Alchol stove.

Alcohol stoves are incredibly varied. Many different designs out there. You can easily make one for yourself. They should be sized to your cook pot in some circumstances. You have some homework to do before you start spending money.

White box stove.

Zeph makes nice stoves. Can't go wrong with a caldera cone sidewinder with a Zelph stove either

You mentioned on another thread you're on a tight budget. I'd save money on this one and make a Fancy Feast one.

When funds loosen up I'd get a Caledera Cone (traildesigns) set-up, it's the most stable stove I've every used. Catch with that is you have to commit to a specific pot. So if you don't already have a pot you like, maybe figure that part out first.

I have this, love it, and it's only a smidge heavier than comparable titanium pots:

http://www.traildesigns.com/cookware/open-country-3-cup-hard-anodized-pot

I have the classic aluminum cone. Eventually I want to upgrade to ti-tri sidewinder + zelph starltye stove option (so that I can fit everything in the pot).

Or…you can use the gear swap and save quite a bit over retail.

hint hint….I have a caldera cone on the gear swap right now ( I have two, so selling one set).

The best thing about the Zelph Starlyte stove in my opinion is the fact that it is really, really hard to spill, if not impossible. One of the major problems with alcohol stoves, especially of the Fancy Feast variety, is that it is easy for them to flip and spill, starting wild fires in really dry conditions. Everyone says. "oh, it won't happen to me, I'M careful", but there are experienced people who have slipped up even so. I generally fold up a piece of heavy-duty foil which I use under the stove and Caldera Cone. Gives me a place out of the dirt to place my spoon or lid, and if I spill a little fuel while filling the stove, no biggy.

+1 on the Caldera Cone (aluminum) or Ti-Tri (titanium) set ups from Trail Designs. My Ti-Tri is pretty much my “go to” set up for solo Sierra backpacking.

Here, I’m cooking trout on my Ti-Tri Sidewinder in the Sierra. I’m using wood here, which is an option with the titanium windscreen, but it works just as well with alcohol (or ESBIT for that matter).

The trick in my opinion with alcohol stoves is to get one that is efficient. Here are my ideas on efficiency. If a stove set up can boil 2 cups (about 500ml) of 50F/10C water at sea level with:
<15 ml of fuel — Very efficient
<20 ml of fuel — Efficient
<25 ml of fuel — Average
<30 ml of fuel — Poor
>30 ml of fuel — Failure. Get a new stove set up.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim’s Blog

I own about 10 different makes/models of alcohol stoves and I would recommend you "start" with a Whitebox stove (the Rucas appears to me to be a larger copy). As is the case with most users, you will try many different types/makes. The Whitebox is one of the most simple and trustworthy.

Consider Esbit also. Get one of the titanium folding wing stoves if you do.

Disadvantages:
slight odor (like fish)
messier pot
harder to light
costs more

Advantages:
simpler
fuel is solid and won't spill, just sit it on the stove
no measuring
no flare ups or accidental flaming puddles

After playing around with a bunch of different designs, including some ones you can buy, by far the best I’ve found is this one:

capillary hoop stove. These tips for making CHS are necessary to succeed. This stove nails it, no priming, almost immediately starts up to full flame, boils 2 cups in 6.5 minutes without needing to carry a cone type screen. You can make that out of 3 7.5 ounce soda cans, just knock abuot 8mm from the height of the inner and outer piece. stand needs to be about 1″ higher than the stove top.

But it’s hard to make this one and requires some decent tools, unfortunately. But it’s by far the best design I’ve yet found, though it is not spill resistant like the zelph stuff, which is a real concern in dry areas.

If you want to try making one though, that’s a great stove.

Otherwise I’d second what people say and just get a zelph.

After going on a few trips with priming stoves, I decided that was enough, annoying, so I don’t use them anymore.

With something like a chr or ion, you can expect to get 2 cup boils with 13-15ml SLX (by the way, that alcohol has a new name now last I checked, but it’s what hardware stores carry).

