A few questions about my jet boil and wind pro

[pawlinghiker]

Had a few questions I would like tossed around the blaze..

- will my jet boil preform better in the cold ( 10 degrees ) with a brand new canister apposed to a semi used canister ? Assume I will be keeping it in my jacket to keep it warm.

- is there a " to low weight " for weighing used canisters to see if they are worth using on the trail ?

- I just bought a wind pro and cranked it up.

- I used a jet boil canister is this that same as the MSR canister ?

- when I screwed it on it sprayed freezing cold gas on my hand, valve on stove was off , is this normal ???

- the hose froze as soon as connected the stove to the canister, outside temp was 25 degrees ( approx ) canister has been stored in a cold garage.

- stove ran real hot, the 3 fins of the stove became red hot, is this normal ?

- if these symptoms are normal I would say it safe to assume this stove uses way way more gas than my jet boil ?


I was told by someone on this site that Jet Boils are sub par in the cold ( under 20 ) and wind pros are better ?

What are some peoples opinion on this, I really prefer the jet boil due to is compact size and its a one package deal.

[HooKooDooKu]

Check out this thread... similar questions were asked there:
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?100035-In-freezing-cold-my-jet-boil-did-not-have-any-pressure

But the bottom line is that canister stoves are fundamentally not very good/efficient/works-at-all in cold weather.

As for a new canister v semi-used, a new canister will have more pressure.
As for the issue of freezing cold gas... that's thermodynamics 101. The expanding gas leaving the canister cools just like Freon in an air conditioner.
As for the leak even with the valve off... well canisters have a self-sealing valve. When you screw on the stove, the stove pushes open this valve. With most stoves, there will be a point where the stove is on enough to start opening the valve, but the stove isn't on enough to avoid leakage through the threaded connection. So to minimizes leakage, you want to screw the stove on as reasonably quickly as you can.
As for red fins... they are sitting in a fire, so yes it is reasonable for them to turn red. They are still strong enough to support a small stove (i.e. the jet boil canisters). What you can not expect the fins to do is support a heavy pot, like a 2qt pot full of water. The weight and the heat would bend the fins (but that goes for most light-weight canister stoves, not just JetBoil.

Bottom line, nothing you describe sounds out of the ordinary to me.

[bfayer]

A couple of things, and you may already be doing this. First keep the canister valve pointing up when attaching to the stove. You will get a small amount of gas escaping but you should not get liquid if the valve is pointed up.

With the windpro ii make sure you light the stove with the canister valve up. Only after the preheat tube is hot should you invert the canister.

Yes the windpro will get red hot if you keep it turned up. This is also why it works well for melting snow. You can always turn it down if you don't need as much heat.

Also always use the wind screen or it will burn much more fuel than needed.

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[Zmaidment]

I used a Jetboil the entire way with no problems. It took a bit longer in the snow of the smokies but was fine. Some people like to cut on em but was my experience that they were these most efficient of most any stove out there. I usually got 9 days out of the smaller canisters and at least two weeks out of the larger. Jetboil makes a four season canister. Just shake it up. Only bad thing about Jb was their customer service. Witch isnt very good They aren't going to do you any favors. They accused me of Doing more but boiling water in their titanium version. Problem with that was, I hadn't. They ended up replacing but not without a headache. If I had been on the trail and it had taken that long I would have been pretty ticked and that's a legitimate concern.

[magneto]

I've used my JetBoil in cold temps and it works fine, it is not "sub par". Much easier than carrying around a liquid fuel stove, wind screen and fuel canister. Use the canisters labelled "4 season mix" and as you suggested, start with them warm from being in your jacket or in your sleeping bag. As they get cold from the air temp and expanding gas, the stove will take longer to heat, but a JetBoil doesn't take that long anyway. If the canister gets too cold, shut down the stove and warm it up in you pocket, or have a second canister already warmed up and ready to go. When the air temp is in the single digits, you won't want to be doing anything but boiling water anyway. It's not like you are going to cook a 5 course meal!

[bfayer]

I've used my JetBoil in cold temps and it works fine, it is not "sub par". Much easier than carrying around a liquid fuel stove, wind screen and fuel canister. Use the canisters labelled "4 season mix" and as you suggested, start with them warm from being in your jacket or in your sleeping bag. As they get cold from the air temp and expanding gas, the stove will take longer to heat, but a JetBoil doesn't take that long anyway. If the canister gets too cold, shut down the stove and warm it up in you pocket, or have a second canister already warmed up and ready to go. When the air temp is in the single digits, you won't want to be doing anything but boiling water anyway. It's not like you are going to cook a 5 course meal!

I love my Jetboil, I find it to be the near perfect stove for 3 season use. My guess however is you are not trying to use your Jetboil to melt snow. If and when you find yourself in a situation where liquid water is not available, I believe you will see the limitations of a upright canister stove in the winter.

