For the original poster, I echo the sentiments of most of the rest here - buy a canister stove. Something like an MSR pocket
rocket, or Snow Peak gigapower. Something small, light, and easy. You can fiddle with alcohol or esbit later - and white gas or kerosene is for special purposes - like deep winter.
I got out my ancient XGK (white gas MSR) and lit it this week. It lit pretty easily even in cold wind, but in really bad weather a white gas stove is nearly impossible to get primed and therefore maybe not lit. The XGK does put out enough heat for winter camping, an MSR Whisper-lite is very marginal. I have no experience with any of the new stoves besides the Coleman Xtreme and the 2 burner model.
I've never had any trouble priming any of them, as long as I was a bit patient in serious cold, and they weren't clogged up with crap (which my MSR's have all had a tendancy to do if I've left crud in the lines). With the whisperlite I typically just prime it twice below -20 before attempting to open it up. My ancient XGK only goes to spike camp, and only gets primed with alcohol because it eats kerosene - and my deeply ingrained pyromaina does not extend far enough to like repeatedly priming an XGK with kerosene.
But not enough heat?? Heck, I find the whisperlite has tons, but the XGK? now ok, mines an old round one, but I'm pretty sure it throws something close to 18K BTU's on kerosene, it can't be that much less on white gas. - Got the wrong jet in the old beast?
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