UKC

Which is best stove for weight/size and practicality for wild camping and generally being used on the hills ? meth stoves seems to be great for size and durability but whats your thoughts

Thanks

In reply to Beano:
Jet boil have many different models out at the moment and are fantastic stoves for uk wild camping. Small, light and packs away into the cooking pot/cup. It can be quite unstable (being relatively tall) but careful selection of a cooking area and purchasing the support stand will prevent an accidental spill.

Although, it is designed as a personal cooking system so don't expect to be making a huge meal for the camp in one. I've managed to cook a small spag bol for 2 and a chicken curry for 2 in mine but the mess after was aweful. If using a jet boil, opt for boil in the bag style expedition food/rations. Minimal mess and you can use the water for a coffee/tea etc after.

However, jetboil have now got an attachment that fits to the burner to allow the use of cooking pots/frying pans etc so bear that in mind.

Another option is the very small and very light MSR pocket rocket. Just screw it to the gas canister, place a pot ontop and away you go. You can use bigger pots for group cooking, even a frying pan for breakfast be warned though that the pocket rocket also suffers from instability issues.

There are countless other stoves on the market, but these are two that spring to mind best suited for UK use. When looking for a stove, have a look at boil time, weight, fuel type(s) and burn time and fuel efficiency (if given as water boiled per canister). Remember though, you can improve a stoves effectiveness by including a simple wind break and keeping the gas away from the cold.

Hope that helps.

In reply to Beano:
My favourite online retailer has this Brunton stove and hard anodised compact cookset at £27.50

http://www.summittosea.co.uk/brunton-ib-compact-cookset-talon-stove.ir?cNam...

In reply to Beano:

I really like my MSR windpro, it's a little bigger and thus also a little heavier than a Jet Boil or pocket rocket, but it's much better at simmering if you fancy cooking real food and feels a lot more stable for use on uneven ground. As it's a remote canister stove (little hose connects the canister to the burner), you can also invert the canister which improves performance in the cold or when you're running out of gas. It also comes with a windshield to improve the efficiency.

The other stoves I've used a fair bit are a trangia (heavy and takes ages to do anything, although the fuel is light and they're pretty bombproof), solid fuel stove (useful as a light backup but a pain for cooking all your food) and a few top of canister gas stoves which were fine, but all felt a bit unstable to me.

In reply to kestrelspl:

Thanks guys for your info and very helpful indeed, I've used the Primus EtaPower EF Stove in the past when I've gone away on longer trips great fast boil time but big !! and had the MSR Whisperlite for over 20 yrs but can be messy and it's old and battered now so hence the need for reviews.

Jetboil is something I did look into and so to the MSR Reactor Stove system with the 1 litre pot same principle but the MSR looks much more solid and packs down smaller

Thanks for your input lads

In reply to Beano:

https://www.alpkit.com/products/kraku

is the new lightweight gas option.

But 'best' depends how you use stuff.

Jetboil is heavy.

Meths is light but crap.

Lightweight gas is generally best for boiling but not much else.

In reply to winhill:

Thanks mate I'll have a look.

In reply to Beano:

All my wild camping these days is single overnight trips in summer, so I find a simple screw-in gas affair to be most suitable. I take freeze-dried and boil-in-the-bag stuff and a single pan, so basically I just use the stove for boiling water. A Jetboil would do this faster but would probably be heavier. If you go for a screw-in gas burner, I wouldn't worry too much about its weight - in comparison to gas cannisters and cook ware the weight differences will be small.

But it does depend what you want it for. Gas is pretty crap when it's cold and the cannisters are heavy and have to be carried out as well as in. On my sumemr ML training, which took place in March in sub-zero temperatures(!), the most popular guy on the expedition was the one with the Trangia...

In reply to Doug Hughes:

Thanks Doug it would be used all year around in the Lakes/Cairngorms and maybe the Cheviots if you can get away with it, but winter use mostly but I've just been reading the reviews on the MSR Reactor and it looks ideal for what I need so thats what I'm going for.

Boils quick and hopefully that will mean less gas used but conditions and usage dictates how long a canister will last but time will tell.

Thanks for everyones input.

Steve

In reply to winhill:

Lots of 'fire maple' brand stoves on the auction site, the same people that make Alpkit's.

I bought one last year, gas, tripod design, preheating tube etc. all very well made I thought and good value.

