Stove

[shanesherman]

Can someone please recommend a good backpacking stove to me? I was thinking about going with a JetBoil but was not sure if there is something better for backpacking out there.

[SteelCut]

This thread from 3 days ago might be a good place to start. There is a link also to a comprehensive article on stoves.

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?105698-Stoves-All-opinions-welcome

[shanesherman]

Thanks for the tip, I will check that out.

[RodentWhisperer]

Something tells me you'll see a massive amount of suggestions/recommendations. We all have our favorites, and can all make serious cases.

My own $0.02: spend a little time thinking about what kind of hiking you'll do, where you'll hike, what your goals for each trip are, and what kind of dishes you intend to fix. All those can be a factor in whether/not a particular stove works well.

[12trysomething]

I will offer this video...maybe a free one for you to try :) the journey of stove choice is endless....at least it has been for me! Good luck!

http://youtu.be/EKy9w_hbg80

[bert304]

The Jetboil is nice if you just want to boil water. I was looking at the Jetboil also then I found the Soto Micro Regulator stove and I paired it with a Oilcamp XTS pot. Almost he same as the Jetboil but I can use a frying pan with out any adapters.

[Dedicated Hanger]

Once you purchase 20 stoves and test them all, it makes you want to purchase 20 more and test them too. Do not go down this road. It leads to having a mis-spent life of buying new ones, going back packing, and testing them in the woods. In truth, I have found that there is not a perfect one. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. One characteristic of portable stoves that now drives my buying decisions now is it's failure mode, no no matter how rare that possibility of failure may be. If there is a one in a thousand possibility that my choice of stove will fail catastrophically (and kill or maim someone), then I will no longer take that chance. My advice would be to go to the internet and read about failure modes and what may occur and why, before you make your purchasing decision. I wish that I had done my homework years ago. Life is a journey. Be as safe as possible.

[Oma-n-Opa]

Hanger, sounds like there is a story brewing in that post...

[Traveler]

I've used MSR Whisperlight stoves for years without much trouble. I use a JetBoil stove on occasion but can't do a lot of cooking on it without adapters. If thats of any help.

[Starchild]

The first question: What kind of cooking style do you ideally want to do?

From no nonsense, minimal time to elaborate meals, and anything in between.


for the hike you want to hike?
Thru hike to base camp hiking, even to car camping.

Do you have time that cooking will help fill your day? Is cooking and eating just a basic requirement of your hike?

Before deciding on a stove, decide what you want out of meal time and camp time (including fire time with wood stoves) and how it fits into your hike.

Going further on edit:

For me except for the warm summer months, on my thru, my main 2 things I did was Hike and Sleep. Everything else detracted from those 2. So I wanted no nonsense cooking, but I also wanted a hot cup of joe in the AM. The Jetboil worked great. Fast Fast Fast, more time for hiking and sleeping equated to more miles and more resting. Really I have heard from many hikers that the Jetboil is so fast that they are not ready before their water is at full boil.

For the summer months all I wanted was a hot cup of joe in the AM, so I switched to Esbit simply for the weight savings. I would go back to that for summers anytime. But when fall (well late August which in the North feels like fall) and Katahdin approached I got my Jetboil back.

Now I had a hiking companion Splash who used a wood stove with a backup of alcohol, it suited her and saved some weight at the expense of time, and with that said my Jetboil (or Esbit) was a backup to her backup. But it was also her hike and her style, she enjoyed the wood stove and the fire making process and cherished that time, I simply was able to shortcut tmes it would have been frustrating or tiring to make her methods work.

After my thru, I got a little job ridgerunning the AT and found I had plenty of time on my hands on the trail and found that a alchy stove worked pretty darn well. My distance per day was set by my patrol route and usually much shorter and not much to do. The longer cooking times, and my modification to Zepher's Starlyte stove to make it simmer also, enhanced and increased what I could eat on the trail.

So it is individual what will be best for you and also for the hike you want to make.

[garlic08]

This link (http://www.pmags.com/stove-comparison-real-world-use) is in the link to the other thread, but it's worth repeating.

[Another Kevin]

Once you purchase 20 stoves and test them all, it makes you want to purchase 20 more and test them too.

Building them is even worse! (Although less costly, since you make them out of rubbish.) Once you get started on stove building, you're ruined. :)

[Odd Man Out]

Building them is even worse! (Although less costly, since you make them out of rubbish.) Once you get started on stove building, you're ruined. :)

Tell me about it. Yesterday my wife was digging around my workbench and asked "why do we have a big bag of juice cans down here?"