JetBoil

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spamel

Banned
Feb 15, 2005
6,833
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48
Silkstone, Blighty!
There is definitely room for stoves in bushcraft, mainly due to certain areas not allowing open fires, such as camp sites and certain woods unless permission is sought. I'm not too up on British Law for open fires as I'm mainly in Germany, therefore I always take my trangia with me when I head back to blighty.

The Swedish Army Trangia can be had for as little as ten quid, you can easily carry a weeks supply of fuel, there are no small working parts to break, won't lose pressure if in sub zero temperatures and you can use the pot set on an open fire aswell! There are also other reasons as to why this would be a great cooking setup, mine is the civvy version, but I'm tempted to get one of these for bushcraft aswell!!

I believe there was a group but of stainless versions going, Bumblebee rings a bell. Try looking out for that post.
 

Batfink

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Jul 18, 2004
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Newbury, Berks, UK
www.alexpye.net
I have several Swedish Army Trangia's, and recommend them to my cadets at every opportunity (so much better than stinking Hexamine!). But, they are slow and can sometimes be a pain.

I'm interested in the JetBoil as an alternative to traditional gas and trangia's for a day's outting - or maybe longer.
 

Batfink

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Jul 18, 2004
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Newbury, Berks, UK
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After seeing some rave reviews, and with a little bit of left over cash, I thought I'd go and buy me a JetBoil. So impressed with the results, I thought I'd put fingers to keys and write a quick review of it... I'm that impressed!
jetboil.jpg


I spent most of Monday/Tuesday last week finding a cheap supplier after seeing one demo'd a few weeks earlier. I ordered it from The Complete Outdoors because it was 20 notes cheaper here than elsewhere. It had free P&P and arrived on Wednesday morning.

The first thing that struck me was its size and weight. The mug is about the 20cm tall, and 10cm in diametre - about the same size as a Naglene bottle. Volume wise is smaller than a trangia, but bigger than mess tins and hexamine.
jetboilsize150.jpg

The cup has a strong lid, and, upon lifting it off, out popped the burner. The burner and gas canister, once connected fit snuggly inside the cup - making it quite a compact unit. The bottom of the mug has a heat sink, protected by a framework (so you can't put your fingers on the really hot bits unless you make the effort too!), all protected by a heat resistant plastic cap. Weight wise, it's much, much lighter than a trangia, and a bit lighter than a hexi stove, fuel and mess tins set.

Unclip the cap, fit the burner (using a simple bayonet fitting) and then the screw in gas canister, put some water in the cup, and your ready to go. 1 min later a cup of brew is ready for the drinking!

On Thursday I unpacked it properly and gave it a quick blat in the kitchen using a 100gram Coleman gas canister. It heated the water proper quickly, and I was very impressed, so I decided to take it away over the weekend to Bisley, UK where our Air Cadet Squadron (of which I'm a staff member) were Butt Marking for the Historic Arms meeting and give it a "semi-field" test.

When Butt Marking you'll find yourself with the odd 5-10mins break - never normally long enough to get a satisfying brew on. Well, not any more! This thing heats 2 cups of water in around 2mins. I think the fastest we had it down to was 90seconds for the 2 cups. Blindingly fast.

Now you'll be thinking "How the hell does it do it so much quicker than a standard gas stove?". Well, it does it by using a heat sink at the bottom of the cup. Basically the gas flame heats up the mug which has an integrated heat sink. This stops as much heat from escaping as a generic gas stove. It also means the cup stays hot for a greater period of time because the heat sink will continue to release heat after the gas has gone out. One of the best bits about it is that you can put the plastic cap on the base of the cup immediately after uncoupling the gas and burner - meaning you don't go and burn your self by acccident!
Jetboil.jpg

Another brilliant thing about it is the insulating "Cozy" which seems to be made of neopreme and fits around the cup. It's great - really soft, and protects you from burning yourself on the cup when in use.

The gas part has a piezo ignotion system so (unless your our adult sgt) you can simply turn the gas on, click the button, and your cooking on gas (our ASgt simply couldn't make it work for some reason!).

We managed to get a 100gram gas canister to last all weekend - and to boil alot more than the stated 12 litres in the manual. However, i should point out that we didn't fully boil the water (who drink BOILING hot water anyway!), so were just heating it to 80-90 degrees ish.

We also did a lot of cooking on it. If you turn the flame right down, you can cook on it quite easily.

The cup fits two boil in the bag meals at a squeeze - but you might find that you need to keep topping up the water since the water is displaced by the volume of the bags! As such, although it's possible, I'd only recommend cooking 1 boil in the bag at any one time!

Cleaning is a piece of cake. We boiled up some rice and slow cook pasta in - not for trial purposes, but because we were hungry. Because of the speed at which things boil, we were expecting the pan to have a stick mess at the bottom. It couldn't be further from the truth. The hard-anodized surface means it cleans with a wipe of clean water - and is easier to clean than my Teflon coated Crusader Mug!!!

