Comparative Fuel Efficiency and Carry Weight for Six Lightweight Backpacking Cooking Systems: Part II
Calculating Fuel Usage, Carry Weight Analysis, and Cost/Efficiency Considerations

Hi Roger,
Yes excellent point. I reran the number and updated the chart.

The break you see in the curve for the canister systems are due to the added canister. For the White gas it is due to a change in the MSR fuel bottle.

It depends if you are speaking of cooking days or hiking days. On my chart it runs flat to day 12 (cooking days) which is equivalent to 13 day hike.

I am using Will's fuel consumption.

I was surprised that the Jetboil faired better than white gas. Now this is comparing stoves in similar relatively mild condition. Also as someone mentioned there is most waste in Alcohol stove that I wil try to incorporate.

I very surprised how the fuel tab performed frankly I never even considered fuel tab as an option.

In another article from Will he discusses Windscreen an it is very intersting to see how each of the cooking system perform.

I also ran the numbers based on Highland consumption. I'll post that later today.

"Also as someone mentioned there is [more] waste in [an] Alcohol stove"

Using a Packafeather bottle top there is NO waste. You can aspirate any and all unused fuel back into the bottle.

This will work on almost any poly fuel bottle with just a little futzing around.

I think we mentioned waste with alcohol not necessarily with respect to recycling unused alcohol but about priming the stove and also about the user not turning out the stove right away and about spilling.

Just for kicks I added a waste of 25% white gas and 50% for alcohol stove. The Jetboil people will be happy.

Low land consumption with waste

High land consumption with waste

Hi Stefan,
The definition of Lowland and highland is as defined in Will's article. I am very clumsy with alcohol stoves. But the question is: if you are going on a 7 day hike with no resupply, how much extra alcohol will you bring with you? May be 50% is not the answer but it will not be 0% either.

About the real variables the question I am trying to answer is: What are differences in weight for each of the cooking system depending on cooking days? I think that the stove weight are real variables because Bring an integrated Canister system with a trek 700 will do me no good at all. So just looking at fuel and container will not help me answer the question.

With respect to the alcohol stove I believe I was helping the cause of the alcohol stove by include the cat stove at .3 oz. The fuel consumption is entirely based on Will's article and I don't know which alcohol stove he used. Do you have an alcohol stove lighter than .3 oz?

Exactly this chart is just meant to be a comparison, it is not meant to calculate your fuel needs for your next expedition. Unfortunately simplifications are necessary in order to compare adequately.

Just for fun here is what the chart would look like if we only look at Fuel and container. This is the lowland consumption with the white gas and Alcohol waste factors

Same as above with no waste

Personally…
-With a canister it's difficult to gauge remaining fuel in the field. You slosh it or dribble hot water on the side to see where the temperature changes- but the domed bottom makes it hard anyhow.
-With gasoline you can look in the fuel bottle- but not so easy to get an accurate volume by eyeball. I have used my hand on the side for temperature change or used a tent peg as a dipstick.
-I've never used an alcohol system, but a translucent bottle seems to make gauging fuel very easy. Don't bring extra, just ration the allotment. If that means fewer/smaller cups of tea so be it. At least you don't have pasta in ice water the last night.

If you overestimate with non-pressurized fuel it's a lot more fun. One winter trip my buddy and I brought 2.5 liters of white gasoline for 9 nights. We ended up ahead of schedule, plus weather was fairly mild, plus the stove was more efficient than we had estimated. With two nights to go we clearly had more than 1 liter extra. The fuel, a small log, a flat rock, and a pile of pine needles made a very, very impressive pillar of fire.

I think James makes a good point about quickly diminishing weight with alcohol, and I would add solid fuel, systems. I saw a graph or chart pertaining to daily average weight of different cook systems and fuel that emphasized this difference over 14-day and 28-day periods. Might not be extremely relevant for the time lengths (I don't know too many peope that go 14 days unresupplied, let alone 28 days!), but it was an eye-opener. I think this was at thru-hiker or whiteblaze.

On another note, I re-read the article for the first time since my conversion to solid fuel, and some of the numbers seem off for the fuel tabs. Table3 shows .43oz per boil for Highlands and .3oz per boil for Lowland conditions. But in Table5, under "Fuel tabs needed / day", for boiling 1 pint/day in Highland conditions it says .4 FUEL TABS, not OUNCES, per day. Likewise, Table6 indicates that for 3 pints/day in Lowland conditions you need less than 1 fuel tab/day (I wish!). It seems like these sections should either be labeled "Ounces of fuel/day", or all the numbers should be doubled since a fuel tab is .5oz. Am I reading this wrong?

