Cook / Eat system

[Ben]

Currently I will be using an msr dragonfly and a flex 3 for my wife and I. that is our car camping gear.
I'm very tempted to go the whitebox stove with an msr titanium kettle and mug each.

Can anoyne suggest a better commercial system than this?
We enjoy eating and drinking together so there must be at least 2 bowls and cups.
This set would weigh 344grams for both of us instead of the 795 for the flex 3 not to mention the massive weight saving on a stove if i get one.
I guess we could even just get the kettle each at 236grams and use them as giant mugs.

I've thought about eating from a freezer bag but i think this would make eating less enjoyable as I have a hard enough time getting lumps out of instant mashed potato in the foil packet.

Cheers

Benen

[Travis Leanna]

Benen,
My girlfriend and I each use a Gram Weenie alcohol stove, which is designed to work with small titanium mugs or pots.

We each boil water in our Snow Peak 450 mugs, then add the freeze dried meal, and cover for 10 minutes. We don't have a separate mug for drinking–all we need is our water bladder for that. When we're done, we rinse the mugs out, and then make coffee or tea. We do this in the morning with instant oatmeal as well. Its a minimal setup with no frills, but at a total weight of 3.5 ounces (100 grams for you Aussies!) for the mug, windscreen, stove, and lid, its pretty light.

We used to use a GSI tea kettle (5-6 ounces) but decided it was really redundant. We could boil water in our mugs! As far as the titanium mug being too hot to drink out of? I've learned that if the mug is too hot for my lips, the liquid is usually too hot to drink anyways. So, that doesn't bug me.

P.S. Before our trip, we divide up the freeze dried meals and repackage them. We also know how much water to put in our mugs to make the consistency right.

[Ben]

Thanks!
So you take a big mug and a stove each for 200g total?
Is that mug big enough to eat ceral or something out of though? That was a concern for me and helped point me towards the larger 0.85L msr kettle which is 118grams. Our current mugs are 400ml and would be way way too small to eat out of.
I noticed snow peak to a 700ml but its heavier than the msr 850ml anyways.

Im completely uneducated on stoves. I just saw that the white box is fast, very light, suited to the msr kettle and had very good reviews.

Thanks again :)

Benen

[Travis Leanna]

Benen,
Yeah, we just eat right out of the SP 450. Its small, but it does the job nicely. If you can get your hands on a 450, give it a try. It might be hard to eat more solid foods out of, but for the freeze dried mush, it works pretty well!

Check out End2end trail supply. That's where I got the Gram Weenie stove. George is a great guy to deal with, and he'll answer any questions you have. Good luck!

[Greg Lewis]

Benen,

The whitebox is a great stove for two people but it needs a wider pan than the Titan kettle to be efficient. I have both a Titan Kettle and an evernew.9L pan. The evernew works much better with it- it boils water almost 2 minutes quicker than the Titan. The flame just goes up the sides on my Titan. The Titan does make a better mug though, which is originally why I bought it.

As Travis mentioned, the super gram weanie is a great little stove too. I use it with my Firelight 550 for solo.

Greg

[Ben]

well end2end trail supply are giving away free gram weenie and gram weenie pro's with evernew titanium pots which look like a really good option. Is the pro just a bit bigger? Will probably be going with the .9L pot if i go down that path.

[Greg Lewis]

Well, I have not tried that combo. I can give it a try on friday if you want. It may be a little unstable but who knows!

Edit- I am not sure about the pro, I thought it was called the super. It is a little taller, which gives it enough fuel capacity to boil 2+ cups.

Greg

[Ben]

Gosh this is more difficult than I thought! haha.

[Travis Leanna]

The Pro is different than the Super. The Pro is larger in diameter than both the Gram Weenie and the Super Gram Weenie.

The Super GW is the exact same thing as the regular, but a bit taller, and like Greg says, has a larger fuel capacity.

[Ben]

so the pro should be suitable for the evernew .9L? Or maybe the Thru Hiker? They practically all weigh the same anyways.

[Travis Leanna]

Benen,
I would think so, but George from End2end would be the guy to ask. I don't have either the Pro or the .9L.

[Ben]

He recommends the thru-hiker. Definitely top of my list for a huge weight reduction once I get all of my other gear! It's a great price and insanely light. If we got a stove and pot each it would save us nearly 900 grams (30oz)!!

[Travis Leanna]

Good luck with all your purchases!

[Jeff Wright]

Hey Benen,

I bought an evernew 0.9 pot and from end2end and received the free gram weenie pro stove earlier this year. I have been very impressed with the combination and plan on using them for my trips with my wife this year. I wrote a review for the stove on BPL.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/reviews/display_reviews?forum_thread_id=29334&cat=Stoves%20%2D%20Alcohol&cid=18

Check out the review and let me know if you have any questions.

Jeff

[Ben]

Thanks again all, I feel like I'm becoming annoying asking all these questions but I just want to get everything right before I fork out so much moolah!

Take care

Benen

[Jonathan Krainak]

Trail Designs Caldera setup might be worth looking at. You can get one for several different pots, or buy one of the beer can kits.

[Rog Tallbloke]

"I just want to get everything right before I fork out so much moolah! "

Well, you can always make a similar setup with a piece of roof flashing, a couple of skewers and a cheap aluminium pan to see how it goes. Kath and I use a couple of plastic airline coffee cups to drink out of (12g each), so we can use a wider Ti pan for cooking two person meals, and a 20 gram microwave safe plastic dish we bought a pasta meal in for the second dinner plate. That way, we get to drink wine with the main course. ;-)

[Greg Lewis]

Benen,

I tried the Super gram weenie out with the Evernew .9L. It worked boiling the water in about 8 minutes. I would not reccommend it due to the stability of a large pot on a small stove though. The pro is obviously the way to go.

Greg

[Ben]

Cheers ffor that greg :)

[george carr]

Benen, I tend to look at each of my stoves as a tool to do a job (which wrench for which bolt, if you will), and for the .9L cookpot I prefer the GW PRO. It is much more stable (read wider) than the original, and provides enough fuel capacity to boil 2 cups of water.

If you are looking for a stove that can work with bigger pots (1.3L and up)and boil up to 4 cups, and don't mind a little flame creep with the smaller .9L pots, the Thru Hiker is a good bet.

The folks who are using the original GW are willing to put up with the narrow diameter in order to take advantage of the tight flame pattern that their narrow aspect cookpots require. If I just headed out with a small mug or firelite 550, the original gets the nod.

Sometime in the near future I'll be adding a chart that will allow side by side comparisons, with pros and cons for various applications, to help simplify choices.

[James Loy]

I agree that the White Box stove is great for 2 persons but it does not work well with the MSR Titan Kettle. The other thing I have found about the White Box is that it requires more fuel to heat the same amount of water as a Caldera System. I guess you know my vote!

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