Unlike other gas cookers, the pan isn't balanced on top of the burner or frame, but is actually clipped onto the burner - as such it can be moved (although not recommended!) whilst cooking. One of our instructors is a keen climber and was keen to investigate whether the unit can be suspended, using a crab and some rope, and still boil water safely - we now know it can!

But - if you really, really want to use it with pans rather than the cup, you can get an adaptor system (for around £10) which enable you to utitlise the burner element for pans...
m_122064_f05.jpg

Hell, there's even a coffee press attachment for it (although the coffee can stain the cup and cause ongoing taste problems... but if you drink that much coffee, your taste buds will have been compromised anyway!).And, if your really into your cabbage kit, there's even a camo cozy to help you mug be more tactical...
B00070JJ4Q.01-A2LC41HGB7F13W._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg


There are, like all things, a couple of downsides. Firstly, it's a gas stove, the overly safety conscious will probably right this brilliant tool off on those ground alone - but bear with me! Because the gas AND burner pack away inside the bomb proof mug, the chance of it exploding in a bergen are severely reduced. We really abused the thing over the weekend just to see how rugged and robust it is, and try and we might, we hardly got any flareups.

Secondly, it's tall. Really tall. When cooking it stands at around 35cm tall. And with 1 litre of water in, it makes it quite top heavy. As such you need to ensure you cook somewhere it won't be knocked over - or, as we found out - you can suspend it and hang it.

Finally, its price. For £50 you can get a lot of other cookers. Hell, you can get two trangia's. You can get 2 gas stoves and a set of pans - and all your getting for your £50 is a mug and a burner. And the burner (because of the way it's made) can't be used with other pans. All of this is true. However, the benefits, in my opinion - and the opinion of 3 other staff members who saw it at the weekend and bought them this morning! - far outway these costs!!!

So, if your doing AT, Fieldcraft, Bushcraft or anything where your outdoors, this thing is a real must have! Within a few minutes of sitting down for a break you can have a brew in your mug and be drinking it, whilst those with trangias are still busy trying to light them, and those with gas stoves are still looking for somewhere flat and sheltered to cook up. I think the fact that, after seeing it, several of our staff members are off to buy them says alot about how impressive they are - and these chaps are kit freaks (like me) they were just uberimpressed!!!
 

Batfink

Forager
Jul 18, 2004
208
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Newbury, Berks, UK
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Spacemonkey said:
So, err, you liked it then? ;)
Love it!

Spacemonkey said:
ps, I've probably shot at you in the past then!!!
We go down there with the ATC for the meets in June (end of), July (middle of) & Oct (the one a few weekends ago!) - and that's about it. A great fundraiser for us. Beats collecting trolleys, car boot sales & packing shopping at Asda!


P.S. Could a Mod move this from resources to kit chatter? I think i posted it in the wrong place! D'oh!
 

ilovemybed

Settler
Jul 18, 2005
564
6
43
Prague
What do you think about the loss of versatility - how would you reckon it performs on, for instance, making porridge, which isn't necessarily about speediest boil?

Batfink said:
so I decided to take it away over the weekend to Bisley, UK where our Air Cadet Squadron (of which I'm a staff member) were Butt Marking for the Historic Arms meeting and give it a "semi-field" test.

But why, when there is Jenny's Hut just by the entrance to the butts!

Repeat after me:
I must not go to Bisley without buying a Jumbo Special and a cup of tea from Jenny's:twak:

I must not go to Bisley without buying a Jumbo Special and a cup of tea from Jenny's:twak:

I must not go to Bisley without buying a Jumbo Special and a cup of tea from Jenny's:twak:

I must not go to Bisley without buying a Jumbo Special and a cup of tea from Jenny's:twak:

(I know that I'm kind of infringing the free advertising rules, but to be honest unless you're a member of a posh shooting club she's the only vendor on site anyway...)
 

Batfink

Forager
Jul 18, 2004
208
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43
Newbury, Berks, UK
www.alexpye.net
There are two solutions to the boiling question!
Firstly, boil up the water, put in the porridge oats, leave to cool for a bit, then bring to the boil, leave to cool for a bit, bring to the boil, leave to cool for a bit! It's fiddly, and can be a bit of a pain, but well worth it.

Alternatively, it is also possible to turn the flame right down and get a rolling boil going.

As for Jenny's - we normally get stuck at Butt's 18/19 - which is a long way from the delightfully dirty fatty greasy spoon!!! By the time you've got the food down to the Butt's the fat has congealled and your "delicous" burger has turned white, and the coffee/tea is stone cold!

When they used to have Shorts (many moon's ago now) it was better - but still meant walking all the way around the back of the Clay range & pistol range because the short cut/ covered walkway wasn't there then!
 

leon-1

Full Member
Are you using butane or butane propane mix?

