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

[Hikin’ Jim]

Harald,

I do notice that the BRS stove looks an awful lot like a certain Fire Maple stove and even has a similar name. I smell knock off, but I hope I'm wrong.

Either way, I'll be interested in hearing how it goes.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim's Blog

[Bob Gross]

"Either way, I'll be interested in hearing how it goes."

You might not hear it, but you might see the fireball in the distance.

–B.G.–

[James holden]

ive been using this 11 dollah chinese stove …

it works well enough and most folks who use it seem to be using it just fine

http://dx.com/p/ultra-mini-portable-outdoor-metal-gas-stove-with-a-case-2-ag3-52063

but who knows, maybe they go KABOOM !!!

;)

[Bob Gross]

Eric, in the photo we can see that the control valve area seems to be made of brass. What about the screw threads underneath?

–B.G.–

[James holden]

bob …

all brass …

im no stove expert but it seems very well built

especially for 11 dollahs !!!

;)

[Bob Gross]

"it seems very well built"

That means it is too heavy.

–B.G.–

[James holden]

it weights 3.5 oz without the case … sightly more than the GS100 without the piezo (which this one has though i never use it)

no doubt that stove is too heavy these days as well

;)

[Robert Blean]

Harald,

"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…"

I wonder how it would do in a Caldera Cone — would it be faster and/or more efficient than the 12-10? The height as documented is about the same (38mm=CC, 40mm=CHS), and it would not be hard to make the CHS 2mm shorter (if that matters).

My other question is how easy it is to empty unburned fuel from the CHS.

–MV

[Hikin’ Jim]

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…

I for one would appreciate some more information on your experience with the CHS. It sounds really interesting. Efficient with high output? What's not to like?

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin' Jim's Blog

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Eric

DX – sometime they have the stuff in stock, and sometimes they don't. It can be a bit chancy for delivery.

The stove itself looks very close to the stock Kovea model, with SS rather than Ti. VERY close. It may be a production over-run going cheap out the back door. That happens!

But the really wonderful thing about this stove is the last line in the published DX specs, which are copied here:
– Portable mini and lightweight, package in a small case for easy carrying
– Great for camping cooking
– Gas: use liquefied petroleum gas or natural gas
– Color: black + silver
– Built-in 2*AG3 batteries

Batteries?????

Cheers

[Bob Gross]

"Batteries?????"

That may be for the smoke alarm.

–B.G.–

[Franco Darioli]

That $11 Chinese stove is obviously a copy of the early version of the Kovea Ti but not made from the same parts.
If you look at it very carefully you will see that the parts are of a slightly different size and shape.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Interesting how closely (and shamelessly) they copied the design. Looks a little flimsy though.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin' Jim's Blog

[Bob Gross]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

–B.G.–

[James holden]

the stove aint flimsy

its no worse than a pocket rocket and in fact its more stable with a pot IMO

theres at least one other BPLer who uses it extensively

I have also used this same stove fairly extensively over the past year. Ordered through Amazon for even less, around $7 shipped from China at the time. Took about a month to arrive.

I wanted to remove the piezo as well since it was hit or miss and I didn't need it. Unfortunately it's structural and keeps the top assembly stable. It hasn't been as stable since removing and replacing it.

Otherwise, I like it and my observations echo yours. It doesn't feel crude for the price. I don't feel like I'd get a whole lot more for a canister stove with a higher price.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=84381

my only complaint other than the 1 month delivery time is that the piezo is very finicky, its hit or miss

other than that it boils just fine for 11 maple syrup dollahs … or 10 yankee ones

;)

[Hikin’ Jim]

other than that it boils just fine for 11 maple syrup dollahs … or 10 yankee ones

You can't beat that deal. And that's shipped?

I'm still a little leary, but if it works, it works. And, man, that price. Especially for something like Boy Scouts or youth groups. It's hard to recommend a $75 stove when there's an $10 that will do. Of course the piezo doesn't work on the $10 version, but $65 will buy you a lot of matches…

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin' Jim's Blog

[Bob Gross]

"my only complaint other than the 1 month delivery time is that the piezo is very finicky, its hit or miss"

Eric, from time to time we have heard such allegations about the piezo lighter. One suggestion was that it was altitude-related. High altitude led to more failure.

