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!
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.
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!
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...
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...
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!!!
