Getting MSR liquid fuel stoves to simmer (excepting Dragonfly stoves)

[Eric Blumensaadt]

OK, so I sold my heavy, now discontinued MSR Dragonfly gas/kerosene stove and its amazing ability to simmer for an MSR Universal setup. But the white gas (petrol) and kerosene mode will not simmer. (I hear Roger Caffin saying “Just use the canister.”)

For winter use when not using my TD Sidewinder/ Inferno wood burning stove I’ll be using the Universal in white gas mode. I like to bake Bisquick and other stuff in winter. The fuel used is more than worth it once you have warm biscuits or muffins on a cold night.

** So, how to simmer for baking? I take a stainless steel corrugated plate that has a stainless wire perimeter ring as a diffuser. The wire perimeter ring snaps in to 3 slots in the plate to hold the pot off the plate by about 1/4″.  Other times I just use the built in diffuser ring on my 2 L. JetBoil pot instead of the wire ring when group camping.

The diffuser does work but sometimes I have to remove the pot and let it cool when the aneroid thermometer in the lid handle goes too high. It requires watchful eye and patience to avoid burning the baking food. BTW, It is very difficult to bake without this thermometer. (No, I do not consider steaming as true baking. Steaming has its place but not for actual baking.)

?? So how do you control the heat for simmering/baking?

I realize that currently the Whisperlite burner setup is not at all adjustable unless some genius has found a way recently. And I doubt that if they have it is safe or MSR would be using it.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Eric,

For a valve-at-the-bottle type gasoline stove, the  WhisperLite Universal simmers surprisingly well.  The bend in the generator is deliberately designed to capture heat under low flame conditions (as in simmering).

Perhaps you already know this, but the tricks to simmering with a valve-at-the-bottle type gasoline stove are as follows:

1. Only use about five strokes on the pump.  Do not use the usual 30 or so.
2. Fill the bottle no more than three quarters of the full amount.  The full amount being determined by the normal fill line, not the top of the bottle.
3. Make sure that the stove is well shielded from wind.
4. After the above, start with a relatively large flame and reduce *incrementally* (not all at once) until you get the flame size you want. You will probably have to turn up the stove slightly after you get to the right sized flame until you reach an equilibrium.

I’ve been able to get a surprisingly effective simmer on both kerosene and white gasoline without using a diffuser plate.

HJ

[Hikin’ Jim]

P.S. As far as I know the Dragonfly has not been discontinued.  The Rapidfire, Firefly and Simmerlite have definitely been discontinued, but to my knowledge, MSR has no immediate plans to scrap the XGK, WhisperLite, or Dragonfly.

Do you have a link or something that says that the Dragonfly is being discontinued?

The PocketRocket and the MicroRocket on the other hand are on the chopping block as the new PocketRocket II gets introduced in 2017.

HJ

[Ken Thompson]

Straight from MSR

http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/gourmet-cooking/dragonfly/product

Available. Qualifies for free shipping too.

 

[Michael Sirofchuck]

I use the metal lid off of a coffee can as a diffuser with my Whisperlite – works pretty well.  Either a 1 lb or 5 lb can lid will do.  Although I don’t know if you can find coffee in metal cans anymore.  The Keurig pods just won’t work as diffusers.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Depending on which version of the Whisperlite you’ve got, you may not need a diffuser plate.  The oldest ones or the newest ones should not need a diffuser plate.

The oldest ones are the pre-shaker jet ones.  These had a jet that looked something like the head of a golf tee.  But regardless of the shape of the jet, if you have an old, pre-shaker jet Whisperlite, all you need to do is get the pressure down in the bottle.  Pump it about 5 times only.  It will simmer with a bit of coaxing.  It actually works pretty well.  See Pre-Shaker Jet Whisperlite.  Why?  Well, the original Whisperlites had a generator (pre heat loop) that was close to the flame.  when they redesigned the stove to include the shaker jet, they screwed up the generator, taking it too high out of the flame.  Thereafter, it wa’s really tough to simmer with.

On the other hand, the newest Whisperlites will also simmer.  The newest ones have stamped metal legs rather than the wire legs of the original.  For example, the Whisperlite Universal out of which I got a good simmer on white gas.  Why?  Well, again, it’s the shape of the generator.  If you look at the photos in the link immediately above, you’ll see that they’ve crimped the generator a bit and pressed it against the side of the burner skirt, thus trapping more heat — sufficient heat to maintain vaporization of the liquid fuel even on low flame.

HJ

 

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