Tim

Just to highlight James point above. I have yet another chart (last one promised. I like pictures) showing how the weight of the cooking sytem is reduced over the duration of a 7 day trip and the alcohol has the lowest ending weight.

I don't want to draw this thread in an entirely different direction, but there are plenty of strategies for fuel consumption and conservation that can influence the lines on the graphs above. The attempt to accurately predict consumption is inextricably linked to how fuel is actually used.

I use a homemade open jet pepsi can stove, a fairly robust aluminum flashing windscreen, and a firelite sul 1350 pot to cook for two people over multiple days, averaging 4-5 cups of boiling or nearly boiled water/meal. I appreciate the complete stability and protection of the windscreen, which doubles as pot stand, and so am willing to make the weight sacrifice there. A few suggestions on conserving fuel that directly address alcohol, but I suppose are broadly applicable.

1) My cooking routine involves about 2 cups water for food preparation and another 2-3 cups for beverages. I first boil 3 cups, then quickly scoop out 2 cups which go into the waiting food container, all the while leaving the pot on the stove. I then quickly add another 1-2 cups water to the pot, and that is for beverages when it is done. This means that the pot is never off the stove, the pot is never empty, and fuel waste is minimal. If the container in which the food soaks is aluminum or titanium, place it on top of the main pot as it heats to absorb excess heat.

2) My mentality is not to use as much fuel as I need to achieve a desired water temperature, but to achieve as high a water temperature as I can given a specific fuel ration, usually 50 ml alcohol/meal. This doesn't mean I am accepting warmish morning coffee! Under most conditions this is perfectly adequate and even allows a little wiggle room. But if I ever am in a rare situation where conditions severely degrade the performance of my stove, I can always opt to accept my non-ideal coffee or food temperatures as the price of business. Of course, if it is nearing the end of the trip, I will happily splurge on extra fuel (and if I am in an area that allows fires, this can always be a last night option if all fuel is consumed). If fire is an option, running out a fuel is not a big deal. If you know your alcohol stove well and are able to accurately dispense fuel during your trip, these calculations are pretty straightforward.

3) As I mentioned above, the use of a reflectix coozie can compensate for loss of stove efficiency in these situations. I read somewhere on Andrew Skurka's site that he boils less than the required amount of water, then adds cold water to the food mix to achieve an ideal consistency and bring it to an immediately edible temperature. Little tricks like this can amount to real savings as trips extend in length.

4) If camping in an exposed area where stove performance will suffer, or if mornings start very cold but warm up quickly, breakfast can always wait. Grab a quick bite, head off on the trail and plan to rest mid-morning when it is warmer and, perhaps, you have entered more sheltered surroundings. If you absolutely need that caffeine fix first thing, carry some chocolate covered beans to tie you over!

The more experience you have with your stove in different conditions, the easier this becomes. And by the time you return to the trailhead w/o any excess fuel, even a very luxurious and robust alcohol system still comes in under 5 oz.

James – you are right on. There are tons of factors that play into how much fuel each person will use. I think it's very hard to say that one method or another is more efficient because of so many external factors.

My alcohol setup weighs .75 oz for the aluminum flashing windscreen/stand, .5 oz for the stove, and 3.5 oz for my snowpeak 700 with a custom lid. It'll boil 16 oz of cold water on 2/3 oz of alcohol in 5 minutes or so. It ends up being pretty efficient, even for two people with a longer time between resupply. I could grab another setup that will boil more water with less fuel, but it add more weight. It depends.

Some things that will affect any method that attempts to compare stoves using days of fuel in some sort of standardized manner:

– number of people cooking for
– amount of cooking required per day (coffee, tea, wash-up?)
– personal methodologies/styles
– type of stove (efficiency, weight)
– size of cookpot (efficiency, weight)
– windscreen design (efficiency, weight)

There are obviously more factors than this. Stove efficiency is very useful to compare, but when comparing them as weight carried over days, it will be different for almost every person. You'd have to compare the stoves you have at your disposal against your situation and style.

Eric,

In my experience, cooking with basic just add water freeze dried meals doesn't require nearly that degree of precision (as long, that is, as you are not relying on boiling to treat your water). I do find that bringing my water near to but not at boil is more than adequate, especially with a coozie, and does save fuel (sitting around waiting for food to cool is an indication of wasted fuel). And, I mentioned above, cooking to a certain fuel usage rather than to a certain water temperature is a shift in mentality that can help you regulate fuel over the course of a trip. Just my two cents!

James