snow peak gigapower torch

I got a chance to try out my new Snow Peak gigapower torch today. It will adapt to CB or the normal OD canisters. If you remove the CB adapter it weighs 5.8 oz in the mode shown in the photo.

I turned it on just cracking the valve and got about an 8 inch flame over an inch in diameter, plenty to start a campfire from seaweed. In 7 minutes it burned just under .6 oz of fuel, so it would burn well over an hour at this rate on the 220 gram fuel bottle (about 80 minutes). I put 16 ounces of tap water into an uncovered one liter titanium pan which I held over the flame and it was at a rolling boil in 3.5 minutes outside in a wind and 50 degrees F.

For those who just boil water this might be a really nice piece of gear as it requires no windscreen. I generally cook by holding the pan above the stove with my hand and keeping it moving so I don't scorch my food and have complete control over the cooking process so its no hardship to me that I can't set it down. I will be cooking pasta with it this weekend, and we will use it to light a campfire in a damp forest to cook our steaks with, which would be a daunting task using vasoline in cotton wads!

So I used the same fuel bottle which was kinda cooled already and I should have warmed it up but I didn't. I turned the gas all the way up and put the titanium pan over it with ten ounces of water for a cup of coffee. In 40 seconds it was hot enough and the flame was going down a lot because the fuel bottle was chilling. In 60 seconds the water was at a rolling boil but the flames was getting down a lot as the canister wa really cold by then. It burned .2 ounce og +- .05oz.
Jim

Neat! It may make me a bad person, but I think I want one not for backpacking, but for killing weeds. There exist other types of torches for that, but this would let me use up the partially-used canisters that I don't take camping because I can't tell exactly how long they've got left...

You mention that the fuel was cooling and the flame was getting fainter.

Is this unique to the torch? I don't experience this with my MSR canister stove.

Dj2
You may not notice it with your canister stove but it MUST happen the same with all compressed gas stoves. Its one of the gas laws from chemistry. The torch pulls off a lot of gas quickly so it cools quickly. If you use your canister stove in 40 degree weather you will learn about this. In warm weather the ambient air can keep the canister warm enough if the flame is turned low. Also the cooling function involves time x rate, so short cooking time wouldn't be so dramatic.

The expanding gas carries off the heat in the can. look up "Adiabatic Expansion Cooling "
Jim

B.S, Jim

The woods all dry on the inside and i'll prove it to you that you do not need a "torch" to start a fire, even when it's wet out. You're not in California anymore...welcome to Oregon

BF

I'll certainly vouch for this DJ2 - it's one of my reasons I'm not so keen on the canisters in cold weather - as you pull pressure out of them the temperature drops - works ok in warm weather but in the cold it can be a real bear to keep one going

This is why I take white gas on trips I expect to be significantly below freezing most of the time.

phat
As I suspect you know, I own both the Coleman Powermax stoves, the Xtreme and the Xpedition (doubleburner) and they use liquid feed of propane butane mix and I've used mine at -5 F and it worked great. I'm pretty sure it would still work at -20, but you'd have to add some heat reflected back on the fuel bottle to work much colder. White gas or kerosene are the preferred cold weather stoves but I hate the smell of kerosene burning so I'd use white gas in my old MSR XGK.

Yeah, kind of a shame about the PowerMax being so proprietary. I normally like white gas but I have three white gas stoves (Borde Bomb, SVEA 123, and MSR Whisperlite). I also have an old style MSR XGK but that one pretty much stays permanently with the kerosene jet in it, because my late hunting season spike camp kit includes kerosene lanterns (I'm not keen on the smell of kero, but like the *silence* of a kerosene lantern in a wall tent so i can hear the wolves at night) so I'm just as content to take kero for the stove that makes the coffee.

What you say makes sense.

Now that I think about it I've only used the MSR cannister stove in temps above freezing and only to heat 12 ounces of water or less.

I was using the gigatorch this morning to cook oatmeal and make coffee. It was about 38 degrees maybe and I had to dunk the canister in the warm water half way through. Then it ran out and just quit. I had used between 1.5 and 2 ounces of fuel to get our campfire going so we could cook our steaks (about 5 minutes of BIG flame from the torch). I am absolutely positive that if Bigfoot had sat by the fire carefully feeding it and blowing on it that he would have gotten it going with the bottle of alcohol and esbit that he started it with, the torch just helped it along a bit so we could eat sooner and I didn't want raw steak.
I think the torch performed admirably. We were in almost rain forest and it had snowed there the day before. I am very happy that I took the torch.
However bigfoot had a Varga thick titanium alcohol stove to die for. I covet his stove, its the only alcohol stove I've ever seen that meets my own standards. Like you can simply blow it out and pour the alcohol back into the bottle, and you can flip it over to use as an esbit stove. It has 3 folding legs on top and three on the bottom.
Jim

Yeah, my Vargo Ti-Triad is pretty cool! I have read a ton of bad reviews on it, but i don't think people really know how to use it properly. Make sure you have a good windscreen with holes on the bottom for air flow, fill up the stove all the way so there is a small pool of fuel in the top of the stove and i added a small peice of aluminum flashing cut in a circle to go under the stove as a heat reflector and it works like a champ. Boiled 1 liter of water at 38 degrees in about 9 minutes (in the REAL WORLD). Total burn time at 38 degrees with 1.5 ounces of fuel is 22 minutes (if you don't blow it out after boiling to save fuel).

Here's a link to the Vargo videos on it's use and operation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPDtPSRoRH4

BF

torch

Pyro...........

BF