[pawlinghiker]

i guess I will have to pack the wind pro for overnight winter camping for melting snow and boiling water, seems like a bunch of components to do the same as the jet boil.

I have the 4 season gas and I will devise the best way to keep it warm while hiking and camping.

I weighed a used canister and it weighed 60 grams less than a new canister. It states that it is 100g so that would leave me to believe that the canister is 60 % empty ? Im sure that is not mostly propane and not as combustable as a new canister. so would the rule be in colder weather dont use canisters lower than 50 % full ?

I assume the half empty canisters will work well in the warmer months.

when i was referring to the fins getting hot I meant on the wind pro, not the JB

I cant wait to get out and do some winter camping.

[Dirty Nails]

If you do enough "deep winter" camping (and you will in Pawling) you will eventually have problems with canisters...I promise!!! The only advantage with the Windpro is that you can invert the can. This feeds the fuel to the stove as a liquid instead of vapor because you are delivering fuel from the bottom (it's upside down). That process enables the stove to burn in colder conditions...supposedly. It may help somewhat, but if you want to melt snow and make a lot of hot water, you will be disappointed. I have had every type of canister stove fail in the cold. at 40f and up, it's fine. In the 30's, so-so. 20's and bellow, I suggest a white gas (coleman fuel) stove. When it's 15 deg. and the sun has set, you want hot tea NOW!
Of coarse you could stick your cook pot in the fire when the stove just won't burn. That's why I've gone back to a cheap aluminum pot I don't mind trashing.
Camping with some of the good clubs in your area is a good, safe way to gain winter experience. There's plenty to learn. Good luck!!

[Rain Man]

May I butt in to ask a dumb question? What is the deal about turning the canister upside down with an MSR Wind Pro stove? I have one, though rarely use it, so maybe I don't know all I should about them.

Why turn the canister upside down? And, how would I keep it there, as it would just flop over?

Thanks in advance! I snatched this pic off the web to confirm I'm thinking of the same stove as y'all are talking about.

Rain Man

.

[magic_game03]

Any body who says that using a canister in winter is full of brown matter.

…600 miles of snowshoeing on my '05 thru,
… 3 years of running a mountaineering cooperative that did winter ascents of '14-eeners throughout the Sierra and Cascades,
…and the canister stove, Jetboil and Pocket Rocket, were my best friends.

In extreme harsh conditions being able to cook up a hot tea or soup in under 5 minutes was critical. Anybody who tells you a canister is trouble in cold weather is full of it.

P.S. I did 700 miles on 16 oz's of fuel on my '04 AT thru-hike. from RockFish Gap VA to Kent, CT. That's two hots a day, coffee in the morning and an occasional hot soup or tea in the afternoon if the weather didn't break freezing all day.

P.P.S More critical than stoves is your wind guard. I've seen people go through a whole canister of fuel (big can too) trying to cook a meal without a wind guard in cool windy conditions.

[bfayer]

May I butt in to ask a dumb question? What is the deal about turning the canister upside down with an MSR Wind Pro stove? I have one, though rarely use it, so maybe I don't know all I should about them.

Why turn the canister upside down? And, how would I keep it there, as it would just flop over?

Thanks in advance! I snatched this pic off the web to confirm I'm thinking of the same stove as y'all are talking about.

Rain Man

.

When you invert the canister you are sending liquid to the stove and not gas. You can only do this with a stove that has a preheat tube (see the tube that loops next to the burner in your pic). The preheat tube turns the liquid back into a gas.

Since you're pushing liquid to the stove you only need a couple pounds of pressure in the canister. With the canister upright you need much more pressure in the canister to keep the stove going. This keeps the stove going when it gets really cold. Usually down to about 0*F depending on the mixture in the canister.

The WindPro II comes with a canister stand to keep it stable when inverted.

25913



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[HooKooDooKu]

May I butt in to ask a dumb question? What is the deal about turning the canister upside down with an MSR Wind Pro stove? I have one, though rarely use it, so maybe I don't know all I should about them.

Why turn the canister upside down? And, how would I keep it there, as it would just flop over?.
Trying to keep this simple (so this might not be technically correct)...

The canister contains a mixture of two fuels, fuels that vaporize at different temperatures. When the temperature is too cold, only one of the fuels vaporizes. When that occurs, you not only get the improper mix of fuels coming out of the canister, once that one fuel is used up, you won't be able to access the other fuel because it is not vaporizing.

By turning the canister up-side-down, you are using the pressure of the fuel that is still vaporizing to push a liquid fuel mix to the burner.

As for keeping the canister up-side-down, the latest versions of the MSR stoves designed to work with a canister and fuel line come with a set of feet that attach to the canister to hold it up-side-down (http://www.rei.com/product/830342/msr-whisperlite-universal-backpacking-stove).