–B.G.–

[James holden]

Id actually love to see you do a review if one jim

I searched quite a bit on the intrawebz about it before buying it since with chinese brand goods its hit or miss

As far as i can tell no one has reported any real problems, and there are some videos about it … The folks on dx are quite quick to give a poor review to anything not up to snuff, as am i

It would be great in your potential review if you ID the part for the oring replacement should that become needed and any cleaning

Of course there is a biy more risk buying a chinese stove … But if you can find a decent one for 10$ that functions about the same as a pocket rocket…

Well that lowers the cost of gear for new folks

At worst, just keep it in yr truck for emergencies, it wont matter if you lose it or it gets stolen

;)

[James holden]

Bob

The piezo is finicky on this stove in squamish which is at sea level

Same with my jetboil one

;)

[Hikin’ Jim]

Maybe I'll do a review of it some time. A number of people have asked me to review some low end canister stoves.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin' Jim's Blog

[Barry Cuthbert]

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

It was a bit of a throw-away line but I should add some context to it. I use a Snowpeak GS100 gas stove as a one-and-done stove for a wide range of uses, such as cooking for between 1-4 people, and not just boiling water but cooking and simmering. I value the extra flexibility a gas stove gives me.

I wrote about my experiences with alcohol stoves here. In the 5 years since I've used the supercat stove a few more times, generally on easier solo trips.

Thanks Harald for the data and tables on the various types of stoves.

The capillary hoop stove looks very interesting.

[Holocene .]

http://www.ultraleicht-trekking.com/forum/topic/2165-gaskocher-brs-3000t/

[Maris L]

theres at least one other BPLer who uses it extensively

This sounds like something I wrote a while ago.

I've had my ups and downs with this stove. The piezo was initially finicky, but now works very consistently for me. Pot stability was excellent for narrow and wide pots alike, as the leg length was considerable. Construction was good, considering the price – brass threads, everything fit tightly, didn't feel cheap. Flame pattern was tight, but it worked for narrow pots, even for a simmer.

But as mentioned above I wanted to remove the piezo and that ruined the stability entirely. Now the entire top unit above the brass base wobbles around, and I'm not even sure this is safe (I know very little about stove function). The flame pattern was a little uneven, sometimes would burn entirely orange after a short while, and was roaring loud when turned up. All of this made me nervous and I've since moved on to another canister stove, perhaps without great reason.

[Harald Hope]

Sorry, I forgot about this thread.

I went ahead and ordered the stove, it's only 20 bucks, so it's not like it's going to bankrupt most buyers even if they don't like it. I actually had ordered it, then cancelled the order, then I reordered when common sense returned. Plus the vendor sounded so sad, they said it's selling super well and users have not reported issues. And it's 20 bucks. Arrived super fast from China, how do they do that? Stove body appears to be ti, pot supports are ti, valve thing is brass, canister needle is brass I think, or probably coated, heat spreader is stainless steel, as is valve handle.

Pot is very stable on the legs, and the leg folding mechanism is very nice. Valve control is not as smooth as optimus or probably other heavier stoves, and requires fewer turns to get to max temp. Action is a touch sticky, ie, not easy to turn relative to optimus.

True weight: 25.2 grams.

This stove is loud, it reminds me of an msr xgk stove, that's because the heat spreader uses slots instead of holes like most other stoves, and the heat spreader is about 1.7cm/ 5/8" wide. that's the weak spot of this stove, if that were remedied, I believe you'd all be buying this thing.

I did some quick tests on efficiency, 500 ml 69 F water, in a narrow ti pot (900 ml snowpeak). Because I don't use canister stoves, I do not have any screens developed or tested, so the efficiency numbers are in ideal circumstances, in a kitchen. I don't know what efficiency gain a good screen gives with a canister stove, you'll have to figure that part out based on your empirical experience.

To compare, I used a wide heat spreader optimus stove, about 2" wide spreader. The optimus works like I assume most regular canister stoves, and has good heat control, but also I found it to be very poor in terms of holding a medium flame, which is why the times for it are so long, I had to keep turning it up as the flame dipped. this is with a new 220gm canister in tese tests. The optimus is pretty quiet, not, of course, as quiet as an alcohol stove, heh. The bhs is loud, period.

I didn't do a lot of repetitions, basically I did one boil at lower heat, and one at more or less full heat, or full enough to not make me want to turn it up more.

The flame of the BHS is very narrow.

BHS medium burn: boiling >208F at 4:15 – fuel consumed: 7 gram
BHS high burn: 3 minutes boil – fueld consumed: 10.5 grams

optimus lowish: boil 210 at 7 min – 5.2 grams fuel consumed
optimus high: 2:30 boil – fuel consumed: 9 grams.

