By Andrew Marshall, Ryan Jordan, and Chase Jordan
Introduction
This gear guide features lightweight upright canister stoves for backpacking (i.e., a canister stove that weighs less than 4 oz (113 g) that sits on top of a canister of fuel).
We evaluated the following criteria:
- Power, efficiency, and fuel economy in control, large water volume, cold temperature, and wind tests
- Piezo ignitor durability
- Pot stability
- Packability
- Noise
- Simmering Ability
- Durability
- Weight
- Cost
Among 17 models of stoves that were subjected to rigorous performance testing, the following stoves were the highest rated stoves in our review:
- MSR PocketRocket Deluxe – Highly Recommended
- Soto Windmaster 4Flex – Highly Recommended
- MSR PocketRocket 2Â – Recommended
- Soto Amicus – Recommended
Learn more about our review ratings here.
The MSR PocketRocket Deluxe exhibited the best overall performance across all categories, including the best StoveBench performance in control, wind, cold temperature, large water volume, and stress tests.
- Purchase the MSR PocketRocket Deluxe from REI today.
Gear Guide Scope
Herein are the results of a months-long effort to evaluate the detailed performance of the market’s most prominent upright canister stove products. The three of us spent several hundred hours of research, testing, analysis, and writing this 15,000-word report. It is our hope that it would provide a standard of reference that will be useful to backpackers as they consider their options in what has become a very crowded product market.
Upright canister stoves are a subset of a broader product category of canister stoves that also includes integrated canister stoves and remote canister stoves. Stoves from these latter two categories are not included in this gear guide – we’ll save those for another one!
Where do Canister Stoves Come From?
The vast majority of OEMÂ (original equipment manufacturer) parts and assemblies for backpacking stoves originate from factories in Russia, China, and Korea. One can generally distinguish products in the upright canister stove market into two categories:
- Exclusive stove designs that are designed and marketed under relatively well-known brand names, consisting of unique assemblies of burners, wind blades, stacks, pot supports, valves, and regulators. These brands include MSR, Jetboil, Snow Peak, Soto, Primus, Kovea, Fire Maple, and Optimus. Although you may see some parts of these stoves found in other products, all of the stoves from these brands include either an exclusive combination of parts or custom parts not found in other products. OEM prices for these stoves to the brands are generally $10 to $30, with MSRPs ranging from about $25 to more than $90, with an average in the $40 to $70 range.
- Nonexclusive stove designs manufactured by an OEM supplier and sold as OEM units under a variety of different brand names. These represent the vast majority of stoves sold under a variety of odd brand names via the online mega-retailers Amazon and Alibaba. Examples of these brands include BRS, Etekcity, Joyard, Housweety, Redcamp, Etopsell, Monoprice, Hikevalley, TopOne, Icetek, Desert Walker, and Chenbo. OEM prices for these stoves to the brands are generally $1 to $6 per unit, with MSRPs being less than $15.
There is some confusion abounds in the backpacking stove market. For example, while Fire Maple manufactures its own stoves, it also licenses nearly identical designs for distribution under the Olicamp brand. The design of current-model MSR stoves can’t be found anywhere else, but Kovea is one of their OEM suppliers. And Kovea makes their own line of stoves, and they don’t look like MSR stoves. Further adding to the confusion is that OEM suppliers of finished stoves often purchase their parts from other factories, who are also OEM suppliers of finished stoves. Globalization at its chaotic best, perhaps!
Although not a hard-and-fast rule, we found that the exclusive stove designs in category #1 (which are generally more expensive) feature a higher level of manufacturing quality and durability, and offer marginally-to-significantly better performance than the nonexclusive stove designs found in category #2. Of the brands presented in this review, it’s clear to us that MSR and Soto are the market leaders in terms of design and engineering with an eye towards maximizing performance.
Discarding cheap OEM knockoffs (defined in category #2 above), we surveyed a total of 35Â stoves marketed specifically to the backpacking community from MSR, Jetboil, Snow Peak, Soto, Mons Peak IX, Primus, Kovea, GSI, Optimus, and Fire Maple. We did include two more popular white-labeled brands, BRS and Etekcity. We eliminated any stove that weighed in excess of 8.0 oz (227 g) from this initial survey, as this represents the approximate weight at which significantly more function and performance can be realized by a different stove design (e.g., remote canister, integrated canister or liquid fuel stove).
The average weight of this initial group was 3.3 oz (94 g), with a range of less than 1.0 oz (28 g) to more than 6.0 oz (170 g).
