Canister fuel stoves are the darlings of lightweight backpackers. Their main attributes are speed, adjustability, and convenience. Lightweight conventional top-mount and remote canister stoves were just as plentiful ten years ago as they are today. With a lightweight cook pot, a typical two-person cooking system weighs around 9 ounces (255 g). However, the conundrum with conventional top-mount canister stoves then, as it is today, is that they are inefficient in the wind and not amenable to use with a windscreen. Any amount of wind simply blows the heat away, drastically reducing their efficiency.
The Jetboil Personal Cooking System was introduced back in 2004, and Backpacking Light pronounced it to be "one of the most innovative products to hit the market" in our Jetboil PCS Review.
The key components of an integrated canister fuel stove that make it more fuel-efficient and wind-resistant compared to a conventional top-mount canister stove are:
- A lower BTU/hr burner, which is more fuel efficient.
- A heat exchanger attached to the bottom of the cook pot to maximize heat transfer.
- The heat exchanger surrounds the burner to protect it from the wind.
- The cook pot is insulated with a cozy and has a tight fitting lid.
Thus, the beauty of the integrated canister fuel stove lies in its convenience, compactness, fuel efficiency, and wind resistance. It is an integrated cooking system, optimized for efficiency.
But the original Jetboil PCS has drawbacks too:
- The unit, excluding the fuel canister, weighs nearly a pound (454 g).
- The pot capacity is small (a 1 L pot with instructions to not fill it more than half full).
- It’s slow (a claimed boil time of 90 min/1-pint of water, but it actually took twice that long).
Today Jetboil has a whole family of integrated canister fuel stoves, and competitive products have reached the market from Primus and MSR. Jetboil is introducing four new stoves this spring and Primus is introducing one.
The current lightest top-mount stove is the Monatauk Gnat at 1.6 ounces (48 g), and an ultralight Titanium cook pot with volume equivalent to the Jetboil Sol Ti weighs about 3.1 ounces (88 g), for a total of 4.7 ounces (133 g). Adding a windscreen brings the weight up to around 5.5 ounces (156 g). The integrated system is still a bit heavier, but its convenience, fuel efficiency, and wind resistance may make it well worth the extra weight.
The key questions this state of the market report will attempt to answer are:
- What is the comparative performance of the lighter (backpackable) integrated canister stoves in terms of boil time, fuel efficiency, wind-resistance, and cold-resistance?
- How does their performance compare with a very lightweight top-mount stove and Titanium cook pot?
- How do these integrated stoves perform for different cooking styles, i.e., the boil-and-set method versus multi-step meal preparation?
To address these questions, this state of the market report is divided into three parts:
Lightweight Integrated Canister Fuel Cooking Systems State of the Market Report 2011: Part 1 – Overview and Stove Performance Evaluation (this part) Provides an overview of the integrated canister fuel stove in relation to the conventional top-mount canister stove. Reports the results of our comparative performance tests (boil time, heating rate, fuel consumption, and gas mileage from a single canister of fuel) for four test conditions (calm, wind, protected from wind, and cold).
Lightweight Integrated Canister Fuel Cooking Systems State of the Market Report 2011: Part 2 – Trends, Stove Ratings, and Selections - Highlights new developments in integrated canister fuel stoves. Presents our ideas for achieving weight efficiency and fully utilizing the advantages of integrated stoves for backpacking. Provides comparative specifications for lightweight (backpackable) integrated canister stoves, rates them according to appropriate criteria, and identifies the standouts for different situations and needs.
Lightweight Integrated Canister Fuel Cooking Systems State of the Market Report 2011: Part 3 – Wrap Up and Reviews of All Stoves Included Presents our overall conclusions from the project and provides a review of each of the stoves evaluated.
ARTICLE OUTLINE
- Overview
- Introduction - Stove Performance Evaluation
- Selection Criteria
- Stoves Included
- Testing Method and Conditions
- Boil Time and Heating Rate
- Fuel Consumption
- Gas Mileage
- Discussion
- Conclusions
- Preview of Parts 2 and 3
- Acknowledgements
# WORDS: 7450
# PHOTOS: 15
Member Exclusive
A Premium or Unlimited Membership* is required to view the rest of this article.
* A Basic Membership is required to view Member Q&A events
Discussion
Become a member to post in the forums.
My Jeboil PCS (primus valve) the jet size is 0.21 mm with such a small jet I suspect even the older JetBoil valves have some form of pressure regulator or gas flow control in them, I am unable to pull the valve apart to check.
Other stove jet sizes, Gnat 0.32 mm, Kovea Supalite Ti 0.30 mm, MSR Pocket Rocket 0.34 mm, One Road 153g remote canister stove 0.40 mm.
Some of these jets have different jet hole designs, the JB, Kovea and PR all have flat tops on the jet but the Gnat and one road stoves have tapered holes and the smallest part of the hole is below the surface.
Tony
"the Gnat and one road stoves have tapered holes and the smallest part of the hole is below the surface."
What does that accomplish?
–B.G.–
Levon, thanks for the Amazon tip. Purchased one, but notice that the price on Amazon, as of today, is back up to 145. — possibly because of the buzz generated by this review!
Now the best price (for the next few minutes, anyway) seems to be at:
CombatTactical.com
Where can I go backpacking and see the night-time low of -15C warm to 10C by breakfast? Isn't any discussion of melting snow rather speculative when the canister is used in such a warm environment? The canister should warm sufficiently to boil the isobutane in within 5 minutes, right? Another consequence: slower burn rates will look better for this test without reflecting real-world performance.
I was very much looking forward to a test of the regulator stoves. To what extent does a regulator improve performance of isobutane/propane canisters operating (upright) at, say, -15C, or even -5C, throughout the lifetime of the canister? I don't see why they'd improve cold-weather performance at all. [edit–oops, I posted this before I'd read through the whole thread. I see now that I'm right about regulators, but I'm still curious about -5C performance.]
Also, I'd love to see tests in stronger winds.
I crunched the numbers on Ryan's 30x.7L boils on a 100gram canister claim….
I think he is off by a factor of 2 — maybe he meant he used a 200gr canister?
I come up with (based on fuel energy denisty and water heat capacity):
100gr of fuel is capable of raising the temp of 21L of water by about 57C or ~100F (ie if each .7L started with water @ ~50F then each could make it to ~150F). This assumes 100% of the heat makes it to the water, I bet this efficiency is closer to 75%.
Maybe Stuart or Roger can check my math.
> I think he is off by a factor of 2
that was also my conclusion back up in the thread
Hi James
Yeah, an efficiency of 75% would be very high. It may have been a 230 g canister: that would be quite consistent with my experience.
Cheers
I’m a little late, but to follow up on this question:
The JetBoil PCS, Flash, and Zip have a jet aperture size of 0.21mm
The JetBoil Sol and Sol Ti have a jet aperture size of 0.30mm
It would seem that indeed the jet size may explain what we’re seeing in Will’s graphic where the PCS, Flash, and Zip have a noticeable fall off in performance but the Sol and Sol Ti do not.
HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Become a member to post in the forums.