A Look At Stove Systems For Backpacking And Long-Distance Hiking

Using the original Jetboil in 2005

A lightweight backpacking stove system arrived for testing a few days ago, the third such new stove system this year, which set me thinking about the rise of these stove and pot combinations and why they are popular.

A stove or cooking system is basically just a pot and stove that come as a package. They’re not new. The methylated spirits/alcohol burning Trangia stove system dates back to 1951.

The original Jetboil in 2004

These days though stove system usually refers to a burner that runs on butane/propane gas canisters and a pot with a heat exchanger that fits on top of it. This system was first launched by Jetboil back in 2004 and was revolutionary as it increased boil times and reduced fuel usage. This was a significant development. Everything else I’m writing about derives from it.

The Jetboil Flash 1.0L, 2025

I had one of the original Jetboil stoves and used it on short trips but found it too heavy for multi-day ones despite the fuel efficiency. The first Jetboil became the Jetboil Flash five years later. I had one of those too. Further versions appeared, culminating in the Flash 1.0L just last year. This has a number of improvements but the same basic design. I reviewed it for The Great Outdoors magazine.

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The first Jetboil had a tall narrow pot that locked onto the burner, a cosy round the pot, and a Piezo igniter This became the template for this type of stove system and there are many similar designs.  The pots are usually around a litre in capacity, and the units are designed for boiling water rather than cooking.

The MSR Reactor in use in 2013

MSR came out with a variation on the design in 2007 called the Reactor. This has the same tower-like look as the Jetboil but has a radiant burner that glows rather than producing flames, no Piezo igniter, and no cosy. It’s very powerful, wind proof, and designed for melting snow. I’ve used it frequently for winter camping.

The Primus Lite, 2013

Venerable stove maker Primus (founded in 1892!) joined the stove system makers in 2013 with the first of the Lite series, the latest of which is the one that’s just arrived.

MSR Windburner with its original name, 2014

A year after the first Primus Lite MSR brought out the Windburner (originally called the Windboiler), a radiant burner stove system designed for more general usage. Like the Reactor and unlike the Jetboil Flash it has a regulated burner and performs better in the cold.

Melting snow on the Jetboil MiniMo in 2016

Also in 2014 the MiniMo was launched, the first Jetboil stove with a regulated burner. It also has a shorter, wider pot, which I much prefer for cooking and eating from, and quickly became my favourite stove system, though still a bit heavy for long trips at 378g.

The Jetboil Stash in 2021

Finally, just five years ago, Jetboil launched a stove system, the Stash, that I think at 200g is light enough to use on long-distance walks. It’s not a system like the Flash or similar ones. It’s really just a heat exchanger pot and a stove that are sold together. The pot doesn’t lock onto the burner and can be used with other stoves, and the stove can be used with other pots without need of any accessories. You can’t buy them separately though, which is shame as the burner isn’t regulated. I’ve used the Stash pot regularly with other stoves that are regulated, including on the Cape Wrath Trail, but I don’t recommend buying it just for the pot due to the high cost. I reviewed the Stash pot and stove for The Great Outdoors here.

Fire Maple Petrel G3 pot & Soto Windmaster Triflec stove in 2024

The Stash was a breakthrough in terms of system stoves for long-distance hiking. I’d previously thought of stove systems as good for short trips and for winter but not for longer trips. The Stash made me consider heat exchanger pots for every trip. However the only ones I knew about were quite heavy. The first lightweight ones were appearing though and I discovered a couple from Fire Maple. I started using these, putting together my own stove system, and was impressed. I wouldn’t be going back to ordinary pots. I wrote this piece about heat exchanger pots a couple of years ago.

The three Petrel pots, from the left: 800ml, G2, G3

At the time I wrote that piece only the first of Fire Maple’s Petrel pots with slots in the base for stove arms had appeared. This design improves stability and brings the burner closer to the pot for better wind resistance. There are two more Petrel pots now, both of which I posted about last year – here and here.  The wide Petrel Ramen 800ml pot is my favourite and a good alternative to the Stash pot. With stoves like the SotoWindmaster and MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe and a Fire Maple Petrel pot you can have an excellent stove system suitable for year-round use, including snow melting.

