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Jetboil Stash pot and stove
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Heat
exchangers are corrugated fins or vanes on the base of a pot that capture heat
that would otherwise be lost to the air and up the sides of the pot and
transfer it to the contents. Jetboil launched the first stove system with a
heat exchanger (HX) pot twenty years ago. Since then I’ve used and reviewed
several such systems, from MSR and Primus as well as Jetboil. I’ve always liked
the fast boil times and fuel efficiency yet I never thought of taking one on a
long-distance walk due to the weight and bulk (the lightest, the Jetboil
MicroMo, weighs 349g). Until that is Jetboil launched the Stash, a basic burner
and HX pot that at 200 grams could genuinely be called lightweight, back in
2020. I reviewed
it for The Great Outdoors in 2021 and said I’d consider taking it on my
next long walk. I’ve used it a great deal since then and I think it’s a
wonderful unit for solo backpacking. I’m taking the Stash pot on the Cape Wrath
Trail soon but maybe not the Stash stove, for reasons outlined below.
Jetboil
Stash
It’s the pot
that’s impressive with the Stash. It’s made from hard-anodised aluminium and
holds 800ml. It’s not tall and narrow like many HX pots and so easier to stir
and to eat from. It weighs just 140 grams. The Stash burner is also light at 60
grams but doesn’t have the performance of higher spec stoves as it’s not
regulated and so power declines in the cold and as the canister empties. It
also has no wind resistance at all so a windshield is needed in all but the gentlest
breeze. It is still a perfectly adequate stove that I’ve used on many trips but
there are better ones.
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MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe with Jetboil Stash pot
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After a year
with the Stash, using it on every trip, I decided to try the pot with other stoves in cold and windy
weather. The results were impressive. With the regulated MSR Pocket Rocket
Deluxe (PRD) stove water boiled faster than with the Stash burner, the power
stayed high with an almost empty canister, and it didn’t need a windshield
until the wind got quite strong. The Optimus Vega remote canister stove and Stash
pot again outperformed the Stash stove. This setup also has the advantage of
being low profile and more stable. However there is a significant weight penalty
– it’s a 100g more than the PRD and 125g more than the Stash burner. With the
Vega the canister can be turned upside down to turn it into a liquid feed stove
in extreme cold though this does increase fuel usage. I only use it in winter.
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Optimus Vega stove with Jetboil Stash pot
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The Stash pot
is superb, the best solo backpacking pot I’ve used. You can’t buy it on its own
though, only with the Stash burner, and Jetboil warns that it should not be
used with other stoves. When I asked why Jetboil said “the Stash pot was
designed for high performance on the Stash burner as a Cook
System. However, we cannot guarantee its performance or safety on all the
assortment of burners and pan supports available, so we recommend only to use
on Stash”. So if you use it with other stoves it’s at your own risk.
There is a
big disadvantage in doing so anyway. The high cost - £155 at the time of
writing. That makes for an awfully expensive pot! So what are the alternatives
and are they any good?
Fire Maple
HX Pots
The only standalone
HX pots I knew about until recently were ones from Vango and Optimus that are too
heavy for solo backpacking except on short trips, at least for me. The Vango
Ultralight Heat Exchanger Cook Kit, which I have had for a few years, comes
with two bowls and cutlery and has a cosy round the pot. The total weight is
387g, the pot alone 286g*. The Optimus
Terra Express HE weighs 377g and has a non-stick coating. Both are worth
considering for duos.
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Soto Windmaster 4Flex stove with Fire Maple FMC-XK6 pot
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Searching
online for lighter standalone HX pots brought up some fascinating videos from Flat Cat Gear about the
ultralight 800ml Fire Maple Petrel HX pot and an interesting article called Superstove for Optimal
Backcountry Cooking by Alan Dixon and Jaeger Shaw on the Adventure Alan
website that recommends the 1 litre Olicamp XTS pot (which is identical to the Fire
Maple FMC-XK6 HX) as the best alternative to the Stash pot and also mentions
the Fire Maple Petrel HX pot. Curious to try them I bought both Fire
Maple pots, at a combined cost less than a third that of the Stash.
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Soto Windmaster Triflex fitted onto Fire Maple Petrel pot
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Both the pots
are hard-anodised aluminium with plastic lids – an excellent one on the Petrel,
a poor one on the clumsily named FMC-XK6 (which I’ll call the FMC from now on).
The Petrel is tall and narrow and not so good for simmering food or eating from
as the wider and bigger FMC. The Petrel weighs 166g, the FMC 195g. The Petrel is
unique in having slots on the base of the heat exchanger. These are designed to
fit the pot supports of a Fire Maple stove but also just right for the Soto
Windmaster with the Triflex three-pronged supports (the stove comes with a
four-pronged support, the Triflex is an extra option). The Windmaster is a
powerful regulated stove comparable with the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe (which
won’t fit in the Petrel slots unless you do some modifications as shown in this
Flat Cat Gear video).
The only other stove I have that fits the Petrel is the Jetboil Mighty Mo,
which in fact fits even more securely than the Windmaster but is a fair bit
heavier – 98 rather than 68 grams. Of course you can just balance the Petrel on
a stove without using the slots but that means it’s less effective, Having the
burner inside the heat exchanger improves fuel efficiency, boiling time, wind
resistance and stability.
