Canster Fuel Management....

I'm sure this has been covered, and may be a dumb question, but
do you use more fuel blasting your stove full out, or throttled down to medium?
Say you have to boil a liter of water. Running it on blast boils it in 4 minutes and running on medium 6 minutes. Which used more fuel, assuming you don't care how long it takes?
Might be a fun experiment....

Get a canister and weigh it. After each burn weigh it again. Fairly straightforward if you are doing it in the same location at the same ambient temp and same weather/wind, and let the stove and can cool down/return to normal between burns to remove more variables.

Yup, the way to find out frealz is testing bringing a set amount to boil in identical conditions with different "throttle" settings, and weigh the fuel used.

Very generally, wider pots are more efficient, always use a windscreen and tight pot lid, and never let the flame come around the pot sides. Some stoves also don't have their pot supports at the best height, but that's a design issue.

Cheers,

Rick

If you are truly interested in this sort of thing, go to backpackinglight.com - Roger Caffin has tested various stoves over the years and written articles. One that I downloaded focused on carbon monoxide emissions. Interesting stuff. You have to buy the articles or get a membership - might be worth it if multiple articles are of interest to you.

threads like this make me appeciate my msr reactor. I only take it when with larger groups. allows one or more of my compainions to not have to carry a stove. very effecient

I've found that turning up the burner all the way simply sends a lot more flame up the side of the pot instead of onto the bottom. Halfway seems to be more efficient. That's especially true with the narrow 550 ml pot I use for solo trips. I haven't, however, tested this out by weighing the canister, which I should.

I still haven't caught a fish to be able to measure how much fuel is needed for fish frying, either. My grandson had no luck, either, on our recent trip.

I have cooked a lot of fish on a stove and it is so variable that you could not come up with an exact time to cook or heat setting. A 8-inch pan full of fish takes at least 4-5 minutes on med-low heat. Depends on how willing you are to eat fish cooked rare. It is critical to have a pan with a tight lid. You basically steam the fish and then if you want a crispy skin, take off the lid the final few minutes. You can save a bit of fuel if you have a larger heavier fry pan, but then the extra weight of the pan is more than the fuel. Tiny fish are a pain to eat (pick out bones) and big fish hard to cook. I do best with medium size (about a fat 10-inch trout), cut in half, tails and heads removed. I actually do not mind taking extra fuel for fish- if I do not catch fish I can have lots of extra hot drinks. Fuel is never "wasted". Hot water to wash my face is a real luxury.

You should be interested in the Backpacking Light article on carbon monoxide, if that is an older model. Their tests resulted in MSR revamping that stove, as it gave off dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.

thanks im going to contact manufacture and look into this, really apreciate it!