25gram canister stove? Brs-3000t. Is this the new lightest canister stove?

[Hugh Webb]

I Can't find any earlier threads on this stove:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Outdoor-camping-ultra-light-brs-3000t-miniature-burner-portable-titanium-alloy-gas-stove-25g/32214200524.html

http://en.brs.net.cn/product-detail-104154.html

unless I'm mistaken this looks like the new lightest canister stove on the market.

Has anybody had any experiences with it?

[Roger Caffin]

Blimey indeed!

The spec says: ' 60% titanium alloy, 10% copper,20% stainless steel '
Um – no brass needle valve? But I think I can see one there. No brass jet?

I'm curious: does it have a brass thread insert for the canister, or it is there just an aluminium thread?

Cheers

EDIT: see my posting below.

CORRECTION:
I have reviewed this stove and it is quite safe. See our review at
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/brs-3000t-review-caffin.html

Older stoves by BRS seem to have had some problems.

Cheers

[Dustin Short]

I'm thinking the 10% copper is the brass thanks to engrish. Also looking at one of the pictures, looks like just aluminum threads…unless they're titanium! ;)

[Barry Cuthbert]

"The spec says: ' 60% titanium alloy, 10% copper,20% stainless steel"

So what's the other 10%? Helium?

Makes the Fire-Maple Hornet stove look positively overweight.

With a gas stove weighing under 1 oz that can boil and simmer, why would you use an alcohol stove?

[Justin Baker]

"With a gas stove weighing under 1 oz that can boil and simmer, why would you use an alcohol stove?"

Because you can carry exactly the amount of alcohol that you need for a certain trip.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

:-)

[Alex H]

So at $31 US who is going to order it and check it out?

[J-L]

I just bought one for $22 from here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NNMF70U/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2FVB70KDJE667

Good timing for me, as I was *just* about to buy a Pocket Rocket or Jetboil or something (mainly for short trips and car-camping). Estimated delivery date is December 8th – December 24th, so maybe it will arrive before Christmas! When the stove shows up, I'll post a weight and see if it works.

My backpacking stove setup for almost the last 4 years has been Esbit:

Ti-Tri Esbit stove: 0.5 oz
Ti Windscreen: 0.2 oz
Fuel Weight per Night: 1 oz (boil 2 cups for dinner, 1 cup for evening tea, 1 cup for morning coffee = 2 tabs total)

For a 7-day/6-night trip, my starting stove + fuel weight is 6.7 oz. Given that this weight decreases by 1 oz every night, my esbit setup should still be far lighter than using this 25g stove + canister.

[Robert Blean]

"With a gas stove weighing under 1 oz that can boil and simmer, why would you use an alcohol stove?"

Because you do not have to carry the gas canister (alcohol bottle is lighter). Because you do not have to carry the empty canister. Because the alcohol stove is silent. Because it is easier for most people to know how much fuel they have with alcohol. Because you can carry only the fuel you need with alcohol. Because you do not have to worry about what to do with a partly-used canister….

–EV

[Jon Leibowitz]

EV – yup. This looks great. However, I just don't ever seeing giving up my caldera cone. I love this setup so much! Unless regulations prohibit use of a alcohol stove, CC for life. I suppose this would be a nice option for areas that do have alcohol stove prohibitions.

[Jerry Adams]

So it weighs 1 ounce which saves 2 ounces compared to traditional 3 ounce stoves. Hardly makes any difference.

One month shipping? Must be shipping from China. I just ordered something like that from Amazon and it actually took two weeks. I feel better sending my financial information to amazon.com than some anonymous seller.

Do canisters have aluminum threads? If stove and canister are both aluminum, is it more likely for stove threads to eventually strip?

[Colin Krusor]

Excellent axiom on that "Apple" brand lighter pictured next to the stove on the Aliexpress page: "The intrinsic implication character of briefness can give birth to wisdom". A bit wordy.

[Harald Hope]

stove / fuel weight tables

I worked this out in somewhat painstaking and documented detail a while back. The weights of the stove barely make any difference, however, all other things remaining equal, which they aren't (ie what is the actual field fuel efficiency of this light stove?), according to my tables, on the first day of a 6 day trip, assuming you can extend a 100 gm container of fuel to 6 days, you would be carrying roughly the same weight with this stove and a 100 gm cannister as you would with a ion/cannister hoop stove setup. Note that I switched to the newish cannister hoop stove from the ion because, somehow, through japanese stove wizardry, the designer of the chs system gets roughly the same realworld efficiency as the ion stove, but it cooks about 40% faster, ie, it's a more efficient system, and faster. Since the only drawback of the ion type stove was the cooking speed, this basically brought my real world cooking times so close to the canister stove that I no longer consider that difference to be relevant in any real world scenario.