In reply to Beano:

If you aren't planning to "clean the water" (kill bacteria), have plenty dehydrated packs of food, melt snow, etc. (i.e. you need a stove for coffee, tea, porridge, hot chocolate and so on), then I would suggest a solid fuel stove. I usually use 2 small tablets (4g each) for 400-500ml of water. It does not boil, but there is enough steam indicating it's too hot for me. I have to mention that I do not like boiling hot food or drinks, so it is perfect for me.

I have been using this stove for quite few years: http://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk/equipment-c3/stoves-c12/all-stoves-c...

It is fail-proof, compact and very light. The full system weighs 214g. You do not have to worry about running out of gas canister or buying another one as your current gas canister is half empty and you don't want to risk. I mentioned on this forum earlier that I have been using gas stoves before, but after putting one gas canister on fire in front of the church, I decided to use solid fuel stove. One huge disadvantage that it leaves a lot residue if you use anything else but Esbit fuel. Esbit fuel tablets are way much better, but will still leave some sticky residue. Not a problem, but doesn't feel very pleasant.

Imagine you will have 4 mugs of tea/coffee a day. Your trip lasts 3 days. So that's 4*3*8g = 96g. Hence, in total you end up with total weight of 310g. I won't comment on Jetboils (which have different application and hence they are heavier), but even Alpkit Kraku weighs 45g while Esbit cookset weighs 60g. Empty 100ml gas canister weighs ~100g.

Oh, and if you really want something ultralight, go for this stove: http://www.esbit.de/en/products/67/solid-fuel-stove-st11-5-ti

In reply to Beano:

It really depends on what you mean by 'lightweight', and what you intend to do with the stove (what you're going to cook, where, in what conditions).

A home-made drinks can meths burner and conical pan support/windshield can weigh as little as 35g, and fit inside the pan it supports. Meths is lighter for shortish trips, since you only need to carry the fuel you need, not a fixed size canister. The container also weighs a lot less than a steel gas canister.

Whatever stove you choose, make sure you use a windshield; make one from a roasting tray or drink can sidewall.

For winter, a gas stove with a pre-heat tube allowing liquid feed is useful, since it makes for better cold weather performance, and prevents preferential burning of more volatile propane in a propane/butane mix.

The Alpkit stove mentioned earlier is a re-badged Fire Maple (Alpkit make no bones about that). Many other companies also re-badge Fire Maple stoves, including Karrimor, available in the dreaded SportsDirect. I bought one of their Alpine remote canister stoves a while ago (a Fire Maple FMS-118), which has pre-heat tube, folding legs and is nice and low profile (i.e. stable). It seems to work fine, even on liquid feed mode.

Quoted boil times are usually measured with the burner 'set to 11'. As such, they are merely a test of how fast the stove can burn gas (aka burner power). For real-world use, a much more moderate setting should be used, with a longer boil time, otherwise most of the heat simply pisses uselessly up the side of the pan. The heat exchanger systems are better in this respect, since they can pull out more heat from the flame (increased surface are exposed to the hot gas).

I'd consider the Reactor to be a heavyweight stove (500g!), but then I'm a bit of a DIY meths stove nutter...

In reply to Beano:

I like my caldera cone, though it doesn't come out so much in winter. For that I have a Kovea Spider... its a bit harder to come by than the Fire Maple equivalents, but it is quite light and works nicely. There's a guy in Korea selling them on ebay; it'll take a good couple of weeks or more to ship them to the UK, so if you're in a hurry maybe look elsewhere!

In reply to Beano: I've just ordered an MSR Microrocket (I think it's the new Pocket Rocket), it's a smaller, better version anyway. It seems to have really fast boil times, and is very compact. A lot cheaper than the Reactor, and more flexible as you aren't tied to using just the one pot. Obviously you need to buy a pot (or two).

In reply to 1poundSOCKS:

Thanks guys for all your input and help, I've considered various options and I'll try the reactor but the pocket rocket was very tempting .. yes Its not really lightweight but I think it will serve my needs well when I'm out and about, yes there are smaller lighter options and being ex mil I'm well used to using the good old hexy blocks and other burners.

Thanks again

In reply to Mr-Cowdrey:

I confirn this is the case, it comes as a kit and includes a stabliser and an adaptor that allows normal pans to be used. Both parts work very well and are designed as such they both fit inside the JB with the burner and gas. The stabliser fits both small and large canisters. highly reccomended!