Of the initial group of 35Â stoves, we selected 17Â stoves (with the heaviest stove being 3.44 oz / 101 g) for a more detailed examination and inclusion in this gear guide. A few are heavier than average, most are lighter than average, and a few are in the truly “ultralight” category (less than 2.0 oz / 57 g).
Summary of Products Featured in this Review
The following chart details feature and specifications for the stoves featured in this review, and provides our Overall Rating. See the Performance Analysis section below for a detailed performance assessment.
| Stove | Overall Rating* | MSRP (USD) | Weight (oz) | Regulated | Piezo Ignition | Burner Diameter (mm) | # of Supports | Support Radius (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSR Pocket Rocket 2 | Recommended | $45 | 2.6 | no | no | 25 | 3 | 61 |
| MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe | Highly Recommended | $70 | 2.9 | yes | yes | 37 | 3 | 61 |
| Soto Windmaster 4Flex | Highly Recommended | $65 | 3.08 | yes | yes | 39 | 4 | 72 |
| Soto Micro Regulator | Average | $70 | 2.5 | yes | yes | 38 | 3 | 55 |
| GSI Pinnacle | Above Average | $50 | 2.43 | no | no | 28 | 3 | 70 |
| Optimus Crux Lite | Average | $40 | 2.61 | no | no | 46 | 3 | 55 |
| Fire Maple FMS-300T | Above Average | $30 | 1.59 | no | no | 17 | 3 | 45 |
| eTekCity | Above Average | $20 | 3.34 | no | yes | 20 | 4 | 45 |
| Snow Peak GigaPower 2.0 | Below Average | $50 | 3.05 | no | yes | 25 | 4 | 53 |
| Snow Peak LiteMax | Below Average | $60 | 1.99 | no | no | 28 | 3 | 62 |
| BRS 3000t | Below Average | $17 | 0.89 | no | no | 17 | 3 | 41 |
| Kovea Supalite Titanium | Below Average | $50 | 2.12 | no | n/a | 29 | 3 | 62 |
| Kovea Titanium | Below Average | $60 | 3.25 | no | yes | 29 | 3 | 62 |
| Jetboil MightyMo | Above Average | $50 | 3.44 | yes | yes | 37 | 3 | 60 |
| Fire Maple FMS-116t | Above Average | $40 | 3.55 | no | no | 45 | 3 | 55 |
| Primus Micron Trail | Below Average | $45 | 3.25 | no | yes | 32 | 3 | 68 |
| Soto Amicus | Recommended | $45 | 2.77 | no | yes | 34 | 4 | 54 |
Summary Reviews
Presented in order from highest to lowest overall grade.
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Discussion
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Ryan claims to have a Engineering PhD so why did he claim that 4 out of 7 BRS3000T stove had pot supports melted???? No photos, no videos. No response to the questions we have????? Why does the cat have his tounge???? Did he rely solely on the anecdotal findings of Hikin-Jim?
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“‘Melted’ means to change state from solid to liquid. If you don’t mean that, don’t use the word.”
engineer/scientists are so literal : )
“so resorted to a long column to get the required fuel/air mixing.”
looking at ADC wind, yeah, a lot of the extra length (compared to BRS 3000) is after the orifice which would allow mixing
maybe whatever designers there are don’t care that much about saving an ounce of weight so the length is somewhat arbitrary. Maybe that’s just how it’s done.
I was camping last weekend with an owner of a new BRS 3000 who was so pleased with its low cost compared to his Jetboil. His first time using it was to heat about 12 ounces of water in a 1.3 l aluminum pot. He was using a low flame. Two of the pot supports deformed by almost bending double on themselves before the water boiled. He’s back to Jetboil. My guess is that the supports bent within two minutes.
Hi Renais
Two of the pot supports deformed by almost bending double on themselves before the water boiled.
Can you get photos? PLEASE!
That is NOT how the originals behaved. Mine work fine.
Cheers
Roger, looks like Renais has no photos or video just like Ryan Jordan. Even Hikin Jim didn’t have photos. Can you imagine……Ryan purchased 7 of the BRS3000T’s and nary a photo of them.
I purchased 7 and I’ll post a photo later.
that’s funny they’re so cheap you can purchase 7 of them
when you look for BRS 3000 there are many sellers. Are these all the same or are there different versions? Maybe some of them are different and more likely to fail.
Further testing seems like a moot point (my 3 Cents). The BRS-3000t  has a fair amount of field failures that it has earned a black eye.  It could be operator error, but that really doesn’t matter as compared to other stoves it still failed.  It could be cheap knockoff but again, if you can’t tell the difference it doesn’t matter.  Best luck with the testing, though I don’t think that it will change the overall belief that the BRS is unreliable.  Again, my 2 Cents.
