Stoves for Winter Camping

Using the MSR Reactor high in the Cairngorms

I use a stove on camping trips year-round. I like my morning coffee. I like hot food. In winter a stove becomes much more important though. Hot food and drink can warm you up and be a huge morale booster. You may need to melt snow for water. So a winter stove needs to be reliable and powerful.

Melting snow in the Jetboil MiniMo

When I started backpacking (oh, so long ago!)  I used a Trangia meths stove in cold weather. It worked, though lighting it could be a chore, but it was slow, especially when melting snow, and went through fuel fast. After a few years I moved onto stoves that ran on petrol and paraffin. These required care, especially petrol ones when lighting, but are fast and powerful and unaffected by the cold. They are quite heavy.

MSR Windburner in an igloo

It's now 25 years since I last used a liquid fuel stove. Canister stoves have improved so much they’re now fine for year-round use. Four developments are the reason. The first was the introduction of butane/propane/isobutane fuel mixes as these work much better in the cold than pure butane, which used to be all that was available. Then came heat exchanger stove systems that are far more fuel efficient, regulated burners that don’t lose power in the cold or as the canister empties, and remote canister stoves with preheat tubes so the canister can be inverted, creating a liquid fuel stove that works much better in the cold.

Melting snow in a Fire Maple Petrel G2 pot over an MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe stove

All these made canister stoves good choices for winter use. Over the years I’ve tested quite a few of these. I’ve just made a YouTube video of the ones I like and use most. I like all of them but recently I’ve preferred the canister top stove/heat exchanger pot combinations due to the lower weight.

Here’s some details of the stoves I review in the video.

Weights are from my scales. Prices from various internet sources – these can vary greatly so it’s worth shopping around.

Model	Type	Weight in grams	Cost (£)
MSR Reactor	Stove system*	413	300
MSR Windburner	Stove system*	456/425**	210
Jetboil MiniMo	Stove system*	366/413**	185
Jetboil MicroMo	Stove system*	349/316**	175
MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe	Canister top	84/277***	85/109****
Soto Windmaster 4Flex	Canister top	88/281***	72/96****
Optimus Vega	Remote canister	182/375***	140/164****
Alpkit Koro	Remote canister	126/319***	60/84****

*Stove systems include a heat exchanger pot

** weight with and without plastic base cup

*** weight of stove alone and weight with Fire Maple Petrel 800ml pot

**** cost of stove alone and cost with Fire Maple 800ml pot