Hand Warmer

[partinj]

I was just wonder if you could use hand warmer to help warm up the fuel for the snow peak stove. itry them they don't get that hot and i would think they would help warm up the fuel on really cold days on the trail what do you folks think. :-?

[kayak karl]

there was a suggestion on here one time to keep fuel in a flask and carry in pocket. body temp will keep warm.
PS mark it fuel :)

[partinj]

Hi everone when i was talking about fuel i was talking about the Canister fuel for the snow peak stove i figure the hand warmers would help to keep the canister warm and not blow up on me. I try the hand warmer out they get warm but they do gey hot i figure they would help on really cold days what do all you think

[DAKS]

just sleep with the canister in the foot of yer' sleeping bag if room allows.

[wrongway_08]

I slept with the canister and then wrapped the canister with my gloves while cooking, this seemed to do the trick pretty good.

You can also use a peice of alum foil to direct heat towards the canister - I will be tryn this on the next outing.

[the_iceman]

I carried a jetboil and had no problems. It was 10 degrees on Easter weekend and snowing before we got to Blood Mountain. I kept mine in my tent near me but not in my bag. Once the stove starts it throws back enough heat. There are differnent gas mixes that are better in cold weather.

I would get the jetboil or giga power fuel in the smaller cans since they are easier to fit in your pocket. This have a "all weather" fuel mix. I think the gig power is a 1/2 more fuel in the can than the jetboil.

There are some cheaper fuels like charmglow?? (black can) that are not as good.

I liked 2 smaller cans over 1 big one. It was easier to keep track of your fuel and you could throw away the first can when it was empty so you had 4 or 5 days of one can before you bought your second can.

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

Hand warmers are heavy and a one-time use item... you'd be better off using the other suggestions here, but HYOH

[Panzer1]

I think it would be safe to use a disposable hand warmer to warm up a isopro fuel canister in cold weather because the hand warmers don't really get that hot. You can always place the hand warmer in a used sock to reduce the heat output. That's because the sock reduces the available air and the warmer won't be as hot. But it will also last longer.

The hand warmer trick won't work that well in the dead of winter though. If the weather is really cold just get a cold weather stove. That's what most hikers do. A lot of people on this site have both cold weather and warm weather stoves.

I think that people try to use the isopro stoves in cold weather because they work so well in warm weather that people just don't want to give them up. They are nice stoves. But you have to use a certain amount of judgement here as to when to give up on the isopro stoves and go with a winter stove.

One reason why people don't like putting the canister in their pocket is because it robs your body of heat and makes you feel colder. I also always worried about falling with a canister in my pocket. That's probably just paranoia though.

Panzer
the paranoid

[River Runner]

Hand warmers are heavy and a one-time use item... you'd be better off using the other suggestions here, but HYOH

And fairly expensive if you use many of them.

[Wanderingson]

Try these little tricks for canister fuel in winter months.

Keep it well insulated in your pack

Through it in your bag at night

and now a cool little secret:

Use the lid from your cooking system as a turbo booster. Put a little water in your lid and heat it on your stove during initial fire up. Sure, you will get a little sputtering, but get the water in the lid good and warm. Then carefully put the lid with the warm water on a flat surface and put the canister in the warm water. If you CAREFULLY do this while it is lit, you will notice it immediately kick in like a turbo booster and come to life.

Give it a whirl and report your results back here for the rest of the crowd.