Stoves that don’t need priming are great, because you just put in some amount, then if it runs out, you squirt in a touch more, and finish the boil. I believe the chr may be one of the very fastest to reach full bloom from start out there, it’s about 5 seconds give or take, depending on how well it was made and how much fuel was used in the container.

I agree re fuel consumption, though I put the quantities lower than above:

12-15ml (great, doesn’t get better with 50/50 ethanol/methanol mixes like slx. Note that the ion is very efficient but also very slow, which is what makes the chr a real winner, it’s the same cooking speed about as a fancy feast, but it requires no priming, and is more efficient, and works very well on narrow pots)
15-20ml – ok, if it’s really fast.
25+ no point that I can see since you can get the same speed from better stoves.

Also worth awareness is if you cook with wide or narrow pot. If narrow, not all designs work well, chr and ion and probably zelph stuff do, others are truly miserable with narrow. Wide pots will I believe almost always if not always be more efficient slightly.

I like my cooking kit to be self contained so the screen should fit inside it, the cozy outside the pot.

nbd …

… for 3 season use, most alcohol stoves don't need priming.

That’s not correct, the fancy feast for example requires: fill, light, wait until heat builds up enough to create enough vapor pressure, then place pot on stove. I call that priming since you can’t just light it, put pot on stove, and be done. And you certainly can’t put in more fuel and keep cooking without repeating htat priming process. The Penny stoves can’t be lit without priming, and that’s a serious pain when it’s cold/at altitude. There’s some commercial ones too I have that require priming, which is why you can’t light them without their priming tray. All the ones that have either a dish below or a band of felt type stuff wrapped around them are being primed before they fully engage, and can’t be lit without those things.

Something like the zelph does not need priming, ie, you fill, light, and that’s that. The chr / ion are simiilar, and all those use pot stands. I believe most of the pressurized ones require priming. I believe all stoves that require the pressure created between stove and pot directly are essentially being primed, ie, if you put the pot on too fast, it goes out.

traildesigns 12-10 with Integrated primer pan is an example of a common commercial type stove, though there are many others that are similar. Note the use of the term:integrated priming pan. I also used priming trays to get stoves requiring priming lit until I realized it wasn’t necessary since not all alcohol stoves require priming like this. Besides being a pain, the stoves that require this type of priming are a serious fire hazard since you are basically putting alcohol about 1mm from the ground then lighting it. Having just gone through about 10 miles of burn in 3 sisters, then driven through the massive smoke curtain in northern california on my way back, I will no longer use such stoves because of the fire risk.

That should be enough examples.

"fill, light, wait"…
…waiting is not priming

"All the ones that have either a dish below … can't be lit without those things."

…Hardly

"traildesigns 12-10 with Integrated primer pan….
… not needed and lights fine without priming.

Priming is a red herring issue for stove selection. IMHO.

Just get a Trail Designs for the pot of your choice, and be done.

I guess you like your trail designs stove, that's all you needed to say instead of making a blanket statement that is not true. I've never tested that traildesigns exact one, though I have a similar one that doesn't light unless you fill that same looking tray under it, so no idea what the 12-10 needs or doesn't need, but I have tested many others, to the degree that I know that some are a pain to light and get burning and some are not. If you want to disagree with this, then I doubt there's any point in us trying to communicate any more.

Maybe it's a language thing, don't know, but it sounds like you just like your setup and are happy with it, which is fine.

So let me rephrase it, some stoves are easy to light, and bloom super fast into full burn, and require nothing beyond lighting it, and others are to varying degrees not as easy to light, and require varying degrees of fiddling, up to and including priming actions.

A red herring is the wrong term however here, since ease of lighting/refilling/relighting if needed are not nothing, and do matter to me, and I think probably to others.

If this isn't loose enough I have to assume you just are in the mood to argue, I'm not.

I completely agree that having to wait/prime a stove is a nuisance. And you are wasting heat/fuel while it comes up to full operation.

In the sspecific case of the TD 12-10, priming isn't usually needed unless it is below 40F/5C.

HJ