To summarize, a canister stove setup will never be lighter than a good alcohol setup, and the alcohol setup will always be increasingly lighter per day, and if you count person/pound/miles, it's radically lighter always over a trip, no matter what length that trip is. The weight I listed for canister stove assume an 85 gram burner, so you'd simply subtract 60 grams from the starting numbers for the 10C units assuming the same efficiency/gm/liter fuel consumption.

Of course, none of this matters, the alcohol stove is simple and quiet, easy to make screens for.

With that said, I couldn't resist, and ordered one of these things just to see how efficient it is compared to a regular type 85-100 gm gas stove head. There might at some point be fire danger risks so high that I have to have one of these devices, so might as well pick up the lightest, not that I ever expect to use it, but this is about as cheap as ti tech can get.

My weights all assume a basic screen is used on the gas stoves, a screen of some type or other, that weighs something. Not sure how you'd cook in the real outdoors without one and still maintain any kind of efficiency.

For what it's worth the CHS alcohol stove basically checks all my boxes now, fast, easy to light, easy to refill, including while it's already burning, fast to reach full stove bloom, does not require an awkward wind screen, the whole setup fits in pot, and I don't need to leave a trail of emptied gas canisters behind me after every trip. Haven't checked the simmer ring, didn't get around to that, I'm sure it works as well as the rest of those guy's designs. Downside, harder to build it, needs 3 cans, not 2. All my 'kitchen table test' numbers are basically the same in my test environment and at 5k feet outdoors in the open, so there's no cherry picking going on of the data, it's a stable system.

Besides the excellent advantages listed above by EV and Justin, weight of fuel containers is a biggie, and the silence…. worth repeating, the total lack of invasion of sound pollution as you look out over the snow covered peaks… quietly, and the simple tech, love it.

I'll be at some point updating those efficiency/speed/ weight pages once I put up a how to make a CHS stove, since the only downside, cooking time, was removed. And if 5 minutes difference, or whatever real world cook times for gas are (and fastest time vs best efficiency time are worth looking at too…), anyway, if those 5 minutes make a difference… well, what's your hurry, you're already there.

[Jerry Adams]

Yeah, weight doesn't matter, efficiency is what matters.

I bet there's little difference between any of the regular stoves. Heat exchanger stove, of course, will be better (hopefully).

Of course, none of this matters, the canister stove I already have is simple and quiet, easy to make screens for. : )

[Bob Gross]

Harald, I read your Drop of Rain article. It needs some editing to get the names correct.

–B.G.–

[Harald Hope]

When I get this light canister stove burner, I'll do a few quick checks of efficiency/weight etc. just to see if there is a meaningful difference in fuel consumption. Not that I'll ever use the stuff unless I am forced to, but it's something to do when a boring day comes around, as it inevitably will.

If extra motivated, I'll even play with some screen stuff for a gas stove, on the off chance I'll ever have to use it. Why don't you show us your screen, how to make it, etc, for your canister stove? stored and in use, let's see what easy looks like.

Snow melting isn't probably in the range of what you'd want an alcohol stove for, though I have to admit I'm curious about how the chs would do.

I used to think that two people would sort of exclude an alcohol stove, but after testing the chs cooking for two with a wide pot, I no longer think that, 3 would be the cutoff I think.

I wish we could buy alcohol bulk, that would remove the only real annoyance, that gallon container, which is of course good for 100+ nights, per person. There's nothing stopping that from being done in theory though, which would make alcohol even better in general ecological terms, though it's all industrial output in the end, I pick the stuff that uses less, others pick convenience, perceived or otherwise. But the aesthetics of it are just impossible for me to get around. Each to their own in the end I guess.

[Harald Hope]

Bob, I'm sure it needs editing. and updating, but I was waiting til I had the chs how to done so I could point to it, the online how to make a chs stuff is videos and hard to follow because you have to combine several videos to get it to actually work, and take notes to get dimensions etc.

