8 oz. fuel canister lids

I’ve been looking for a product with the right size lid ever since

So, this being BPL, how much does it weigh?  I bet this would be the lightest solution.

You could just leave it on the bottom of the canister, then, if it’s cold, you could fill it with water

Ah, Jerry, I knew I could count on you. I remember that you also thought that we needed an 8 oz. lid, and there was someone else that agreed with us. The weight – all 3 versions are 15.0  to 15.1 grams. Maybe the coolest aspect of this whole thing is how you will likely wow the newbies at a group camp site’s cooking area…

But actually, Jerry, I found something that is even lighter – 8.2 gm. But it only works with hand warmers.

Roger, I see where you corrected the snafu that wouldn’t do the photos in my first post. There’s still too much space between the paragraphs in the second half of my post, but we can live with that. Much appreciated!

Link to aforementioned article

https://backpackinglight.com/canister-stove-fuel-warming-techniques/

and for Chicken Tramper

https://chickentrampergear.com

Thanks for that, Ken. I am pretty much cyber-challenged, and I don’t know how to do that.

One thing I forgot to mention – the canister cozy, which is rather important for keeping the heat  in and somewhat compensating for the self-cooling of the canister. I make mine from 4 mm neoprene. A great source for this is Frogg Togg’s gravel guards, which are waterproof neoprene gaiters for fishermen. You should be able to find them at your local fishing gear store. They aren’t very expensive (~$12 for a pair). One pair will make maybe 5-6 cozies.

>> the canister cozy, which is rather important for keeping the heat in and somewhat compensating for the self-cooling of the canister.

I hate to be difficult, but this does not work as many might read it. A cozy might slow down the cooling of a warm canister in very cold weather, but I have never found that to be a problem.
A cozy cannot compensate for the evaporative cooling of the gas inside. You are better off letting the canister cop some radiation from the flames.
A tight windshield, which is always a good idea anyhow, will also circulate some warm air back down to the canister. Just monitor the canister for any overheating – the Touch Test.

Insulating the bottom of the canister from ice or snow underneath – that’s a good idea.

Cheers

Roger, of course you are right. The IR emissivity canister warming concept was discussed in the original article. That requires some sort of wind screen to bounce the IR waves from the pot’s bottom back down to the canister. My interest here is to study the efficiency of using either a hand warmer or a simple water bath to enhance an 8 oz. canister’s performance in colder conditions as a stand-alone system (without a wind screen).  I am curious as to whether you think that adding a black neoprene canister cozy would help, or rather hinder, the warming affect of the IR radiation to the canister when employing a wind screen.

As an aside, yesterday I went to an outdoor camping store to see if they still sold the “lowly” Optimus brand of 8 oz. fuel canisters. I say lowly because the composition is 25% propane, 25% iso-butane, and a whopping 50% n-butane. What I want to do is to wait until December when we usually have a cold spell of 0* F (-18* C). The idea is to burn off the propane, and as much of the iso-butane as possible, and then later employ a hand warmer to see if it can warm up the canister enough to get the n-butane to vaporize. This worked OK with the 4 oz. fuel canisters a few years ago, but I want to see if the larger 8 oz. canisters perform in a similar manner.

As yet another aside comment, the store didn’t sell the Optimus fuel any more, but I noted that Jetboil has changed the color of their canisters from the old gray to a predominately black (with orange lettering).  It seems that the black color might absorb some extra heat from the sun, and perhaps from the IR radiation described above.

Hi Gary

I have never used a hand warmer, but I would expect them to work OK. They get pretty warm. Having it under the canister and inside a cozy might be best.

I have used a water bath – water at maybe 10 C in a bowl, and that certainly did work. Zero extra weight involved, and no extra fiddle either.

A black neoprene cozy down the sides is unlikely to intercept much IR from the flames, so I don’t think it would help or hinder very much.

What I certainly have found effective is making my tallish windscreen fairly tight around the pot – a 10 – 15 mm gap and closed up at the side to about 50 mm gap. The very slight back pressure created by the windscreen meant warm air was circulating around the canister and keeping it warm. I did not let the canister go above about +20 C, but that did keep the upright stove burning well.

If you want to experiment with straight butane, you could use one of the butane fly-spray canisters meant for table-top stoves as a source of butane. They are very cheap.

Alternately, take an EMPTY 8 oz canister, poke a hole in the valve, fill it half-way with ice-cold water, and see what the hand warmer can do to warm it up. Zero cost exercise.

Jetboil black paint? Dunno whether it would help or not. You would need to know the emissivity of the black paint in the IR region: it might or might not be ‘black’. I’m a cynic: I would blame the colour change on Marketing.

Cheers

So it appears that no one is much interested in getting one of these canister lids. I can see why – who needs to warm a fuel canister during the summer? Anyway, I am about to place an order with Nathan for more lids, some for my own use, and also for Christmas gifts for a few friends. If anyone wants one (or more) now is the time. I doubt that I will be placing any more orders for these lids with Nathan after this.

By the way, click on the link that Ken offered for the Chicken Tramper web site, check out their gear, and take advantage of their 15% discount code.