Looking to lighten my stove weight

[Steve Davis]

Hey Guys,

I currently have a Jetboil Sol for cooking. It weighs 21 oz with a full fuel canister. I'm wondering if I can cut that down substantially without losing the convenience and ease it affords? What are my options? Thanks!

-Steve

[Anonymous]

What do you normally cook, what altitude are you normally cooking at & what season do you want your cooking system to work with?

The lightest I've been able to effectively use is a cat stove with a fosters can. When water was boiling I dumped it into a freezer bag, then put the freezer bag in a clean mountain house bag.

[Robert Kelly]

I find that a Caldera Cone with alcohol or Esbit as fuel is quite convenient and much lighter. Not as fast as the Jetboil to bring water to a boil, but we are talking about a 2-3 minute difference for the 3-4 cups of water I heat. There are many other alcohol and Esbit stoves that are also good, though maybe a bit less efficient in most cases.

Then there's the wood/twig stove option, depending on where you are hiking and the conditions. This can be very light and convenient, but takes more practice to develop the skills to address non-deal fuel conditions (ie wet twigs).

[Steve Davis]

I normally cook easy stuff that just requires boiling water. Not super high altitudes. Maybe a few thousand feet so far. 3 season stuff in california. No winter hiking.

[Billy Ray]

I can't stand the smell of the Esbit… gives me migraine headache… not real happy about the smell of alcohol either. So I go with a 2.4 oz Soto stove and I find if I turn the stove off just as the water begins to simmer I can go 10 days or more on the small fuel canister which weighs about 7 oz… that's a total of 9.4 oz for stove and fuel for at least 10 days…. in the summer

bill

[Tom D.]

The convenience and ease are the primary reasons to carry a JetBoil. When I did a thru hike with my 2 sons, I set aside the alcohol stoves in favor of the JetBoil after I calculated that after fuel weight, etc, the Jetboil would be at lighter at the beginning but heavier at the end, so we opted for the ease and convenience. Keep the JetBoil for those situations when you are hiking with others. You will not really match the convenience and ease with any other stove, but there are many lighter and still pretty easy to use.

You didnt mention where you will be using it. I'd love to get a Caldera cone or Firemug, but I can't use wood, alcohol, or Esbit stoves in any of my local mountains except in car camping fire rings, so I have to use a canister stove for most of my hikes. Whatever you choose, make sure you will be able to use it where you hike.

[Yoyo]

I keep being tempted to buy a Caldera Cone titanium sidewinder with 12-10 alcohol stove or titanium gram cracker (Esbit) to try out. I hike with my wife, do you think either of these setups would be worth it for us? We boil about 1.0-1.5 L of water for dinner, about 0.5 – 1.0 L of water for breakfast, and about 0.5 L for lunch. (Let's figure a 2-3 day trip).

[Katy Anderson]

Pretty straightforward to replace your Jetboil with a classic gas stove and pot system for a significant weight savings and no loss of convenience.

The Jetboil sol comes with a .8 liter pot and weighs 10.5 ounces as a total system.

Replace it with a .8 liter MSR Titan Kettle at 4 ounces and a Snowpeak Litemax stove at 2 ounces for a total system weight of 6 ounces. That is a 4.5 ounce weight savings over your Jetboil. There are lighter pots so its possible to get even more savings while staying with a traditional pot and stove system.

It also looks like you are using a large size gas canister which should not be necessary for weekend type trips. The full small canisters weighs 7.5 ounces. So your total gas stove / titanium pot / full canister weight should be no more than 13.5 ounces.

[Kate Magill]

David,

My partner and I use a Tri-Ti pretty regularly. The real appeal of the Caldera system, for me, is its flexibility. If you hike in areas that permit wood fires, being able to cook over wood is fun and satisfying and weight-efficient. I like cooking with wood because it forces me to pay attention to the landscape in a way I that I don't if I'm relying on a gas stove, alcohol, or esbit. We usually carry a couple esbits or a little alcohol for those times when it's pouring rain or we're lazy or doing big miles. I find that it works best to do any morning cooking with packaged fuel (coffee! stat!) and do dinner at a more leisurely pace with a twig fire.

In a perfect world, we would have a slightly larger pot. The Evernew 900 is a little small sometimes for two dinners, especially if you want hot drinks too. Something like a 1.5L MSR Titan kettle would've suited our needs much better.

Hope that helps.

[Craig .]

I have been using a Thermo Jet Microlite alcohol stove since BPL gave them a great review a few years ago. I have one for each of my Evernew Ti pots,1.3 and .9, both are short/wide. The .9 set with windscreen, stove, pot supports(2 rods),fuel measuring cup,4 oz. Nalgene fuel bottle (a little heavy at .8 oz but the stove fits over the lid of the fuel bottle and the windscreen wraps around that and fits in the pot),piece of Velcro to hold that together and a reflector made from a diposible pie tin, weighs in at 7.1 oz. It will boil 2 cups of water in 6 1/2 min. on 3/4 oz. of fuel (with some fuel left over). It has never failed on me. Have had to warm the stove in my hands on two occasions, because of the cold, to get it to light. Maybe 30 seconds effort. As I said earlier everything fits in the pot with enough space left for your repackaged Aqua Mira.

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