinders are designed for lower pressures than standard propane cylinders and don't have a huge safety margin!

- You don't want to be any where near an exploding cylinder, it isn't funny. There isn't normally a whole lot of shrapnel but what there is moves bloody quick and will be warm. Burns take a lot longer to heal than you may think.

- Make sure you plan exactly what you are doing before you start, don't cut any corners!

- Don't overfill a cylinder, work out how much gas you can safely fill to and work by weight.

- Understand the difference between liquid and gas take-off from a tank, the angle of the cylinder makes a big difference.

- If you plan to make a habit of this then you may want to work in a full water butt to contain any mishaps.

- DON'T SUE ME!

In reply to Iwan: I use a Whisperlite fitted inside a Trangia, works a treat and very rapid boiling.
Just had to cut a small hole in side of base to allow hose to pass through.

MSR Dragonfly - has simmer, is easy to light, wide pan coverage, parafin is cheap, shaker jet cleans itself, reliable, melts snow great, great stove; so great I use it in my kitchen as my only hob! It burns so efficient I don't notice any fumes, and when I run it on Aspen 4t (super-refined petrol for chainsaws) it goes like it's on afterburner. Only drawback is it's noisy.

In reply to Dreamchaser:

Dragonfly is quite a good stove but it has a design fault - the weld between the burner and the hinge is not very strong and is prone to snapping. It happened to a friend and he found out it's not uncommon. MSR fixed it for free and they might have improved the detail in recent years. Also when using dirty fuel the threads on the simmer valve is prone to clogging. Not likely to be a problem in the UK but when we were in Tajikistan we had to strip and clean both Dragonflys every two days. Out of all the stoves we used there the Svea 123R was the only one that didn't clog.

In reply to jamestheyip:

If you need to both deliver lots of heat (e.g. melting snow and boiling water) and simmer then the Dragonfly is an extremely good stove to get. I got mine because I NEEDED the power for trips abroad but I wanted to cook sausages when on campsites in the UK.

It used to have a bit of a reputation for clogging, and mine was really bad once when using aviation fuel. Surprising as it should have been really clean, but maybe it was just that it has longer chains than petrol? Had no problems with diesel. Apart from that one trip it's been great though.

I'm also surprised by people recommending Jetboils as I always thought they were just for heating up your cup-a-soup in the tent at the end of the day, and the capacity looks miniscule. Plus, how do you fry? Maybe they'd be worth investigating as a snow-destroyer, or maybe it's just the usual case on UKC of someone asking for advice and a load of peeople just listing what they own in a vain attempt to be helpful? ;-P

In reply to Iwan: jetboil. Thread closed

In reply to Iwan:

I've camped a lot in the winter. One winter I camped twelve weekends.

I can't remember the last time I had to melt snow for water. You'll almost always find running water near you.

I've used a Trangia for the last twenty years, maybe more. Never felt I had to use anything else. Why do I use a Trangia? After years of going from one temperamental high performance stove to the next I settled for something that works, every time, always. If you like I gave up on the equivalents of M16s and settled to the reduced performance but robust reliability of the Kalashnikov.

In reply to Removed User: Hi everyone

I have been using mainly Trangia’s in winter with Meths, or a Gas adapter with a Winter Gas Mix if the conditions are milder. I find usually the Gas doesn’t perform to well when conditions are very cold. For example, on Pen-y-Fan summit last week, it was –12 C and I had my Jet boil, it took 15 mins just to get it to heat the water to around 40 degrees. I kept the canister off of the cold ground, and even held it between my thighs to keep it from going to cold. The gas looses pressure when it gets to cold so the stove under-performs.

I had a small Trangia with me in case this problem arose, and I got it to boil the water using Meths within around 13 mins. I used the snow that was obviously in great abundance, I started by getting snow to melt into the kettle to a depth of around 1cm, I kept the kettle not on the Trangia but held it above so the snow would not scorch and evaporate, I could have used the simmer ring, but it did’nt matter, I just wanted to melt the snow in the kettle.

Once the snow had melted and heated to around 70 Degrees C, I added the extra snow, in small pieces so as not to loose to much heat in the kettle, once the water was about 1 inch deep I added bigger pieces, the whole process took around 13 mins, and I had a litre of hot water (of which I did’nt need to strain as it was clean from particles), and just kept adding snow as I kept making tea. The Meths will run out quicker, because the flame will take longer to boil the water from frozen. Meths is much more reliable, even though it is stubborn to light went cold.

I think these high fangled stoves are well made and can do well in summer, they may look cool and impressive, but they just give you headache when they don’t perform, A typical cheep Go Systems buner for £15 will do the same job as a MSR Firefly as long as the burners are sheilded from the wind, I know as I have both of them. I have had about 7 stoves; mainly MSR and I use them for summer and mild seasons, the MSR Windpro is a good stove, with the foil shield, however remember it’s not the stove that fails it’s the gas and the canister. If you were to provide heat towards the canister then it would perform better, I dunked my canister in warm water once and found that it performed much better, until the water went cold. I’m not overly keen on playing about with gas for the obvious reasons.

I’ve had much experience with cooking in winter, and gas can work in the right conditions, but once the canister gets super cold, as it will when being used, the gas inside will turn towards a more liquid state and loose it’s gaseous state meaning less pressure. I would take twice as much Meths in winter as you would in summer, the Meths will run out quicker as it’s harder for the flame to get ‘cold’ water to boil. If you get the gas adapter with the Trangia which really powerful, then you have an all in one solution for cooking with a very reliable backup if the gas fails to work for you.


Merry Christmas all

Jason

In reply to lone: Try taking a hand warmer and put it under the canister then boil it to reset when you are finishing...