I'd just finished a comparative stove review for The Great Outdoors magazine (to appear soon) when another stove arrived, this one the Fire Maple Star X1 Pro Cooking System. This follows the familiar pattern of a heat exchanger pot that fits on top of a canister stove. There are a few interesting features on this version of the design though. Note that this is just a first look. I haven't used the stove yet.
The litre-size pot is made of aluminium and has a rubbery lid that fits well but not too tightly. The best feature is the long stainless steel handle which locks firmly into place and folds over the lid when the unit is packed. This is excellent and far better than the webbing loops found on some similar stove systems which I always find a little uncomfortable and insecure. The handle has insulating material over it so it shouldn't get too hot.
The pot has a stretchy cosy, two stretchy cosies in fact, one plain black, one with red markings that I really like. With cosy and lid the pot weighs 276 grams.
Similar stoves often come with plastic bowls that fit under the heat exchanger. I don't find these very useful as they easily get dirty from the heat exchanger and are vulnerable to cracking. The Star X1 Pro doesn't have one of these. Instead it has a Tritan plastic bowl that fits inside the pot. It weighs 61 grams. I'll probably leave it at home.
The burner unit is substantial with thick plastic supports and a raised metal surround that should help keep off wind. There's a Piezo igniter and a small control knob.
The pot fits on top of the stove via two slots that slip over little nodules on the inside of the metal surround. The pot can then be twisted to secure it in position. Once this is done it feels very stable.
The burner, bowl, and a 100 gram canister can be packed inside the pot. A 230 gram canister will fit but if you put the burner in as well it protrudes above the top so you can't close the lid. The burner weighs 188 grams.
The complete unit weighs 525 grams on my scales, which is 30 grams less than Fire Maple's figure. Leave the bowl behind and that comes down to 464 grams. This weight is typical for this type of cooking system.
I'll take the unit on my next camping trip and see how it does. Fire Maple says it can boil 500ml of water in 1 minute 42 seconds using 4.5g of fuel. That's a very fast boil time and very low fuel usage. I'll be interested to see what it does in my tests.
The cost is £39.26, which is very low.
I made a little video about the stove.
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