Thinking this may be pretty neat and viable for cooking and boiling water without much trouble. SOLO stove

It looks kind of bulky and, maybe, unneccesary - except perhaps in places where you're not allowed to have a fire on the ground.

BigNate, if you want to boil a lot of water fast, then the Jet Boil is absolutely the way to go! Small & Light enough to bring in your daypack, and will boil a liter (32 oz) of water in about 4 minutes.

The Jet Boil isn't good for "cooking". A friend used his to "warm" milk, and ended up scorching the bottom of the Jet Boil. It'a almost striclty a water only proposition.

That said, when I looked at the Solo picture in the link (I didn't read too much of its info), it looks like you need to add fuel of some sort - wood, I presume? That's fine if you've got nice dry fuel available, but if it's wet/cold, I can picture that being a very hard stove to use.

If you can say more about how you probably would most often use the stove, I can hone my thoughts a bit. Then again, I've been mostly our of backpacking for a while now, but still have friends that are very up to date on the best equipment.

friar

Ok, I've just watched 4 videos about the stove, and I'll stick with my initial thougts.

The most compelling is the one with the guy who picks up "a standard handful of twigs off a pine forrest floor." He says they were only partially dry, and he's mostly right I suppose. But he is picking them up off a forest floor on a nice sunny day...

The stove does appear to burn wood materials very well. It also appears to burn easily managed small pieces of tinder broken up by hand, which means anyone can use it without any tools.

Starting the stove is probably the most difficult part. All of the videos I watched involved the user starting it with vaseline saturated cotton balls. These appear to burn quite easily, and for an adequately long time, allowing the tinder/wood to begin self combustion.

My primary criticism, though, is the largest: all these demonstrations were in mild temperatures with small amounts of water. They all used relatively dry tinder/wood. I'm sure you could use this stove in cold weather (read: October/November in the mountains) and it would work nicely, but it would take quite a bit more effort, and you'd have to be well prepared & trained.

For the person who has trained, prepared, and practiced in all weather conditions, it would be a good/simple way of cooking food & staying warm.

My .02!

MSR wisper lite.

ditto MSR whisperlite. You can ALWAYS count on it to work.

quote:

Originally posted by kda55:
ditto MSR whisperlite. You can ALWAYS count on it to work.

If you check the O-rings & seals BEFORE EVERY TRIP!

I made the HUGE MISTAKE of pulling out my MSR Whisper lite for my Montana trip this fall, filled a bottle with white gas, and off I went.

I'd last used the stove somewhere between 94-96. In that time, I discovered, the cork compression/pump dried up & went flat; the main gas-line O-ring became brittle to the point that when I inserted the fuel line, it gouged the ring badly; and the main valve-body O-ring had shrunken to the point of letting gas flow over and around it too.

I suffered the consequences of this negligence, of course, upon firing up the stove the 2nd morning of the hunt. The stove started well, but a minute after blue flame my friend asked, "is it supposed to be doing that?"

I looked over and the coffee pot was enveloped in orange flames. You should have seen my trying "to blow it out" . Wisely, I decided to pick up the stove in my GLOVED hand and pitch it out of the tent (big canvas outfitter tent), upon which heaving the fire was extinguised and I didn't burn Custer National Forest any further beyond its summer losses.

Happily, I had a complete repair kit, (albeit of the same vinatage) that worked perfectly for all the gaskets & O-rings, so I had the stove up and running later that afternoon.

I guess the moral of the story is "lady luck favors the prepared!"

friar

I could see happening so far I have fired mine up before each trip.

My vote is the Jet Boil. I cook with mine, no problem. You just need to work, practice and use it in a controled environment at home to get the knack of it first. I would never use something that required fuel from the natural surroundings as sometimes those surroundings can be kinda nasty.

Larry Sellers

I carry a little Optimus 99 every where I go.

It's always already full of fuel, which will potentially last long enough to boil water seven or eight times, and there is also a 6oz bottle of Ronsonol or Zippo Lighter fluid for refilling the handy little stove and also refilling the battered (but functional and utterly reliable) Zippo lighter I keep inside the stove to light the handy little thing)

The handy thing about the stove is that it is mounted inside it's own cooking kit (the lid is used as the "pot")

the normal fuel for these stoves is Coleman fuel, but Lighter fluid is available at most convenience stores, is slightly less volatile, and burns slightly hotter.-

I had an expedition stove confiscated after a few flights on the same trip. You never know what idiot will take away from you in an airport. Big fan of the pocket rocket by MSR and the Optimus Nova multi fuel stove that can burn on almost any fuel. As far as wood burning camp stoves I would like the challenge of making my own vs store bought. I would only buy one made from titanium.