Wow, can of worms... What's the best colour? who's the most beautiful woman? what's the best beer? What's the best stove?
I can't say which is best, but I can say as follows based on my experience:
So there you go, that is the complete list of stoves in my stable. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages, each has certain things that it can do well, and things it struggles with. Which I take on a trip depends on what I am planning to do and what I am prepared to carry.
Which is best? I'd probably say it's the one you have with you at the time.
J
I can't say which is best, but I can say as follows based on my experience:
- MSR Whisperlite Internationale (~2000 model) - Burns several liquid fuels, but primarily white gas (coleman fuel). Contrary to popular belief you can simmer on it, and I used it for many years for proper cooking and just boiling water. It's not the lightest stove out there, but I do have a softspot for this stove (it was my first)
- BCB Crusader (MK1) - Bit of a one trick pony, burns hexy, boils water. You can use dragon fuel (ethanol gel), but it does tend to gunk it up. This stove is heavy. (Use now discontinued as it's far to heavy)
- MSR Dragonfly - Burns pretty much every liquid fuel you can think of except Meths. It's a heavy stove, but has excellent flame control. Fire it up and everyone for miles around knows about it, it's *NOISY*. Imagine cooking dinner on the afterburner of a jet... (Now sold)
- Cat can stove - cost me 65p, weighs just a few grams, and drinks meths like it's going out of fashion... Nice in theory, but you spend so much feeding it meths you don't get much benefit from the low cost and low weight. I no longer use this stove.
- Evernew Meths burner + DX stand - Has on paper one of the faster boil times of any meths stove, but it uses more fuel to boil a the same quantity of fuel than other meths stoves. It's lightweight, and rather expensive. But rather shiny and titanium.
- Starlyte stove - Light weight, very efficient, improved fuel efficiency in that you can blow it out and put the lid back on it. My stove of choice for short trips where I just need to boil water.
- Whitebox stove (narrow version) - This one is beautiful when it's up and blooming, shiny jets of flame shooting out the side, but you need a wide enough pot to take advantage of it. I can't give enough comment on fuel efficiency, but what you stick in you have to burn, you can't turn it off and save the fuel. A pretty stove, but I'm not sure what to do with it.
- Primus Omnilite Ti (With silencer) - All the advantages of the MSR Dragonfly, half the weight, and almost silent. Added advantage that it can be run on Gas as well as the usual liquid fuel options. Beautiful piece of engineering and a joy to use. The pouch that comes with it is far to heavy (weighs the same as the stove itself).
- Prototype jetboil type stove - This was sent to me to test by a UK based manufacturer. It has some issues (it is a prototype afterall). It's a one trick pony, but it does it very well, boiling 500ml of water on 6g of gas. Not the lightest, but not the heaviest. If I was doing a trip based purely with dehydrated/freeze dried meals. I may consider this stove.
So there you go, that is the complete list of stoves in my stable. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages, each has certain things that it can do well, and things it struggles with. Which I take on a trip depends on what I am planning to do and what I am prepared to carry.
Which is best? I'd probably say it's the one you have with you at the time.
J
I still say the cockroaches is a good name!