Ryan claims to have a Engineering PhD, he surely would have been able to tell if they were a knockoff and if they had melted or or just bent a little out of shape caused by repeated use under a heavy load of water. Roger has stated repeatedly that canister fuel does not produce heat high enough to melt titanium. Hikin Jim and Ryan were in a position to have the BRS taken off the market due to anecdotal findings if they had an interest in the health and welfare of their membership/readers and the nations backpacking communities. The BRS was the most popular upcoming, totally lightweight stove with the backpacking light aficianados. I think it received an unfair bad rap by those that committed “operator error” or had alternative motives.
I have had no problems with my BRS and suspect there will be no major meltdowns with the 6 new ones that I will be testing in the future. These are the ones I will be testing:
Dan
It would be interesting to test the strength of the arms on a new stove. This could be done by grabbing one arm in two places between the pivot and the top pot support region with some narrow pliers, and seeing if you could bend the arm while it is cold. If you can, then the metal has probably been switched from a good alloy such as 6Al4V to CP (commercially pure) metal – which is much softer.
Somewhere or other I have a photo of two bit of 0.5 mm Ti sheet bent at nearly 90 degrees. One is badly cracked: that was Ti 6Al4V alloy. The other bent smoothly with no visible problems: that was CP Ti.
Cheers
Roger, That will be one of the first tests that I will do. I’ll set up a video to record the bending.
Roger can you explain how it could possibly happen? what Renais said:
Hi Dan
I have made several long posting in this thread explaining what I think has happened. I won’t repeat them here.
In a nutshell, I think someone (bean-counter?) in production has replaced the good Ti alloy (6Al4V?) with CP Ti (unalloyed). This has a much lower softening point, is cheaper, and is more easy to work. Pity it is not suitable.
I have tried to contact BRS but my emails have been ignored.
Cheers
Thanks Roger.
I can’t see that a bean-counter is at fault. I’m to beleive it’s operator error and observer error. Renais did not observe the deformation….it was just hear say. No photos…..it never happened. ;)
Ryan could have tested the 7 he had purchased to determin if the metal was ti….never happened. Too bad he did nothing further to determin the exact cause. Many have stated in this thread that their BRS’s never had a problem.
Right now, we simply do not have enough data to be able to positively tell what caused the problem.
Operator error is possible, but I am not convinced. I suspect instead the following:
BRS-3000T developed with Ti 6Al4V alloy
BRS-3000T made, sold and customers find they work fine.
THEN
Ti arms changed to CP for lower cost and greater ease of mfr
Arms cannot take the heat and sag in use.
It’s a time thing: early models all seem OK; later models do not.
Cheers
Ok Ryan, here is a photo of the 7 BRS I purchased so please show us the 7 you purchased and tested to also include the 4 that became disfigured or melted as you have said.
Yes, Roger, you have told us many times they did not melt. We want to hear from Ryan what exactly happened and what the 4 look like. Thank you very much.
You know, this does become interesting. I searched on Amazon for “BRS-300′, and got a huge number of hits (including other types of stoves, which is stupid).
EDIT: but you should see the huge number you get on eBay! Some very strange versions too.
There were at least a dozen different brands of BRS-3000 listed. In principle, same stove with different printing on the base. BUT, there several stoves called ‘BRS-3000’ which had different pot supports and the centre tube looked like brass rather than titanium. Well, brass coloured, anyhow. I think it is a copy, or a ‘fake’. Even more curious: the listing for that model had photos of the two different sorts of pot supports.
Going on from there, it gets even more interesting. The genuine BRS-3000T stove has ‘engineered’ pot supports: they are a bit more solid and have ribs for strength. The fake stove has flat ribs with no engineering ribs, and the metal looks slightly thinner. These pots supports would be weaker, and there is no reason to believe the pot supports are the stronger 6Al4V alloy rather than the cheaper CP stuff.
The page for the fake stove has a photo of it in use – flaming. The pot supports on the fake seem to be extensively glowing over a much wider area than the pot supports on my BRS-3000T ever do. I suspect the flame pattern on the fake could be slightly different from that on my genuine BRS-3000T.
Even worse: the fine details of the burner head on the fake look more like an FMS-3000 than a genuine BRS-3000T. It very much looks as though the backyard cloning industry is alive and well in China.
