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OK, so I’ve shown a few photos shot in the comfort of my home. But how does the new MSR MicroRocket fare out on the trail?
Hey, let’s quit guessing and fire this thing up under field conditions. Please join me for Trail Report #1 on the new MSR MicroRocket.
HJ, I disagree with you on taking boil times. If one is 20 seconds faster than the other and a boil is acheived in 3.5 minutes or so, you could stretch out fuel another day every 8 days maybe or have a little extra for colder than normal water or morning duty etc. I'm sure that will make a difference to many. I would like to see accurate boil tests. Maybe later? I can make my PR last 8 days now with a small MSR canister. Those pot supports on the MR sure are bigger and it still retains the wind resistant piece on top so a windscreen does not have to be used if wanted. Thanks for the report and pics.
Duane
"If one is 20 seconds faster than the other and a boil is acheived in 3.5 minutes or so, you could stretch out fuel another day every 8 days maybe or have a little extra for colder than normal water or morning duty etc."
Sometimes one stove boils at 20 seconds faster because it is burning fuel at a slightly higher rate. So, you haven't saved fuel, only time. I guess time is money.
–B.G.–
Duane Hall wrote: > HJ, I disagree with you on taking boil times. If one is 20 seconds faster than the other and a boil is acheived in 3.5 minutes or so, you could stretch out fuel…
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on here. I’m talking about time not amount of fuel. And actually, a slightly slower stove usually does better on fuel consumption.
If you’re trying to stretch your fuel, turn your stove down not up.
Duane Hall wrote: > I would like to see accurate boil tests. Maybe later?
Well, I would love to, but probably not. Good boil tests are very time consuming and take a lot of work.
And I’m sincere that I would love to, but I’ve got a day job, a family, etc, and oh by the way did I mention I like hiking? I want to get out on the trail not spend time in at home on a Saturday running boil tests. The blog is a huge amount of work and takes a lot of time. I receive not one penny of compensation. I enjoy it, but I can only spend so much time on it.
Jim: I really appreciate what you do and that you have a readable, funny style of writing. And I agree that simple boil times are not very important beyond 11 minutes is untenable in some colder settings, 9 minutes can suck, and 6 minutes is a lot slower than 3 minutes.
But, as you allude to in this review and your responses above, efficiency matters. Much more than time to boil.
So, IF you wanted to take on a little more work in your efforts, how about bringing along a gram scale and weigh the stove & canister before and after your boil-time test? One liter with X grams versus one liter boiled with Y liter speaks volumes. Well, I guess it literally speaks masses, but we could convert it to volumes at STP -grin-.
Yeah, maybe one stove has a sweet spot at some lower flame setting, but as a first cut and very useful datapoint, just derive fuel/liter at max flame.
Sorry HJ, you are right about fuel consumption versus boil times. I know you will be busy for a while now to do anything like that. I see stoves listing their boil times and I'm sure many here want to know. Too bad stove makers don't have a mark or range area where the best efficiency is. I know, turn my stove down, I'll try to remember. However, on my many weekend trips this last four months, that was the least of my worries using my old stoves, but on my vacation bp trips, I'll have to watch. I want to fire up my virgin Coleman F1 Power Boost stove and do some tests with it. Supposed to be super fast. Kinda like watching the gas gauge on a high performance car, you can see the needle moving. :)
Duane
Duane, now is the time to get in on the ground floor stock opportunity. The IPO for HJ Stove Testing Labs will probably happen soon. You need to get your investment advisor to set you up.
–B.G.–
David Thomas wrote: > So, IF you wanted to take on a little more work in your efforts, how about bringing along a gram scale and weigh the stove & canister before and after your boil-time test? One liter with X grams versus one liter boiled with Y liter speaks volumes. Well, I guess it literally speaks masses, but we could convert it to volumes at STP -grin-.
Oh how I want to. It bugs me to do what I consider an incomplete job. Really, I’d like to thoroughly test each stove as to how efficient it is at multiple settings. I’d also like to do carbon monoxide emissions tests, mean-time-to-failure tests, boil tests, etc. I’d like to do state of the market type reports of the same quality as found here on BPL. This stuff is fascinating to me and useful to others. I could easily work full time on it. And if I were independently wealthy, I might do just that. I am not however so blessed.
The blog as is takes a huge amount of time. I plan a hike. I plan what gear to take. I plan the testing. I drive to the trail head. I hike the hike. I test everything. I photograph everything. When I get home, I upload everything. 50% or more of my photos are cr@p and never see the light of day. (I really need to get a camera with a manual focus in order to do this “job” correctly)
THEN after all that I have to interpret my data, try to make sense out of it, arrange all the photos, and try to present the information is such a way that it is a) readable and b) useful.
