Should have said if you make a cosy it will put your packed weight up very slightly BUT it will save you a lot more weight in fuel.
I am well and truly sold on pot cosys. Brilliant idea. Will be using them as standard.
I made the mistake of buying some cheap dehydrated food on the last trip, instructions said allow 7 mins to rehydrate the food, left it 45 mins and it as still like eating bullets.
Point is i boiled the water, filled up the packet, turned down the open end and placed it in a cosy i made in the shape of a envelope.
Even after 45mins is was still hot enough to burn your mouth.
The cosy weighs 39g
Don't want to go off topic but if you want details on the cosy just let me know.
Podcast bob has kindly made a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkQA0_duIHE
I have a couple of cosy pouches that I use to transport my food on lowland trips, this weekend I am putting sausages in them that I have frozen, so that by the time I wake on Saturday they are about ready to cook but not too hot.
Should also have said that IF you're going in the colder months and IF you do decide to use a adaptor be careful on the gas canisters you choose.
Butane does not perform well in cold conditions as it has poor vaporisation at low temperatures.
Propane is better but the containers tend to be heavier as it's stored pressures are higher.
Most brands have a propane/butane mix, in colder temps you want to be looking for a higher propane content.
One other thing if you choose a remote stove then as i'm sure you already know in colder temps the gas canisters work better upside down.
What you might not know is that in cold weather it's important to use the canister upside down EVERY time you use it.
If you use it the right way up then you are burning off the gasses first (as opposed to in a liquid state upside down) so you will burn off all the Propane first if you use it right way up (in cold conditions) leaving a nearly full canister of pretty much useless (in cold weather) butane.
As you'd buy your gas on route if you went with a gas burner this is unlikely to be a problem, but it is good to know.
the inverting the gas cart is hard if you have a stove mounted burner tho, so you then get the remote cart stoves, which are heavier, and approaching the weights of the petrol stoves.
I'd be interested in your instructions to make a cosy, new thread perhaps?
See video linked to above.
since its got onto msr stoves
i'v used my dragonfly an awful lot, including four months as the only stove for two of us in base camp. mostly on petrol (we used about a gallon a fortnight) with an odd can of coleman fuel for cleaning
when on the move i'v often just bunged a random motorist a fiver for a fill up from there petrol can...ok its dearer than a petrol station but you'd be surprised how easy it is to get a refill
to be fair though i'v never liked the plastic pump and often wondered if a primos pump could be modded to fit
When I was in slovakia I actually siphoned some petrol out of a friends car fuel tank in order to be able to cook dinner. Lesson learned: Petrol tastes horrible.
On this trip one of the people I was with had a jerry can of diesel, wish I'd had a stove that could burn it.
Having read the entire thread now ive got confused, are we talking about carrying all the fuel from the beginning of the trip or refilling a 1L bottle as we go along?
That depends on the fuel choice, and it's availability. The ideal would be to carry enough to get me from one settlement to the next and then refuel. But, as some settlements have hotels, but not petrol stations or shops, it may be necessary to carry the fuel the whole trip. It depends.
I like a morning brew, usually porridge for breakfast and a hot drink or two with my evening meal which will be dehydrated meals. This means I am boiling a minimum of 500-600ml of water at a time.
For me it's a cup of tea with breakfast, maybe one for lunch, hot chocolate in the evening, plus dinner. Each is 250ml or so.
I am a big fan of alcohol stoves, I've got 10+ but the minimum amount of fuel I have used to boil 500ml is 20ml in perfect conditions. For my usage that is a minimum of 40-50g of fuel a day with the stove weighing 8g (cat stove) to 45g for a whitebox, plus say 30g for the fuel bottle; so a very minimum for a 2 day trip of 118g in absolutely perfect conditions, say 150g allowing for less efficient combustion, preheat etc. However a FULL 100g gas cartridge weighs 190g and my gas stove weighs 45g so a total of 235g, less if the cartridge is not full; meaning the difference is a mere 85g (a 3m household tape measure weighs about that) and bear in mind that the gas option will do a 4-5 day trip.
I was amazed at how much fuel my cat can stove goes through to make a cup of tea. Most disappointed.
So even for a 2 day trip gas is a very strong contender and for 3 days or more is actually a clear winner. However, if your style of eating/drinking doesn't require many hot drinks/meals then alcohol makes more sense for short trips/more cold meals.
Yep, the maths on paper clearly come out in favour of gas stoves. *BUT* would you risk not being able to get the fuel for it?
Planning fuel consumption in fine detail is destined to end in tears, as many have found out the hard way in a Scottish winter.
When going overseas, I would seriously advise to travel without a stove and source one at your destination, it's what I've personally done for over a decade so nobody can tell me that it won't work, you make it work because that is part and parcel of your ability to survive the trip.
That entirely depends on a number of factors, primarily:
- Where you are going
- What stoves they have available.
It's all well and good to say to use what the locals use, but do the locals actually climb up mountains or, walk for 14 days in the wilderness? Are their stoves the lightest most rugged bits of kit that you are happy to put in your pack and carry for said distance?
How do the local population live there?
What fuel do they use?
Burn that.
What do they drink?
Drink that.
What do they eat?
Eat that.
Again, do they carry it on their backs for 14 days? It's the difference between wilderness travel and being a tourist.
Would you carry a sack of charcoal and a cast iron braiser even 1km, let alone 300?
I may be wrong but in the UK the butane/propane mix canisters are standardised, all the same. In the winter go for a tri fuel mix, the butane/propane/isobutane canisters.
Canisters do work better in cold weather upside down but you should really only do this with stoves that have a preheat tube running over the burner head or you will risk some major flare ups so use caution.
I can't hike anymore but if I could I'd use one of my Primus Omnifuel stoves which will burn paraffin/naptha/coleman/panel wipe/Aspen 4T/petrol (dirty fuel)/diesel (another dirty fuel) and standard thread gas canisters. They boil fast and simmer well.
I love the amount of safety warnings that gas comes with, it feels like more than any other form of fuel, but that may be my own bias away from gas.
That's correct Rik; Europe now uses standardized EN spec cartridges. Most are tri fuel and will down below freezing comfortably, branded Jetboil fuel will go to -12c.
Groovy, two questions: what is the EN standard number? and when did it come in to effect?
I've never come across fuel issues abroad? Going across to Europe normally means I'll pack my primus and fuel bottle but will also take screw in gas canisters. Even in the Philippines last year responding to Haiyan, meths was still available alongside the local moonshine
I have. I found myself with a petrol stove surrounded by diesel vehicles. I've been with friends who couldn't get a gas cart.
Could your trips not supplement between open fire cooking and stove use?
That would require me to carry different pots to the ones I may use on the top of the stove, the heat proofness on the handles of my evernew pots would not fair well on the fire I fear. Also see the previous statement about going days without seeing a tree. Burning anything smaller is going to be inefficient in an open fire config and thus something like the ever new DX stand or the pocket stand would be required to make efficient use of the biomass.
Julia