The specs for the genuine stove are 2700 W, 25 g, Ti alloy. It has the correct BRS logo. The specs for the fake one are weird, and seem to be a mixture of BRS-3000 naming and MSR Pocket Rocket data, and a piezo ignitor is mentioned in the data (but not in the photos). The logo on the stove says BRS, but it is not afaik the genuine BRS logo.
All this leads me to wonder whether the stoves Ryan tested really were the genuine ones, or whether he was testing fakes of some sort or other by mistake. That would explain a lot. But without seeing one of the tested units in my hand, I just don’t know.
Edit: Hikin Jim said some way down in this thread https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/brs-3000t-another-one-bites-the-dust/ that he could bend the bent pot supports in HIS unit back with his fingers after uset (I assume they had cooled). I will state quite categorically that you can NOT bend 6Al4V alloy by hand once it has been taken up to red heat. I do enough work with that alloy to know that very definitely. So they were NOT the alloy they should have been. All vellee strange.
Cheers
Still waiting on Ryans photos.
I’ve read the BRS3000T reviews seen at the folowing sites and have come to the conclusion that it is operator error that has caused the pot supports to bend, not melt. I suspect the same is true with Ryans 4 failures.
169 rating – 18 answered questions
303 ratings – 25 answered questions
https://us.gearbest.com/camping/pp_116350.html 109 reviews
If you read all of the revues, you will come to the same conclusion.
An example of operator error from one of the reviews:
Tall, heavy, narrow 1ltr stainless steel pot off center of pot support. Once water came to rigorous boil, vibrations caused pot to slip off stove. Curvature of pot bottom wedged between 2 of the support causing one to bend.
I agree, it would be nice to see Ryan’s failed stoves.
Dan, What is the user error you are claiming that is common among failures?
Stop staying its operator error when the real issue is manufacturing rip-offs. Thru hikers have successfully used a real BRS 3000 for thousands of miles. Caveat emptor.
Part of this whole problem is Chinese culture.
Many of us can remember a discussion of cheap Western-branded windshirts and jacket available on eBay. Well, they had Western brands sewn into them, but they were pure Chinese backyard copies. I think I remember someone saying that they were told by one of these ‘clone’ mfrs that they used the Western brand labels because they looked good and were easily recognised.
The wide range of ‘BRS-3000’ stoves available seem to fall into two categories: OEM versions (different brand applied or printed on in BRS factory) and real copies. (How does one have a ‘real copy’ I wonder?) Then there is the possibility of a meld of those two: rebranded copies!
Caveat Emptor indeed. But my original BRS-3000T stoves work fine.
Cheers
Did Ryan purchase manufacturing ripoffs???? we won’t know till we see photos of his 7
These are manufacturing ripoffs listed on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Brs-3000t-2700w-Folding-Titanium-Camping-Hiking-Outdoor-Cooking-Burner-Gas-Stove/362715766760?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D60256%26meid%3D435570e94697486e8b9ea7d3a20a97bf%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D183894315053%26itm%3D362715766760%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Miniature-Portable-Gas-Stove-Ultralight-Alloy-Outdoor-Burner-Camping-Gas-Stove/183591495136?epid=1074810059&hash=item2abee7e5e0:g:VVIAAOSw86BcGABQ
https://www.ebay.com/itm/BRS-Titanium-Stove-Outdoor-Camping-Burner-Gas-Stove-Big-Power-Ultralight/163819707222?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D60256%26meid%3D01b94108aeac4aad9cfd0f855b3702b3%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D173321877130%26itm%3D163819707222%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851
https://www.ebay.com/itm/BRS-3000T-2700W-Folding-Titanium-Outdoor-Cooking-Burner-Gas-Stove-25g/113490733364?epid=1074810059&hash=item1a6c932934:g:AXkAAOSwpkFY5Zo1
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Only-25g-Titanium-Stove-BRS-3000T-Parallel-Import-Goods/223513427899?epid=1074810059&hash=item340a703fbb:g:sacAAOSwadlc2Eh8
https://www.ebay.com/p/694821277?iid=163868075858
https://www.ebay.com/p/694821277?iid=273930932103&_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20170810094027%26meid%3Df18a93c0f8954f52917c8f392bd4889d%26pid%3D100855%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26itm%3D273930932103%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2349526&_trksid=p2349526.c100855.m4779
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Brs-3000t-Folding-Titanium-Outdoor-Camping-Stove-Cooking-Burner-Gas-Stove-2700w/143389430788?epid=694821277&hash=item2162ad1404:g:0a4AAOSw8S9dhZA7
Just so.