It’s a lot of fun; I’m very pleased to have people actually read what I’ve written; I enjoy the positive feedback — and it’s a heck of a lot of work.
Anytime you see a post such as the one that started this thread, it means I’ve done nothing else for the equivalent of a full day. That’s a lot of time. All that to say, that I probably won’t be adding additional “features” to my blog.
HOWEVER, I would be very open if there were people of a mind to collaborate. If someone were to supply me with figures, I would happily post them to my blog. What I lack, others may enjoy supplying…
Duane Hall wrote: > Too bad stove makers don’t have a mark or range area where the best efficiency is.
That is absolutely the best idea. Who better equipped to do such a thing?
Of course stove manufacturers don’t provide such detail, preferring to impress the noobs with boil times. [rolls eyes]
"And I agree that simple boil times are not very important beyond 11 minutes is untenable in some colder settings, 9 minutes can suck, and 6 minutes is a lot slower than 3 minutes."
I've been lurking and wondering why the emphasis on "boiling" water when heating it to, say, 180 degrees will suffice quite nicely for most backcountry cooking. The latent heat of vaporization, or amount of energy required to change water from a liquid to a gas, is quite significant and represents, IMO, a huge waste of fuel. This in turn has major implications for the amount of fuel one will have to carry on a backpacking trip. Just wondering…..
Tom,
I haven't read the whole thread, but here are a few guesses.
1. The boil point of water is fairly consistent, give or take a bit with altitude. Its pretty much a familiar benchmark people feel safe with.
2. Back before backcountry filters and chemicals, boiling was the only way to purify water.
3. We're stuck on the rhetoric and nostalgia of needing to boil water because of #'s 1 and 2.
I admit that until recently, I've brought all my water to a boil even though it was already filtered.
Maybe "boil" time is just a name, you don't really have to bring to rolling boil.
To kill bad stuff in the water, someone on this site said you have to only bring it to 180 F or something.
Sort of like "the one percent" doesn't really mean the top one percent, but actually just a portion of the top 0.1 percent or even less than that.
to kill the baddies in water, you need to heat it to 180F for a certain amount of time. Generally, if you just heat it until boiling, that has been proven to do it without maintaining temp after reaching boil.
Boil times are unimportant really unless need to boil more than one pot. I can tolerate 10 min solo with alcohol to boil 2cups for breakfast where 1 cup used for oatmeal, and the other for coffee. Or even at dinner where I can boil again for coffee while food is heating in cozy.
But if 2 people are relying on one stove that boils 10 min per, that doesnt work so well.
Tom,
As others have said, boiling is an easy endpoint.
You're right – in many cases, going to boiling is a waste of fuel.
In actual use, you rarely need to actually boil water. If you get water to 100C to make your tea or coffee or hot choc, you will then wait around, blow on it, to let it cool to be able to drink it.
For purifying water, you don't need 212F / 100C. Like any kind of cooking or chemistry, it is a combination of time and temperature. Anytime above 180F / 82 C for any time will be fine. At 140F / 60 F, you need many, many minutes. This info I got from someone doing his graduate work in pasteurizing drinking water in the third world. Yes, there are tougher bacteria out there. BUT, we're only trying to kill the pathological ones, the ones with enough tricks to infect us.
It's unfortunate that whoever writes the phamplet the rangers hands out apparently looks at anyone else has ever written, takes the most conservative recommendations, and then rounds that up some more.
Cooking food, like cooking bugs takes time AND temperature. That's why baking times are longer at 10,000 feet – water boils at a lower temp, the dough doesn't get as hot and it takes longer to cook.
But when we are only reconstituting something or making hot drinks, one could save time, fuel, and burnt fingers by not bringing the water to a boil.
"But when we are only reconstituting something or making hot drinks, one could save time, fuel, and burnt fingers by not bringing the water to a boil."
This is precisely what I was getting at. It can make a significant difference on longer trips.
Tom Kirchner wrote: > I’ve been lurking and wondering why the emphasis on “boiling” water when heating it to, say, 180 degrees will suffice quite nicely for most backcountry cooking. The latent heat of vaporization, or amount of energy required to change water from a liquid to a gas, is quite significant and represents, IMO, a huge waste of fuel. This in turn has major implications for the amount of fuel one will have to carry on a backpacking trip. Just wondering…
Tom,
Excellent question. I can’t answer for everyone, but I tend to think in terms of “field precision.” In other words, I need ways to tell what I’m doing out in the field. With water, 180 degrees may suffice for cooking, but how can I tell it’s 180 degrees? If I’ve got the pot boiling, then I know the water is as hot as I can possibly make it.
