A new, wider Fire Maple Petrel pot - first look and first use.

 

The pot in use 

Fire Maple has launched a new pot in the Petrel series, the Ramen 800ml. It's the biggest Petrel pot so far, just, but more significantly for those of us who cook in our pots and don't just boil water it's also the widest. Thanks to Mark Perry (@markperry222) in a comment on my video (see below) for the information that in China ramen noodles come in a wide flat disc that is dropped into the pot, something you couldn't do with the narrower Petrel pot. Fire Maple is of course a Chinese company.

The Petrel Ramen 800ml

Back in January I wrote a post about the then new Petrel G2 pot which is wider than the original Petrel pot, now designated the G3. The Petrel 800ml is wider than the G2. 145mm wide and 70mm deep compared to 100mm wide and 120mm deep. It weighs slightly more - 193g compared to 187g (with lids) - and holds slightly more. The G2 has a max fill line of 0.75l marked inside. The 800ml has markings for 500ml and 900 ml. There isn't one for 800ml despite the name.

From the left - the 800ml, G2 and G3 Petrel pots.

All the Petrel pots have heat exchangers on the base that increase stove efficiency in terms of fuel usage and boil times and slots for fitting onto the pot supports of a stove, which improves efficiency even more and adds stability. A difference with the 800ml is that has slots for stoves with three and four supports. The other two pots only have slots for stoves with three supports. This means that the 800ml will fit the Soto Windmaster 4-Flex stove. The slots for three and four supports are marked on the 800ml pot heat exchanger.

Markings for three and four pot supports

Another difference with the other Petrel pots is the lid. Instead of plastic it's made of aluminium like the rest of the pot. There's a soft rubberised tab for lifting it off the pot. Inside there's a clip for hanging it on the side of the pot. I'm not sure if I'll ever use this. 

There's one visible drain hole on the lid and three more on the lip that fits inside the pot. These only work when aligned with the pour spout. There is a mark on the lid for doing this. As with the other pots the long insulated handle clips over the lid to hold it in place for packing.

Because the 800ml is shallow a 230g canister won't fit inside with the lid on. A 100g canister will fit and leave plenty of room for a stove.

I tried the pot with several stoves and found that it was a bit fiddly with the Soto Windmaster 4-Flex and the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe but the Pocket Rocket 2 fitted easily. The Soto Windmaster Triflex fits too but isn't very stable as the supports are so short they only just fit in the slots. I wouldn't use the pot with this. With the other stoves stability is excellent and the pot can tilted almost horizontally without falling off as I show in this little video I made.

I had thought that the difficulty with some stoves might be due to manufacturing tolerances with the pot. I now think it's due to stove pot supports become slightly bent and so not fitting exactly. This is easy to see with a four pot support stove. Looking at the Windmaster 4-Flex I can see that the supports don't form a perfect cross. Slightly bending a support made fitting it easily. All my stoves are well-used so it's not surprising 

I've used the 800ml pot on one overnight trip so far and found it excellent. I took noodles that needed simmering and then a sauce stirred in and it was easy to do this in such a wide pot. The width also made it easy to use as a bowl. Boil time was fast even when it was just 2C in the morning. I suspect it may be faster than with the other Petrel pots. I'll do a test to check at some point. I think this is going to be my most-used pot.