If it’s cold out and your remote canister stove has a generator (a pre-heat mechanism), then you can invert (turn upside down) the canister. Inverting the canister means that you’re sucking liquid off the bottom of the canister instead of sucking vapor off the top. Now, liquid fuel goes to the burner where the heat of the flame vaporizes fuel. If the heat of the flame is doing the vaporization, you’re far less dependent on the weather.
In fact, all you need from the weather is just enough warmth to keep a little pressure in the canister, just enough pressure to get some liquefied gas to the burner where the heat of the flame will take care of the rest. And that pressure should be pretty easy to come by. Unlike upright operation, the propane content of your canister does not burn off faster. With inverted operation (liquid feed gas), your gas mix — and thus your canister pressure for a given outside temperature — stays fairly constant.
As a practical matter, you can run your stove inverted in weather that’s about 20F/10C colder than if your ran your stove upright.
Wow, gas in colder weather? All the simmering, none of the priming. How sweet is that?
Um, but what’s the catch?
Well, the “catch” is that remote canister stoves that can handle inverted operation usually weigh two or three times what an upright stove weighs. But we’re making progress.
Today, on my blog, I feature a guest post by Geoff R from Australia. Geoff reviews the Kovea Camp 5. The Camp 5 weighs 142g/5.5oz. Which, while not as light as an upright stove, is a step in the right direction, particularly when you compare the Camp 5 to other remote canister stoves like the MSR WindPro (227g/8oz) and the Primus Express Spider (198g/7oz).
