MSR's history with stoves over past 30 years makes it the only choice in my mind for canister or gasoline stoves.
Gasoline is a pain, slightly dangerous, etc., and not all that light in weight.
Alcohol is GREAT for boiling a little water for a little cooking for one or two people. This person doesn't want that....That's my view.
My EXPERIENCE is the exact opposite of this. MSR can't seem to get stoves exactly right - some are okay, the Reactor was actually redesigned after it was panned by backpackinglight.com for giving off dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. The original pocket rocket was prone to the pot supports loosening and warping in the heat of the stove to the point that the pot wobbled dangerously. I got rid of mine after trying everything to keep the wind from blowing it out. (I don't try to cook in high winds. I'm talking about breezes.)
I've fried eggs over alcohol stoves, baked muffins, boiled pasta, and pretty much anything else - the Featherfire stove has an adjusting knob and simmers for 40 minutes on less than an ounce of fuel.
As usual, I think I am on a different planet than sandia.
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"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." Shunryu Suzuki
Lori, I am very intrigued about your alchohol stove. I have never been interested in making my own stove from a beer can. Is there a internet link to your stove that gives more information?
I'm goig to go rent acouple different models and take them on our next caping trip.I figure I'll try cooking meals on a different one each day,and see what happens...and throw my trusty ole stove in the truck just in case...lol
There's the two stove approach - make a Simmercat and a Supercat, boil on one and simmer on the other - or the adjustable stove.
Mini Bull Designs used to have the Black Fly - a stove that weighed the same as a Giga (three ounces) with adjustable height wicks and a base you filled with water to keep the alcohol cooler while you were operating the stove. Has built in pot supports. You could set it on high (more wick) to boil water, blow it out, reset it to simmer, and make anything you want. Tinny has since moved on to making remote canister clones (alcohol version) and stopped making stoves like that. It wasn't a pop can stove.
The Featherfire is at packafeather.com. I haven't used it much, since I am primarily a boiling-water type "cook" these days. The stove isn't the most durable thing ever but when I've taken it, wrapping it in a brawny towel prior to packing in the pot has done the trick. But it steam bakes near perfect muffins. You can snuff it with the lid and recover unused fuel.
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"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." Shunryu Suzuki
make a Simmercat and a Supercat, boil on one and simmer on the other
I use a so-called simmercat a lot, as opposed to the standard two-row version, because my testing showed it delivered more total heat per unit of fuel. IOW I find it more efficient though somewhat slower.
But I don't understand the "simmer" notion. Maybe at the very start, but once the fuel starts boiling furiously the thing is like a blowtorch, you can't simmer anything.
The only way a simmercat can be used for simmering is if you load it up with max fuel, get your couple of minutes of simmering, and then be able to snuff the flame and recover the fuel.
I like the MSR Pocket Rocket for its simplicity and reliability. If you get a skillet or pot that doesn't have a handle on it, it will stay balance on the stove arms. They have skillet handle you can just grab the cookware without it being permanently attached to the skillet. A buddy of mine has fried trouts with his Pocket Rocket using the same set up I just mentioned.
Edited by ETSU Pride (06/13/1201:35 PM)
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It is one of the blessings of wilderness life that it shows us how few things we need in order to be perfectly happy.-- Horace Kephart
I like the MSR Pocket Rocket for its simplicity and reliability. If you get a skillet or pot that doesn't have a handle on it, it will stay balance on the stove arms. They have skillet handle you can just grab the cookware without it being permanently attached to the skillet. A buddy of mine has fried trouts with his Pocket Rocket using the same set up I just mentioned.
And moving the pan around every few seconds to avoid one inch of burned fish surrounded by sushi, no doubt. That flame is way too narrow for serious cooking. You guys must have been cooking behind a wall to get the flame low enough without your breath putting it out.
I'm only exaggerating a little, from my frustrating miserable six months trying to get that stove to behave.
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"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." Shunryu Suzuki
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“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
late to the thread, but i might suggest that something equally important is your cooking gear. I presume that you've got a bunch of it from horsepacking, but if it's weightier, you might consider a set of GSI Bugaboo Camper, or Pinnacle Backpacker sets. These pots are extremely temperature efficient. Mine get hot by running them under hot water in the sink. They're also non-stick and clean up quite well.
I would fashion a cozy for them as they will also cool off quite quickly once removed from the heat.
As for stoves, I gave up my Whisperlite as being too heavy, cumbersome, large, and frankly dangerous in favor of my old and trusty CampingGAZ Bluet. Going to have to give that up for a Primus or Giga as it's getting harder and harder to find fuel for the Bluet.
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