Today, for example, I was boiling some snow that I had melted. Quite frankly, it looked a little nasty once it had melted. I brought it all the way to a boil, then added my noodles, then simmered it. A cozy might have been just as good for the simmer portion, although today I was testing the stove that started this thread.
"I can't answer for everyone, but I tend to think in terms of "field precision." In other words, I need ways to tell what I'm doing out in the field. With water, 180 degrees may suffice for cooking, but how can I tell it's 180 degrees? If I've got the pot boiling, then I know the water is as hot as I can possibly make it."
If you're going for precision, my way of thinking definitely doesn't apply. I just tossed 180 degrees out there for the sake of discussion. In reality, I just heat the water until the top of the pot is too hot for my fingers and call it good for reconstituting/drink making, which is all I ever do. If the water source is suspect, it gets the Steripen treatment before use. I figure the Steripen is with me anyway, and a few billion electrons weigh less than the amount of fuel required to boil water. Most of my trips these days are cold food with hot water only for drinks. Using this method, which also involves taking my morning coffee water to bed at night to raise it almost to body temp, a 4 oz canister generally suffices for two people on an 8 day trip. My 2 cents.
Good point Tom about bringing water to 180F. I, like most everyone, gotta bring water to a boil, that's the standard I guess. You are correct about the hot coffee or cocoa, use all that fuel, then have to let the hot drink cool down before consuming. When car camping, I'll try to remember to just get my water hot before it scalds my inner lip drinking my Via. Those little stupid things you do. Last winter, I know to slowly start melting snow or start with some water and slowly add snow to melt. I had it pointed out to me that I was burning my snow and should start with some water first, get the water warm and add my snow. Doh!
Bob, I'm worming my way into HJ's good graces by passing along stoves to him free or at my cost and relieving him of surplus stoves in return. I'll make arrangements with my neighbor/financial adviser, she's making more money than I am on my money.
Duane
"Bob, I'm worming my way into HJ's good graces by passing along stoves to him free or at my cost and relieving him of surplus stoves in return."
Yes, once the HJ stove testing lab hits its IPO, he'll be raking in the profits. MSR will probably beat a pathway to his door with bribes. He'll end up buying out BPL, and then where will that lead us?
–B.G.–
Bob, I'm sure HJ gets a pittance for his write ups, maybe he's trying for the best blog award. One fellow bper over on Thelightweightbackpacker got that recently.
HJ has done a bunch of reviews on MSR stoves, but is pretty knowledgeable on many others that I may never own. We may be rubbing shoulders with royalty, take a knee dude! :)
Duane
taking my morning coffee water to bed at night to raise it almost to body temp
Now that’s innovative. As long as the water isn’t ice cold nor the night too freezey, that sounds like a very good plan.
a 4 oz canister generally suffices for two people on an 8 day trip.
That’s some pretty good fuel economy. Do you mind if I ask which stove you’re taking?
“Field Precision” is sort of a my half-joking way of saying that any measurements I make need to be able to done out on the trail. I don’t mean to imply precision in the usual sense at all.
Field “precision” means that 2 cups is 500 ml out on the trail whereas at home it isn’t normally.
Took a nice hike today, but now I’m really tired. I hope this vaguely resembles rational thought…
Yes, once the HJ stove testing lab hits its IPO, he’ll be raking in the profits. MSR will probably beat a pathway to his door with bribes. He’ll end up buying out BPL, and then where will that lead us?
Three words for you Bob: Total. World. Domination.
I can’t promise perfection, but everyone gets a really nice stove when I rule the world.
I’m sure HJ gets a pittance for his write ups, maybe he’s trying for the best blog award.
Pittance? If you consider zip, zilch, nada, zero, nothing to be a pittance, than I guess so.
Hit the trail again today. Did a little Snow Melting (among other things). Report to follow.
In a snow-melting contest, we always start with a defined volume of snow, like one cubic foot or a half cubic foot, and we weigh that before the fun begins. That gives some measure of how much water is really in there before the steam fouls up the measurements. Then we melt it, one pot at a time, with water in the bottom of the pot below the snow. I assume that you used a good wind shield that doesn't show in the photo.
You will get a lot of opinions as to the best way to melt snow. Some people tell you to blast it with the highest heat possible. Others will tell you to gently hit it with a warm and efficient heat. The size of the pot may matter. It just depends on what you are trying to do, melt fast or melt efficiently. Without some of these controls, you will get result numbers that are all over the place.
–B.G.–
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