[Nooga]

Any body who says that using a canister in winter is full of brown matter.

…600 miles of snowshoeing on my '05 thru,
… 3 years of running a mountaineering cooperative that did winter ascents of '14-eeners throughout the Sierra and Cascades,
…and the canister stove, Jetboil and Pocket Rocket, were my best friends.

In extreme harsh conditions being able to cook up a hot tea or soup in under 5 minutes was critical. Anybody who tells you a canister is trouble in cold weather is full of it.

P.S. I did 700 miles on 16 oz's of fuel on my '04 AT thru-hike. from RockFish Gap VA to Kent, CT. That's two hots a day, coffee in the morning and an occasional hot soup or tea in the afternoon if the weather didn't break freezing all day.

P.P.S More critical than stoves is your wind guard. I've seen people go through a whole canister of fuel (big can too) trying to cook a meal without a wind guard in cool windy conditions.

What wind guard do you recommend for a Jetboil?

[magic_game03]

Well, I've been showing off a custom made aluminum foil screen for years and I've never seen anybody else copy it so I stopped going out of my way to explain it, but I'll give you the quick low-down. Even with a jet boil I use a wind screen that covers the entire system. Most people I see use a heavy gauge aluminum foil that covers just the flame but they leave the entire pot and fuel mostly exposed. My system uses typical kitchen aluminum foil and I double it to make it two ply. I form the two ply into a cylinder with about an inch of room between the shield and the cooking system. from there I've basically made an oven for the entire cook system to fit into with enough room for air to get pulled into the bottom and funneled through the top.


Some interesting notes (well, I find them interesting.)

… while the entire system covers the gas canister and sometimes they get too hot to touch but I've never had a canister explode, which seems to be a major worry of so many (AND REASONABLY SO!) but I've never had a problem. After doing as many times as I have you do become numb to the controversy of exploding canisters.

… on my first thru I started with white gas and changed to alcohol at Ms. Janet's (Erwin, TN.) I used alcohol till New Hampshire and then I changed to gas canisters with the Snow Peak Giga stove. Since then I've never went back to either alcohol or white gas, they are just too messy, troublesome, and unreliable for me personally.

… typical screen weighs about 25-30 grams (~1 oz) but for the fuel efficiency and quick cook time I'm not looking to shave a few grams. I'm not here trying to push UL or speed hiking because I'm not either but if you want to average 25-30 mile days you gotta be ready to pop-lock-and-drop on some of your wasted time, like spending 20-30 at every cook. Sorry to hate on all you late sleepers, but I hate to camp and I love to hike, which pretty much means 20 minutes from the time I wake I wanna be on the trail, not spending 2 hours getting ready in the morning hanging around some funky shelter. I'll spend my lazy time on top of a mountain, at a view point or some other nice spot.

… HYOH (very important lesson here!) You may find that you don't like canister stoves or wind screens, so Hike-Your-Own-Hike and try a lot of different things. That's they only true way to find your inner-hiker. There have been so many times I've seen hikers succeed using methods that failed for me, and vice-versa.


There is so much more to say about canister stoves and wind screens but I'll leave it at that.

[HooKooDooKu]

… while the entire system covers the gas canister and sometimes they get too hot to touch but I've never had a canister explode, which seems to be a major worry of so many (AND REASONABLY SO!) but I've never had a problem. After doing as many times as I have you do become numb to the controversy of exploding canisters.
And that is what gets people killed.

That seems to be the exact same attitude taken just before a major industrial accident happens... people push the safely limits, when nothing bad happens, they remain at pushed limits, and eventually a weakness in the system develops and something goes horribly wrong.

To date, you might have been getting lucky... that every canister you've used happens to have average to better than average welds. But eventually, you (or others with similar attitudes) happen to be using that canister that was below average in its construction. And when that 1st canister explodes on you, it won't matter that all the previous canisters didn't.

Now I'll admit that manufactures are overly cautious with their instructions... after all, they have to deal with every Tom, Dick, and idiot that doesn't always know the correct way to operate potentially dangerous equipment. So there is a middle ground between the overly cautious instructions, and making reasonable use of windscreens against the manufacturer's instructions.

But IMHO, unless you've got detailed data on exactly what the manufacturing standards of these canisters are (and what is the absolute weakest they could possibly be), then utilizing a wind screen to the point of a canister being too hot to touch is foolish at best.

[magic_game03]

And that is what gets people killed. …blah, blah, blah….

*Please read my notes, in particular the first note-last sentence, "I have become numb to the controversy of exploding canisters." So your not going to bait me. Else, if there is something else on that list that you want to discuss I am open for the conversation.

P.S. 99.999999999999% of all the people in this forum feel as you do. Of course 99.99999999% of the people in this forum haven't done 6 thru's, nor have they done two trails in a single year, nor have they snowshoed 600 miles of AT, nor have (oh whatever.) once again no debate here buddy.