Of the two pots
I prefer the FMC as the width makes it easier to use than the Petrel. The FMC
is 55g heavier and a bit bigger than the Stash pot. The combined weight with
the PRD stove is 279g. The Petrel is 25g heavier than the Stash. With the PRD the total weight
is 234g. Either of these is a good alternative to the PRD/Stash pot
combination, which weighs 225g, or the Windmaster 4 Flex/Stash combination, which
weighs 229g (the Triflex supports are too short to be stable with the Stash
pot).
The Stash pot
plus the PRD or Windmaster stove combines the best pot with the best canister
top stoves that I’ve used. But for the price of the Stash you could buy six
Fire Maple pots.
Why HX
Pots?
Do HX pots
really have advantages? That depends! Faster boil times are often touted as the
big plus but I don’t think a few minutes difference really matters, and fuel
efficiency is higher is if a stove isn’t run at full power. What is significant
is reduced fuel usage, especially on long trips where there may be many days
between resupply points. Heat exchanger pots also increase performance in cold
and wind, which I also think more important than fast boil times.
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From left: Jetboil Stash, Fire Maple Petrel, Fire Maple FMC-XK6, Jetboil MicroMo
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HX pots are
all hard anodised aluminium which may not last as long as titanium but which
costs far less. Why not titanium? Jetboil did try this with the Sol Ti stove
but there were problems with the heat exchanger fins melting and it was discontinued.
No-one has made a titanium HX pot since as far as I know so I guess there are possibly
insurmountable technical problems.
Three years
ago I posted a piece on pots in which I said of HX pots “these do reduce the
amount of fuel needed and speed boiling times but also add weight. I like a
heat exchanger pot in winter for snow melting but otherwise I find a standard
pot fine”. I’ve changed my mind. I now
use an HX pot year round.
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Heat exchangers. Clockwise from top left: Fire Maple FMC, Fire Maple Petrel, Jetboil Stash, Jetboil MicroMo
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I can see no
big disadvantages to HX pots. The size and weight increase over titanium pots
isn’t that big. The Evernew 900ml titanium pot that I’ve used on every long distance walk for over twenty
years weighs 137 grams, just 3 grams less than the Stash pot! The 900ml MSR
Titan titanium pot is lighter at 125 grams but there’s still only a 16g
difference. In comparative tests I found that on average using HX pots meant a
fuel saving of about 4 grams per 500ml of water boiled. So the weight
difference between the Titan and Stash pots covers enough fuel to boil 2 litres
of water.
There is a
view that HX pots are unsuitable for anything other than boiling water but I’ve
found this is more dependent on the burner than the pot. This opinion may have
come about because the first HX stove systems didn’t simmer well. This isn’t true
of most current ones and certainly not of HX pots combined with regulated
stoves. Having a stove and pot that aren’t locked together also helps as you
can easily lift the pot off the stove to see the flame when you turn it down. I’ve
simmered food without problems in HX pots with PRD, Windmaster, Stash, Vega, and
other gas stoves.
Testing,
testing
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Testing lab
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I recently
reviewed a selection of stoves for The
Great Outdoors in which I compared boil times and fuel usage with HX and non-HX pots.
The results further convinced me that HX pots are worth using. I then did
a follow-up test comparing the Soto Windmaster Triflex with the Petrel pot, the
Stash stove and pot, and the Jetboil MicroMo. The Soto had the fastest boil
time, the Stash took 17 seconds longer to boil the water but used a gram less
fuel. The MicroMo was between the two on both counts. Practically there’s no
significant difference. However this was in warm calm weather with full
canisters. The Stash stove doesn’t perform as well as the others when it’s
windy or in the cold, especially with a less than half-full canister. As well
as being regulated the Windmaster, like the PRD, has a small windshield round
the burner, and is further protected by the Petrel heat exchanger.
Windshields
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Windshield round MSR Pocket Rocket 2 stove and Evernew titanium pot
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A big problem
with the Stash and similar stoves is that they aren’t wind-resistant. Anything
above a gentle breeze can blow the flame sideways and reduce the performance significantly,
sometimes preventing water boiling. A few stoves like the PRD and the Windmaster
have tiny windshields round the burner that do make a difference though in
strong winds the performance still deteriorates. The Jetboil system stoves like
the MiniMo and MicroMo are much the same. The only stoves I’ve used that don’t
require any wind protection are the MSR Windburner and the MSR Reactor stoves. These are great for winter use, especially snow melting, but
weigh 425 and 432g respectively. With other stoves I use a foil windshield that
can surround three sides of the burner and which comes part way up the side of
the pot. It woirks well. I’ve never had a canister get hot doing this. My current foil windshield weighs 55g.
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MSR Reactor. Great in the snow but heavy
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There are windshields
available that fit around the burner. I tried a few of these in the past and found
them clunky, awkward and not as efficient as the foil windshield. However Flat
Cat Gear has a range of windshields for different stoves that look effective
and easier to use.
*All pot
weights include the supplied lid. This could be replaced with a lighter one,
such as a piece of foil. A lid increases fuel efficiency so I always use one.