Cheers
Yes, I agree Roger, that’s why we are asking Ryan to post a photo of his BRS’s. @bzhayes would like to see them also. We will be able to recognize if they are knock-offs easily.
Andrew Marshall and Chase Jordan were also involved in the Stove Bench testing. Somebody should be able to take a couple photos of the stoves. Small task, I’ll even donate a 20 dollar bill to the first that posts photos. Yes, I’m really curious…It’s the stover/stovie in me :-) Actually, many years ago I gave BPL $100 to be a lifetime member, a few photos is not too much to ask.
@bzhayes. one of the critical operator errors is bending the pot support arms when opening and closing the supports. Read what one person said about that:
https://www.amazon.com/BRS-BRS-3000T-Ultra-Light-Titanium-Miniature/product-reviews/B06XNLSNFR/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews
A photo Thomas included shows a kidney shaped pot on top of the BRS in a precarious position, almost ready to slide off the stove.
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>By Thomas on May 13, 2018</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>I’ve been using the “etekcity” style burner with piezo for years. I originally got it off deal extreme before it became popular probably 7 years ago. It served me well through week long elk hunts and camping excursions. I got this one to save a little room and weight. It actually boils water much faster than the etekcity stove, which just makes it all that much better. It also seals to the can without any leakage while putting it on. The etekcity always let’s out a “hiss” of cold gas.</span>
Â
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Pros:</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Tiny and light weight!</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>The supports get red hot but hold the weight of a pot with 1L water just fine.</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>No gas leakage on installing on the can.</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Fast boil.</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>GREAT construction.</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Cons:</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>No piezo. A small inconvenience more than anything, as anyone who camps will have other forms of ignition. I just hold a bic lighter to the burner as I turn the throttle.</span>
Â
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>**EDIT**</span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>I’ve noticed that one of the fold-out supports, in order to fold away properly, has to be pushed against the body a little bit. After several foldings, it bent out the support a little. It easily bends back, but I wonder if it will cause fatigue over time. Simple solution, don’t fold the support all the way in, causing it to bend. It still folds enough that it doesn’t affect the compact size.</span>
Â
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>https://www.amazon.com/BRS-BRS-3000T-Ultra-Light-Titanium-Miniature/dp/B06XNLSNFR/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?keywords=Brs+stove&qid=1561006352&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1#customerReviews</span>
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I agree Roger,
Ryan, come on be a good guy…..just one photo of the 4 deformed BRS 3000T’s
We now have more info.
This from Ryan J.
Some photos to explain it all follow.
This is an undamaged BRS-3000T stove (mine) heating a Ti pot. Please note carefully the pot support arm which is connected to a ring under the burner head by a rivet. That little ring must stay ‘flat’ (albeit with right angle bends) for the pot supports to be at the correct angle.
This is the only photo I have of one of the damaged stoves. It was provided to me by Ryan J, to whom thanks. Please note the way the pot support arm sags down at an angle highlighted by the blue line. The pot support arm itself is NOT bent or damaged: it is the support ring (with rivet) which is bent or twisted.
How did this happen? I have no idea, although to me it looks as though the riveted support ring was bent down by force. This might indicate serious ‘trauma’, or it might indicate a really soft bit of metal as Ryan suggests. In the latter case, the ‘force’ would be that of gravity on the pot. Plasticine metal. But there is more.
What is curious is that some units seem to have kinked pot support arms, as shown here. My BRS-3000T stoves (I have several) do not. Is this damage or a fault? I don’t think it is either: I think the kink was part of the manufacturing. However, if (IF) this is a genuine BRS-3000T it suggests that there has been some variation in the production process, which leads on to this photo.
I found this photo on the web (author unknown). The pot support arm has that possibly genuine kink, but the bent part of the support ring shows a bad crack as highlighted. This sort of crack looks to me as though the metal was bent up after it had been tempered. I have made similar cracks in test pieces of Ti 6Al4V myself. Once again, some variation in production, and definitely some deficiencies in Quality Control.
What this leads to is that the QC on this support ring may have been lacking, at least for a batch or two. Not enough tempering, too much tempering, tempering at the wrong time, … whatever. If you have a ‘good’ unit, then that’s fine: keep cooking. After all, Ryan did find 3 good ones in his batch of 7. If you have been unlucky enough to get one from a bad batch – go back to your supplier with photos and demand a refund.
If you are thinking of buying one – do so, but test it carefully as soon as you get it, and only buy from someone you could go back to in case of a problem. Remember: many of us are very happy with our units.
HTH
Cheers
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