[LAF]

Ego?


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[magic_game03]

Ego or pride in accomplishment, call it what you want. That zest is what drives some people to run a marathon, complete an Ironman, or be a thru-hiker, or even be a #1 NOBO. Yep, been there and your more than welcome to call it ego but then you got to recognize.

[Dirty Nails]

OK, I'm gonna get way off-off-track here and actually target the original questions, imagine that!!!

I think it's obvious by the nature of his questions the OP is learning his way around camp stove use. I commend him for doing his research, even if it's sometimes hard to stomach:).
I don't expect him (or her) to be as proficient as some expert users with multiple thru's and 40 yrs experience.

To Pawlinghiker, it sounds like everything you are experiencing is about normal/typical. Here is a link to some good info for some questions about gas canisters. More detailed answers for Rain Man too.

http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-not-just-use-propane.html

Also check out the additional articles near the bottom of page.

[4eyedbuzzard]

OK, I'm gonna get way off-off-track here and actually target the original questions, imagine that!!!

I think it's obvious by the nature of his questions the OP is learning his way around camp stove use. I commend him for doing his research, even if it's sometimes hard to stomach:).
I don't expect him (or her) to be as proficient as some expert users with multiple thru's and 40 yrs experience.

To Pawlinghiker, it sounds like everything you are experiencing is about normal/typical. Here is a link to some good info for some questions about gas canisters. More detailed answers for Rain Man too.

http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-not-just-use-propane.html

Also check out the additional articles near the bottom of page.Good link there on the physics of canister stoves. Note that Jetboils, MSR Reactors, etc are used on most Himalayan and other alpine expeditions. They're exceptionally fast, reliable, and safe - requiring no liquid fuel handling. You just have to learn a little bit about how they work and methods for keeping the canister warm just long enough to heat up a batch of water.

[Dirty Nails]

[QUOTE keeping the canister warm just long enough to heat up a batch of water.[/QUOTE]

Now that's the real key to this whole "debate" I think. It all depends what you consider a batch of water. For 2 cups to hydrate a freeze dried meal, or some tea, soup, whatever, yes a canister can do the trick with a little technique.
However, I like to boil up a couple of liters for hot water bottles to preheat my sleeping bag and keep me toasty into the wee hours. That gives me 2 liters treated and ready to go in the morn. Then I preheat my cold boots with them. Added to the liter for dinner and hot choc. that's about 3 liters boiled. I don't feel I could easily do that w/a canister. For some, it will seem like way more than necessary. OK, maybe, but I like to be comfortable at night, and I try to drink every bit to stay well hydrated during the day.
Also consider that if someone suffers genuine hypothermia, I want lots of hot water bottles to warm them. Not likely, but you never know.
I was out 2 weeks ago after the last storm, in the Catskills. It was 2 degF. I don't screw around at that temp. Just me.

[4eyedbuzzard]

[QUOTE keeping the canister warm just long enough to heat up a batch of water.

Now that's the real key to this whole "debate" I think. It all depends what you consider a batch of water. For 2 cups to hydrate a freeze dried meal, or some tea, soup, whatever, yes a canister can do the trick with a little technique.
However, I like to boil up a couple of liters for hot water bottles to preheat my sleeping bag and keep me toasty into the wee hours. That gives me 2 liters treated and ready to go in the morn. Then I preheat my cold boots with them. Added to the liter for dinner and hot choc. that's about 3 liters boiled. I don't feel I could easily do that w/a canister. For some, it will seem like way more than necessary. OK, maybe, but I like to be comfortable at night, and I try to drink every bit to stay well hydrated during the day.
Also consider that if someone suffers genuine hypothermia, I want lots of hot water bottles to warm them. Not likely, but you never know.
I was out 2 weeks ago after the last storm, in the Catskills. It was 2 degF. I don't screw around at that temp. Just me.[/QUOTE]You can use a little of the water from the first boil batch to keep the warm the canister warm in a shallow pan. Sounds like you probably need a 2 liter+ pan for melting snow anyway. But if learning to use a canister stove just isn't for you then maybe you are better off with a liquid fuel stove. Lots of ways to skin a cat.

[Starvin Marvin]

May I butt in to ask a dumb question? What is the deal about turning the canister upside down with an MSR Wind Pro stove? I have one, though rarely use it, so maybe I don't know all I should about them.

Why turn the canister upside down? And, how would I keep it there, as it would just flop over?

Thanks in advance! I snatched this pic off the web to confirm I'm thinking of the same stove as y'all are talking about.

Rain Man

.

Hi Rain Man,

Please note there is a difference between the Wind Pro and the Wind Pro II. The Wind Pro II has a swivel at the valve end to allow the canister to be inverted, without twisting up the fuel line. The valve body also has indentations to accept the canister stand. Hope that helps.