Because it's very hard to actually gauge relative min/max flow rates in these stoves, all you can do is get some very rough conclusions. At lower flames, the optimus and bhs are fairly similar in efficiency, which makes sense to me. At higher flame rates, the bhs is slightly less efficient.

Though I did not do many tests, I'd say that if you do roughly 5 minute boils with either, you'll get around the best efficiency, maybe about 6-7 grams or so.

The first flame is lowish, the second high. the third, with pot, is low.

re the CHS stove, nothing I saw in these tests makes me want to dump chs for canister. the only reason I bought the canister stoves was if I end up having to have it for fire danger areas, or as loaners to people who might want to come along and who aren't able to operate an alcohol stove.

Its' worth noting that the fast boils of canister stoves come at the expected no surprise cost of efficiency, and if you want good efficiency, the boil times are not that different from the chs, though I do not know how canister stoves actually perform in terms of efficiency in less ideal circumstances.

When time permits I'll post a separate thread on the chs stove, I use 7.5 ounce soft drink cans, since redbull is so expensive, and make the height about 5mm less than the redbull version. I've made both, redbull and 7.5 oz cans, and given you can find 7.5 oz cans easily, and either cheap or free, I don't see any reason to use redbull cans.

I will note that the chs checks all the boxes, full bloom in seconds, fill while burning, as fast as all the older and less efficient stoves I've built and tested, penny stove, fancy feast, etc. Works perfectly on narrow pots. Re emptying it, it has an inner lip so it's not easy to empty fully, but there is honestly no reason to empty it, I use an accurate measuring cup for fuel, and if m ore is required, just squirt some more in, it blooms so fast there is no real loss if you run out while cooking in terms of stuff cooling down while you restart it, if needed.

At 6.5 minute boils, the chs is so close to a reasonably efficient canister stove boil, the setup is easy, the filling is easy, the lighting is easy, that I just will never see any reason to use canister stoves, though I will also keep an open mind based on other circumstances. This is not talking about snow melting of course, but I don';t really do snow camping so that's not an issue. I was not surprised to be honest at the low efficiencies of high flame fast boil of canister stoves, as you can see, they are almost hte same as alcohol for all practical purposes ~10 gm vs 12 gm, high heat boil time is about 2x as fast as with chs, medium/efficient boil times with canisters are about the same as chs in real world terms. At highest heats, which would be silly to use, boil times a bit less, efficiency probably 12 gm with canister. With a good screen on the canister stove I would expect efficiency to improve a bit, and maybe also boil times, but I won't do that testing, it doesn't honestly interest me enough.

So to me it looks like I can conclude the following: if weight is first consideration, alcohol always wins, without any question. If efficient canister boils are desired, boil times are about the same, so no advantage for canister, weight advantage to alcohol. If fast inefficient boils are wanted, the canister wins, but what is your hurry? You're talking there about a few minutes difference a day for a solo hiker. If very good simmering control is wanted, the canister wins. Note however that wide pot alcohol boil times with 4 cups are not 2x longer than narrow pot 2 cup bols, it's just a few minutes difference, not sure why.

Anyway, the bhs was worth checking out, my conclusion is that if they added a real heat spreader that fixed the loudness/inefficiency issue, the bhs would be a winner.

[Peter Nash]

Test Protocol:

300 ml water
55 F starting temperature
Snow Peak 600 ml titanium mug/pot
Indoors, no windscreen, room temperature

Results:

BRS-3000T
4:27 time to boil
4.3 grams fuel burned

Fire Maple Hornet
4:35 time to boil
4.9 grams fuel burned

Notes: 1. The BRS stove has a smaller distance between the top of the burner and the bottom of the pot than the Fire Maple stove. (About 2 cm vs. about 2.5 cm.)
2. The BRS stove weighs 25.2 grams, the Fire Maple weighs 45.0 grams. 3. The BRS stove sells for $20, including shipping (albeit slow mail from China)from AliExpress. The Fire Maple sells for about $33.

Conclusions:

The BRS-3000T slightly out-performed the Fire Maple Hornet. Since it is lighter, cheaper, and performs as well or better than the Fire Maple it seems to be a reasonable alternative. Caveats: I only did one test trial. Also, the BRS stove may not be as well-made as the Fire Maple, as speculated by some posters above. However, my casual inspection does not lead me to believe that the BRS stove is unsafe or cheaply made.

[Author]

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