More gear talk!
I was hoping to find personal opinions about what stoves you all migth use. Include any data you can about the stove if you can or want to.
I use a side burner soda can stove and a cat stove. Both boil water around 4 minutes or so.Cat stove uses 15ml of fuel o boil and the soda can uses a little more. I have failed to "simmer" either of the stoves yet.
Which is why I am thinking of getting a white gas stove to try and "cook" with it but read not many of the white gas stoves can "simmer", is this true?
Not a fan of canister, but I am thinking of getting one(pocket rocket it giga?)

Thanks,
Ryan

I've used a bunch of stoves over the years: Svea, Whisperlite, Snow Peak Gigapower, Pocket Rocket, Superfly, Crux, Simmerlite, Jetboil, Trangia/Clikstand, Wind Pro, and probably a couple I've forgotten.

They've all performed well, which is to say they do a really good job of boiling water. I've been looking for that elusive "perfect" stove. I'm slowly realizing that there is no such thing - but I'm not quite ready to give up the search!

IMO there is a perfect stove for each trip, but not one for all trips.

The stove I use most often is the Caldera cone.

for what it's worth, one of the things that is influencing my next stove purchase is CO2 output. because I'm going to be doing some winter camping, which means cooking in my vestibule, i want to be sure I don't poison myself. backpackinglight.com had a very good, thorough, and scientific write-up on a bunch of different stoves and their CO2 output. because of that article, I'm going with a Snow Peak GS100

Make a second cat stove with fewer holes. Google simmer cat for example.

The thing about white gas stoves I have seen in operation - they have many parts, they are heavy, and are essentially bunsen burners. Folks I see using them don't cook either. The cooking I see is typically being done over canister stoves like the Jetboil - the group kit comes with all kinds of stuff like a coffee maker and skillet.

I use a wick alcohol stove for simmering - it can be set high or low with a little fiddling. This is my solution for steam baking when I want to bother with biscuits. I also have a simmer cat, but the truth is, I just boil 99% of the time, and plan meals to suit that style. I sometimes boil in bag with foodsaver (nylon lined with polyethylene) bags.

Were I in the market for a stove for cooking, I would be looking at the MSR Windpro. Low (not tippy as an on-canister stove), can use a windscreen (canister stoves suck up the fuel like a mutha in wind), and nice wide burner.

Boiling water is number one, and it hard to miss with any stove. The main importance is fuel efficiency. The soda can stove i just got uses just around 20-25ml of fuel to boil 2cups. The cat stove i made uses 15ml. The con of my cat stove needs a pot stand, the soda doesn't. Today i baked bread using both stoves. I also got the cat stove to "simmer" by adding a strip on foil blocking the air holes, to make it burn long i am going to JB weld a round piece of oven liner to seal the bottom.
I am not sure if ill get a white gas just because of all the thing that can fail on it. Which is why I am still not ruling out the canister stoves either. I have never be winter camping or touring i hear that canister stoves dont perform well at cold temps, can anyone provide more information on this?

Just made a new alcohol stove yesterday.
It is made from some the 5oz cans. I added some insulation in the bottom and it works great. I can boil water with 15-20ml of fuel. It has basically the same fuel efficiency as the larger cat stove. The main plus is it uses a smaller pot stand that can fit in the pot i use.

Hi Bushman,

That's really nice work--very clean and neat. I'm impressed!

I have quite a bit of WG stove experience and find most can be coaxed into simmering in support of "real" cooking as compared to boiling a lot of water. The ones least inclined to are those that use the "roarer" style burner that shoot the vapor straight at a burner plate, like the venerable MSR XGK. They're fine for boiling a lot of water or melting a lot of snow with minimal attention from the user.

Whisper and Simmerlite style stoves require finesse with fuel pressure and valve adjustment, but either will simmer. Generally this means low pressure in the tank and additional pumping if running it for extended periods. They have wide burner heads that spread the flame well, reducing hot spots and scorching.

With canister stoves, the burner head has a big influence on how it will cook. Wide heads that emit from the sides are easier than narrow heads that emit straight up (i.e., blowtorch). Remote versus screw into the cartridge is a whole other topic.

Finally, it's also possible to simmer with a Trangia burner that has the rotating cover. Not easy, but possible.

cheers,

Ha ha yeah that pic is from zen stoves. Should have said that.

mine looks no where near that pro.