How is it likely to perform in cold conditions?

Has it a system for anti flare and how stable is it on uneven ground? It looks quite tall which could make it prone to tipping.

I can see a base for it to make it more stable, but does it cost more or is it part of the pan set adapter?
 

Batfink

Forager
Jul 18, 2004
208
1
43
Newbury, Berks, UK
www.alexpye.net
leon-1 said:
Are you using butane or butane propane mix?
Errr... Yes. I've got mine on a Coleman butane/propane mix. Not sure if it'll run on pure butane without it getting really, really hot!

leon-1 said:
How is it likely to perform in cold conditions?
Well. Since buying it I've posted the review on a few sites and had a couple of replies from people in the Forces. Several saw them being used in Norway by both the Norweigan's and the UK Directing Staff - evidence that they're pretty good in those kind of conditions!

leon-1 said:
Has it a system for anti flare and how stable is it on uneven ground? It looks quite tall which could make it prone to tipping.
The manual says throughout don't move around whilst lit because of flare ups. However, when trialing it we really gave it some abuse, and didn't get many!

leon-1 said:
I can see a base for it to make it more stable, but does it cost more or is it part of the pan set adapter?
The base is extra, and can only be bought with the pan set - an extra $20.
Pan stand
However, a friend has already made one for his from some sheet metal - took him 90mins, and cost around £5!!!
 

leon-1

Full Member
The reason I asked about Butane propane is that butane has terrible performance in cold conditions and butane propane actually works better.

Gas generally doesn't get used in extremes as it's performance is pretty poor in cold conditions (I spent 4.5 months in South Georgia and got to see the pathetic performance of gas burners in comparison to liquid fuel burners). I would ask what time of year they were in use.

They cost £50 and then you have to buy more bits to make them stable at extra cost to the person buying them and the Gas cannisters are quite expensive in thier own right as well as having to be able to dispose of the cannisters afterwards.

I'll be sticking to liquid fuel untill I know a lot more, no disrespect meant.
 

soa_uk

Forager
Jul 12, 2005
201
3
65
Highlands
Batfink said:
For info (and no afflilation!) I've just bought a second JetBoil for my wife from Baxter's of Yarn via their Ebay website, and paid less than £47, inc P&P - that's a saving of £20 from most retailers... and £30 from another!!!

Baxter's of Yarm ebay shop

I am *so* deal-prone.
They've still got a couple left, so I just bought one. Companion mugs are in their range now...
... so, I need to work out i) where to get a PLCE utility pocket, and ii) how to attach that to my shiny new Sabre 45.
 
The Jet Boil is a handy bit of kit but it is not as sturdy as it looks.

I have had mine for about five months and the lid has split and is now held together with gaffa tape. I would recomend jamming a cloth or something inbetween the stove and the lid to stop it bouncing about as you travel. Mine kind of fell apart, it fits back together OK but it's only going to be a matter of time before a small yet vital bit gets dropped onto the floor never to be seen again. Just before Christmas the ignition on mine broke so I now have to light it with a firesteel. I hardly ever use it any more but I do use the mug as it is insulated. Another thing to watch for is to make sure that the inside of the mug is fully dry before putting the stove part back in, failure to do that will result in the gas cannister going rusty and making the mug taste grim.

Having said all that it is a top bit of kit it just doesn't seem to have that long a life span - then again I was using it daily for about five months.
 

Batfink

Forager
Jul 18, 2004
208
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Newbury, Berks, UK
www.alexpye.net
I too have been exposed the rust problem - everything needs to be thoroughly dried before tucking it away! I've given mine a fair amount of abuse now, but not run into any of the problems Ditch Monkey's had - although I guess it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong with it!!!

A friend of mine has just designed too handy bits of kits to help make better use of the JetBoil - firstly a small stand to balance tins on when inside (it stops the bottom of the tin burning!), secondly a hanging dangly thing so you can cook without knocking it over. I'll get some photos and will post in the near future. A very nice bit of kit though!
 
T

TimB

Guest
I've had a Jetboil fpor a few months now and still impressed with it.

I'm also in the process of writing a review for the site on it.

It any current Jetboil owners have any comments that they would like me to place in the review mail them over. mail@kitezine.net

Tim
:)
 

oops56

Need to contact Admin...
Sep 14, 2005
399
0
81
proctor vt.
Now i just got the companion cup to try and see if i could use a alcohol stove under it a trangia burner goes stright up it must go outward to hit the fins my jiffy heat does that made a pot holder plus you can take the jet pot off and put a pan on just like it is. Now it gets the same boil time as a canister on 1 oz. denatured alcohol 3 min. very hot boil time 4 min. toalt burn time 9 to 10 min.thats 16 oz. water
jet1.jpg

jet2.jpg
 

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