There is no substitute for real-world testing. Survival Gear Tests is a series of blog posts about survival gear in real world conditions. A mostly off-pavement motorcycle adventure for 12 days, 2500 miles across America’s back country via the Continental Divide pushed machine, gear, and man to the limit. Each post will be on a specific piece of gear which could make or break your bug out effort. We hope that you use my embarrassment, mistakes, struggles, and success to improve your own adventure experience. I am not a pro and nobody paid me to write these posts. That will be incredibly obvious as you read about my experience. This post is about the camping stove.
MSR Whisperlite and Pocket RocketPrepper Problem: How would you sanitize water? How would you boil water to re-hydrate meals, cook noodles, make coffee, make grits (for we Southern Folk), eat oatmeal (for the Yankees)? A hot meal is a morale booster. Hot coffee is one of the best things to have after a cold and wet night in a tent. The challenge for someone bugging out or traveling light is having a stove that can quickly and efficiently boil water as a primary function.
Lightweight packing stoves generally come in either liquid fuel or compressed gas form. Liquid fuel is easier to find, you can carry more of it, and it is relatively cheap. Liquid fuel can be dangerous. It smells funky. It requires more prep to setup and use. Since you are providing the pressure through a pump, liquid fuel works at just about any altitude where you might be camping. MSR Whisperlite is the most recognized liquid fuel stove.
Compressed gas stoves use containers of compressed gas that must be purchased from a specialty store. The benefit of the compressed gas is that it is easy to use and lightweight to carry. The drawback of compressed gas is that it runs out faster and compressed fuel stoves are not as effective at high altitude. In rare cases, the compressed containers have been known to leak and explode. These stoves are usually lighter and smaller than the liquid types. MSR Pocket Rocket is an excellent example of a small and hot little compressed gas stove.
I have both. I debated for months on which stove to pack. I actually packed and unpacked each stove about three times before I decided on the MSR Whisperlite liquid fuel stove. I chose this stove because we might be camping at high altitude and fuel might be hard to find. The stove packs down into a small pot along with a lighter and eating utensil. I also knew that this stove has been around for two decades so parts are easy to find if needed. My primary goal was to boil water to rehydrate meals and make hot coffee.
Rookie mistake! I have used this stove a dozen times while camping. That did not prevent me from making a massive mistake. On day two of my CDT motorcycle tour, I woke up and wanted coffee and oatmeal. I pulled out my fancy little stove and pressed the thumb pump to provide pressure. I then lit the stove and the typical hiss came from the burner with a nice blue flame. I then heard another odd sounding hiss. It was the sound of liquid fuel quirting out from under the pump seal and right into the lit stove. I had over pressurized the fuel bottle and it was pushing out from under the pump seal. A fireball the size of two basketballs instantly erupted! I now had a big problem on my hands. It took every ounce of water in the campsite to put out the hot liquid fuel. Hair singed, nerves frayed, I suddenly did not need coffee.
The MSR Whisperlite stove has been around for almost two decades. It is still the mainstay of experienced climbers and packers all over the world. It packs small and light for storage. It is simple to use but not dummy proof. The stove will not simmer very well. It is either on or off. There are certainly fancier stoves which will simmer like your mother’s kitchen stove. In the backcountry, your goal is not to cook a gourmet feast. Your goal should be to boil water in the fastest and most efficient way possible. This stove delivers on that promise and will boil a cup of water in just a couple of minutes, depending on weather conditions. The simple design means that there is not much to break or fail. It is my stove of choice but I would not chose this stove for this type of trip.
My stove recommendation for most outdoor adventures, in the USA, is a compressed fuel stove like the MSR Pocket Rocket. Since compressed fuel can be found at any Wal-Mart, hardware store, etc. the challenge to find fuel is not as big of an issue. You are not likely to be camping above ten thousand feet so the stove will boil water quickly. This type of stove is much easier and faster to use. It packs down smaller too. Remember that, at the end of a long day, you are exhausted. The last thing you want to fool with is a technically complicated stove. Keep things simple. Choose the most simple technology that does what you need, nothing more.
Which stove would you use for a bug out bag? What would you use it for?
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4 replies to "Survival Gear Tests – The Camping Stove"
You can capture all your choices with one stove now. The MSR Universal will run off isobutane canisters and can connect to MSR fuel bottles to run white gas, kerosene, gasoline, and diesel. No more need for multiple stoves. However, you do need to keep track of the small jets, though. Just got one, and looking to fire it up.
JC, I agree on the multi-fuel stove. It is a handy device to have. As I wrote in the post, the fidget factor sometimes becomes a big problem and even dangerous. The complexity and technical issues with multi-fuel means keep track of tiny little jets, assuring the proper jet for the proper fuel etc. One mistake could mean big problems. The way cool technology must be weighed against real world use. It is challenging to separate marketing from reality. If often question whether the engineers of some of these gadgets are designing products for marketing and sales or are they designing products for real outdoor adventure. Bottom line, remember this: less complexity trumps technology.
I had the exact same problem when I over-pressured my Primus Omni-fuel liquid gas stove. So apparently it is indeed a common “rookie” mistake (not an issue with the MSR brand). Although, my biggest beef with liquid fuel stoves is that the liquid fuel bottles are not completely air tight and the fuel smell will eventually permeate clothes inside your backpack, so I carry the fuel bottle only on the outside of my backpack.
For the bug-out-bag, I prefer to use an Esbit style folding pocket stove for its compact size, low cost and ease of use. I was able to bring 4 cups of water to a boil at 10,000 feet altitude in about ten minutes on only one solid fuel tablet. I consider this fairly impressive for something costing around $10 and only slightly larger than a deck of cards.
Mike, nice insight on the Esbit folding stove. My next adventure will include my home made stove that I made out of a aluminum bottle which burns denatured alcohol. We created a post about it a few months back. The primary goal is to boil water not to simmer gourmet meals for hours on end. Boiled water provides drinking water and warm rehydrated meals. When used with the rehydrated meals from brands like Mountain House and Backpackers Pantry, there is also no clean up as the food cooks right in the bag. Simplicity is king!