For those interested in cookpots for hiking! A new Fire Maple Petrel pot.

Fire Maple G2 on the left, Petrel G3 on the right.

Recently Fire Maple launched a new pot with a heat exchanger (HX) on the base called the Petrel G2. It’s bigger and wider than the original Petrel, now called the Petrel G3, with a 750ml rather than 600ml capacity. I received one in the post yesterday and on first look I like it a great deal.

The Petrels are, so far, unique amongst heat exchanger pots as they have slots in the base in which you can fit the pot supports of a stove with 120° between them. This brings the burner inside the heat exchanger and closer to the base of the stove, which increases wind resistance and makes the unit more stable. It’s also meant to reduce boil times and improve fuel efficiency though my tests with the G3 suggest there’s no significant difference with standard heat exchanger pots as long as a windshield is used with the latter.

G2 left, G3 right.

Last year I wrote a post about heat exchanger pots and why I was now using one year round (see here). In mild, calm weather they don’t make much difference. It’s when it’s cold and windy that they come into their own, especially when used with a stove with a regulated burner like the Soto Windmaster or the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe.

As part of my testing I tried the two Fire Maple HX pots then available, the Petrel G3 and the 1-litre FMC-XK6, and preferred the latter, although it’s a little heavier, as it’s wider and so easier for stirring when simmering, with less chance of food at the bottom burning, and easier for eating from – my pot often doubles as a bowl.

From the left, FMC-XK6, Petrel G2, Petrel G3

Back in November when it was winter in the hills, unlike now (mid-January), I had a camp where I needed to melt snow for water. The FMC-XK6 proved excellent for this (see this video). I think the narrower, taller, smaller Petrel G3 would not have been so good.  The FMC doesn’t have slots in the base though and the handle and lid aren’t as easy to use as the ones on the G3. I’m hoping the Petrel G2, which is as wide as the FMC and has the same type of handle and lid as the G2, will prove as useful for snow melting. I just need winter to return to find out.

The G2 is slightly lighter than the FMC, 187g rather than 195g, and a bit heavier than the G3, which weighs 166g. That’s with lids. For some reason Fire Maple has decided to give the G2 a hefty lid weighing 46g. The FMC lid is 24g, the G3 28g. Without lids the G2 is only 2g heavier than the G3. Of course 20g or so difference is irrelevant for most people. Only dedicated ultralighters will change the G2 lid for a lighter one. I just wonder why Fire Maple have put such a lid on a pot they’re promoting as ultralight. Other than weight it's similar to the G3 lid with a big rubber knob that makes it easy to lift off and made of transparent Tritan plastic.

The G2 measures 127.5 x 126 x 147.5mm with the handle folded over the lid. The pot itself has a height of 100mm and a diameter of 120mm. A 234g gas canister will fit inside but there isn't room for a stove as well.

The design of the G2 is similar to the G3 with the same snap-in-place folding handle that holds the lid on when closed. The G2 has a small pour spout, unlike the G3, and a single drain/steam hole in the lid rather than three slots. Of course steam can also escape at the spout, which isn't fully covered by the lid. There's only one volume mark, max 0.75L on the inside. The G3 and the FMC have incremental marks, which are useful. I wish Fire Maple had put these on the G2.

I’ve attached the Soto Windmaster Triflex and the *MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe to the G2 and both fit OK.  The combination is slightly more stable with the PRD as the supports fill the slots on the base. The shorter Triflex ones don’t and that means there’s a slight wobble and it’s harder to centre the pot on the stove. In practice this probably makes no significant difference. I’ll find out.

*A note on the MSR PRD and the Petrel pots. There are videos and online reviews that say it won’t fit the G3 and others that say it will. I suspect this is down to manufacturing tolerances with the pot. My PRD won’t quite fit the G3 without the legs being closed slightly and then it’s awkward – I wouldn’t want to use the combination in the field. However it fits the G2 fine.

Melting snow at a camp in the Cairngorms

 

A little video from a recent camp in the Cairngorms. I was impressed at how well the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe stove and Fire Maple heat exchanger pot worked for melting snow. A great winter combination.

I wrote about heat exchanger pots in this piece and how good I found them but hadn't yet tried this setup for snow melting. It worked as well as the much heavier MSR Reactor and Windburner stoves, other than not being quite as wind resistant. I'll be using it again.

The canister was a half-full GoSystem 2250 Powersource. Under it I put a sheet of thin foil (actually a cuppa soup packet torn in half). 

The morning after I took this video the temperature was -9C and there was a breeze. This did blow the flame sideways a little but the stove still melted the ice in the pot - it was frozen solid - quickly and then boiled the water fast without need of a windshield. 

Heat Exchanger Pots

Jetboil Stash pot & stove

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.

MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe with Jetboil Stash pot

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.

Optimus Vega stove with Jetboil Stash pot

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.

Soto Windmaster 4Flex stove with Fire Maple FMC-XK6 pot

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.

Soto Windmaster Triflex fitted onto Fire Maple Petrel pot

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.

From left: Jetboil Stash, Fire Maple Petrel, Fire Maple FMC-XK6, Jetboil MicroMo

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.

Heat exchangers. Clockwise from top left: Fire Maple FMC, Fire Maple Petrel, Jetboil MicroMo, Jetboil Stash

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

Testing lab

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

Windshield round MSR Pocket Rocket 2 stove and Evernew titanium pot

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.

MSR Reactor. Great in the snow but heavy

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.