Which portable stove is the best?
- Thread starter dewi
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assuming we are talking a backpacking type stove
my stove of choice atm is a fancy feest type cat can stove, which is the best meths stove i'v tried.
my stove of choice atm is a fancy feest type cat can stove, which is the best meths stove i'v tried.
Depends on what you want to cook, availability of fuel, local restrictions (some places do not permit solid fuel stoves; gas or liquid only)
Need some more parameters dewi
my favorites
Meths, fancy feast
Gas, pocket rocket or alpkit kraku
Multi fuel, msr dragonfly
Wood, folding firebox nano or vargo titanium hex
my favorites
Meths, fancy feast
Gas, pocket rocket or alpkit kraku
Multi fuel, msr dragonfly
Wood, folding firebox nano or vargo titanium hex
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It depends on your needs I suppose.
I have an MSR pocket rocket that weighs next to nothing, gas cylinders are readily available across Europe and beyond. Not much good for serious cooking but perfect for tea/porridge/pasta etc.
I have an MSR pocket rocket that weighs next to nothing, gas cylinders are readily available across Europe and beyond. Not much good for serious cooking but perfect for tea/porridge/pasta etc.
Power failures are very common here (once a week). Of course, you never know when the lights go out if it's going to be 5 minutes or 5 hours, particularly in the winter.
1. I start up my solar power system to run the electric motors in my wood pellet stove to heat the house.
2. I run CREE brand LED lights.
3. I have a slim 2-burner butane(?) stove top that runs on a gas bottle. That sits on top of my useless electric stove elements. It's no screaming Hello but I can make simple hot meals.
4. I have an ancient (1969) butane cartridge 1-burner which has never let me down.
1. I start up my solar power system to run the electric motors in my wood pellet stove to heat the house.
2. I run CREE brand LED lights.
3. I have a slim 2-burner butane(?) stove top that runs on a gas bottle. That sits on top of my useless electric stove elements. It's no screaming Hello but I can make simple hot meals.
4. I have an ancient (1969) butane cartridge 1-burner which has never let me down.
It's the one you have with you at the time.
A true multi fuel system is often best, one that includes collected wood as a fuel source.
I like Meths/Ethanol as a fuel as it's fairly easy and clean, and the windshields can often double as wood burners.
Gas is great until you run out.
I really like my wood gasifier, but that's probably because it looks amazing whilst it burns, but it is bulkier and can be a pain to get going.
So I tend to carry an alcohol burner with a windshield setup that can easily double as a wood burner.
M
A true multi fuel system is often best, one that includes collected wood as a fuel source.
I like Meths/Ethanol as a fuel as it's fairly easy and clean, and the windshields can often double as wood burners.
Gas is great until you run out.
I really like my wood gasifier, but that's probably because it looks amazing whilst it burns, but it is bulkier and can be a pain to get going.
So I tend to carry an alcohol burner with a windshield setup that can easily double as a wood burner.
M
Primus Omnifuel burns parafinn/naptha/liquid gas and can be modded to run meths. Keep away from butane stoves when outdoors as butane stops working at around +5c.
You can mount the burner off several stoves in a real Trangia which gives you pretty much the best cold/sub zero stove and pan set you can get. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Outdoor-M...ec4a268&pid=100005&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=151037885102 these work well and fit the Trangia.
You can mount the burner off several stoves in a real Trangia which gives you pretty much the best cold/sub zero stove and pan set you can get. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Outdoor-M...ec4a268&pid=100005&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=151037885102 these work well and fit the Trangia.
I favor multifuel stoves due to efficiency. Also I want to use them during the winter.
I got Optimus Nova+ and an old 8R...Easy to use imo
I got Optimus Nova+ and an old 8R...Easy to use imo
A Coke can with solid hexi fuel cut the can down to size pierce round the rim avwala a cheap reliable stove
Contact wait out !
Contact wait out !
A Primus Omnifuel with Trangia adapter fitted into a Honey stove would be a versatile & compact setup.
+1
+1
You took the words right out of my keyboard! I'd have written exactly that this morning if the forum hadn't booted me off for the umpteenth time this year.
There's no 'best' taking into account Dewi's list of criteria, at least until Sunndog's extra information is added to the mix, plus quite likely Sandbender's too.
For example a wood-burning stove might not be too good if you're only going to be staying in a bothy, and
if I were going to walk the Appalachian trail for a couple of months I don't think I'd want to carry enough gas cylinders for the trip.
I have literally dozens of stoves, and about the only ones that I don't often use are those that run on gas.
Any other fuel is fine for me, although of the liquid fuels I tend to use alcohol the least except for
(a) priming burners (for which I always use alcohol),
(b) general fire-starting and
(c) first aid, for which you'd be crazy to use petrol.
Of the liquid fuels I use what I'll call 'petrol' (which for me is mostly Aspen 4 thesedays) the most.
I use wood a lot in my Ghillie, and I use that even on bike journeys.
If I'm going to be in a camp somewhere for any great length of time (more than a few days), wood will be my fuel of choice for more or less everything.
The best liquid fuel IMO is undoubtedly paraffin.
The worst for efficiency - this isn't an opinion, it's the calorific content - are the alcohols.
But that isn't the question you asked.
All my cooking at the weekend was over a wood fire, but I made several mugs of tea using a Primus 96 running on paraffin but primed with alcohol.
The wood made me smelly, the paraffin ran out half way through making water for a hot water bottle.
But I didn't really need the hot water bottle, I had more paraffin anyway, and I could have just used the camp fire instead - I really wanted to know how long it would run for.
The burgers that I've just finished (and very good they were too), I have to admit, were cooked using electricity.
If I have a favourite portable stove it's probably an Optimus 110B, but the various 8s run it a good race and I love them all really - even, much to Big Si's disgust, the British Army Number 2.
We've done a few week long canoe trips in Sweden. Our strategy has been to use the alter fires for main cooking, backed up with a couple of bush buddy's. We use either our meths burners with these for brew stops and small scale cooking or wood as they give us that flexibility and we can therefore ration our meths. Any wood gas stove should provide this flexibility. They are also light and compact and can be take in the hold luggage when flying, with the meths supply purchased when the canoes are hired.
Do the extractly the same with a hexi stove and for years only used this type of stove
Just putting this out there. The benghazi. Purchase cost, nothing. weight, empty tin can and some lighter fluid. Ease of use, whack some dirt or sand in there squirt in petrol and light it up. Durability, who gives a smeg it's a can.
It's also one of those fancy multifuels! Run it on anything that fits in the can that's flammable, petrol, kerosene (with a wick), meths, esbits, hexy, moonshine. Pretty much anything!
It's also one of those fancy multifuels! Run it on anything that fits in the can that's flammable, petrol, kerosene (with a wick), meths, esbits, hexy, moonshine. Pretty much anything!
C'mon dewi, get back on here quick......people are starting to suggest hexi blocks! 
*dons tin hat
*dons tin hat
C'mon dewi, get back on here quick......people are starting to suggest hexi blocks!
*dons tin hat
Here they're cheap and the fumes make me see colours. That's fine in my book
Admittedly the fumes contain formaldehyde, but then I smoke so I guess I'm just preserving my lungs!
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