One thing that might need updating is my average consumption case for gas stoves, after posting this, I saw a lot of users report FAR worse efficiencies than I listed in real world setups, but I decided to leave the more kind numbers up to present a best case comparison for gas.

I find it hard to do any canister testing because I consider it an absurd waste of natural resources, which I really cannot justify, it's not like going through a single gallon of alcohol to debug new designs, then never having to do it again. So I relied on what users reported, though now that I realize those canisters will never get used probably, I might as well waste one to do some quick tests, maybe then I'll update the tables. Interesting to note would be efficiency of gas at high flame vs mid flame to boil 2 cups, that's one you rarely see talked about, ie, super fast vs efficient speeds to boil. And those same high/mid numbers on this light one, the standard heavier one, and the remote one. I'm not really motivated to spend time making screens though for gas, since I just don't see using gas in general, maybe as fire danger gets worse, I will do it one day though.

I have a memory of commenting on this in another thread, where some user took offense, defensively of course, at my numbers, calling them 'kitchen table' data, but the sad fact is, the numbers are exactly the same in the wild, mainly because I worked on my test setups for alcohol enough to where they reproduce average real world situations already. I haven't done that for gas myself, as noted, I just find it hard to waste such a silly amount of resources for something where I already roughly know the answer, though I do get curious. I know the tricks, of course, pretend that boiling 1.5 cups per boil to eke out a 100 gm canister to a week, etc, is the same as boiling 2 cups, as if the same fuel saving advantage wouldn't apply to all types of stove.

I really should do a documented chs stove, but it's tricky to make and isn't as simple as most popular stove types, though you can fake it with some tricks, pins instead of tiny drillbits, etc. But it's the first I've seen that checks all the boxes, and all without having to carry a cone…

[Hikin’ Jim]

I looked up the fuel type on the BRS website. The fuel is clearly specified on the Parameter tab as "Ding Wanqi". I'm not sure that's even legal here…   ;)

Seriously though, wasn't BRS in the news relatively recently? Some of their stoves were banned in the EU because of serious product safety issues? I hope I'm not besmirching an otherwise reputable company just because of the initials "BRS". I'm assuming that the banned stoves with "BRS" in their designators and this stove with "BRS" in it's designator are from the same company.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin' Jim's Blog

[Phillip Asby]

Jim see item 34 is this what you are thinking?

http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/safety/rapex/alerts/main/index.cfm?event=main.weeklyOverview&web_report_id=304

[Bob Gross]

The EU report is very old, 2008.

–B.G.–

[Hikin’ Jim]

Philip,

Yes, item 34 was what I was referring to. Maybe things are different now, but those BRS stoves have had some serious problems in the past.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin' Jim's Blog

[Roger Caffin]

Hum ….

OBSOLETE DATA
I would be extremely cautious about buying any BRS stove. Be prepared to thoroughly test them OUTSIDE, and to throw them away if they fail. They seem to be Chinese clones of the fairly well-made Kovea stoves, even to the names, but the EU testing found all sorts of shoddy manufacturing in them. Sadly, this is only too common with many Chinese stove companies. Yes, there are hordes of them, in little backyards.

I tested a Chinese clone of a Whisperlite once. Within 30 seconds the flame had gone inside the burner head, which was then fast approaching melt-down. The Chinese had ever so slightly tweaked the (otherwise very safe) design of the Whisperlite to make it easier to assemble the burner. Pity they never tested it in house. They might have blown themselves up.

Be very, very careful. There are good Chinese brands out there – all the Fire Maple stoves I have tested were well designed and well made, but brand X stuff – shudder.

CORRECTION:
I have reviewed this stove and it is quite safe. See our review at
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/brs-3000t-review-caffin.html

Older stoves by BRS seem to have had some problems. This one is good.

Cheers

[J-L]

Well shoot, thanks for the heads up. I just canceled my Amazon order – we'll see if the cancellation goes through or if they refuse and send me the stove anyway.

Edit: cancellation successful! Time to resume my search for a canister stove.

[Harald Hope]

Was going to cancel, but decided to order it anyway. Roger isn't unbiased in his views.

For this cheap, it's interesting.

[Bob Gross]

"Sadly, this is only too common with many Chinese stove companies. Yes, there are hordes of them, in little backyards."

Worse, some of them are coming out of little shops in Australia.

–B.G.–

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