This brings me to this year’s new stoves. The first to arrive was the Fire Maple Star X1 Pro. This has the now-standard tower design. It’s very powerful but weighs 555g. I made this little video about it.

Next came the Jetboil TrailCook 1.2L, which is basically an update of the MiniMo incorporating some of the improvements first seen on the Flash 1.0L and a ceramic pot. I gave my first impressions here and described my first use of it in this video.

For solo backpacking and long-distance hiking, the third new stove is the most interesting. The Primus Lite Ultra has the same burner as earlier Lite models but a much lighter pot that looks similar to the Fire Maple PetrelG3. At 238g without accessories like the canister stabiliser it’s in the same weight range as a Fire Maple Petrel pot plus stove or the Jetboil Stash. I made this little video about it but haven’t yet used it. It’ll go on my next trip.

I should mention the unusual MSR Switch Stove System, which came out two years ago. This looks like a heat exchanger pot and burner but isn’t. Instead, the pot has a rounded base with a cage around it that fits on the burner. I reviewed it here and found that the pot does speed up boiling over a standard pot but isn’t as fast or fuel efficient as a heat exchanger pot. 

MSR Switch, 2024

After the original Jetboil the most significant developments have been the Jetboil Stash and the Fire Maple Petrel G3 pot. Without them I would still be thinking of stove systems as suitable only for short trips or winter camping.

 

 

 

 

A Walk In The Woods & First Use Of A New Stove

 

A breezy, sunny day in early March. The sun warm, shaded areas cool, the wind chilly out in the open. The distant mountains shining with fresh snow, their summits in and out fast-moving clouds.

The first buds are just appearing on birches, rowans and willows, only noticeable from close up. The grasses are still mostly faded yellow but again a close look reveals tiny spurts of fresh green in a few places. 

I wandered through meadows of sheep and down into some sheltered woods. Here amongst some ancient pines I found an old log for a seat and stopped to relax and enjoy the quiet beauty of the forest and the warmth of the sun. 

I'd brought a new stove unit with me to try out - the Fire Maple Star X1 Pro - and I set this up to boil water for a mug of coffee. I made a little video of this.

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Gas transfer time!

Transferring gas between canisters before a trip. It's now approaching two years since I wrote about this and I still have many almost empty canisters. I need to do more! And recycle more empty ones.

MSR Switch Stove System review for The Great Outdoors

MSR has an interesting and unusual new stove system that has a pot with a rounded base. After testing it extensively last autumn I've reviewed it for The Great Outdoors here. 

Refilling & Recycling Backpacking Stove Gas Canisters

Backpacking stove gas canisters tend to be replaced when almost empty because the heat from them is no longer enough to be of use. At least that’s what happens to my canisters. Stoves with regulators, low profile stoves with preheat tubes so the canister can be turned upside down, and stove systems with pots with heat exchangers are more efficient at using up gas than simple screw-in canister top stoves but there is always a little gas left when the stove no longer puts out heat.

This presents two problems. How to get the last gas out of a canister and what to do with the growing pile of almost empty canisters, given that they can’t be recycled with gas still in them. There are two different tools for this that actually complement each other.

The first is a gas transfer tool that lets you fill one canister from another. This consists of a two-way valve that screws into both canisters. To ensure the gas flows from one canister to the other there needs to be a heat differential between them with the canister you’re filling colder than the one being emptied. Putting one in the freezer for five minutes and the other in sunshine, or at least a warm room, should be enough.

Once the canisters are screwed in place and the valve is opened you can hear the gas rushing into the bottom canister. Once this stops you can close the valve.

To avoid overfilling a canister, which would be dangerous, I weigh the canisters and ensure that the total amount of gas in both canisters is less than that in a full canister – around 75-85%. Canisters have the amount of gas marked on them – 110g, 230g, 450g are common – so If you know the weight of a full canister (about 380g for a canister with 230g of gas, the size I mostly use, depending on the brand) you can work out how much gas a canister contains.

The tool I use for this is the FlipFuel and it works really well.

 

Now it might seem that this fuel transfer process leaves one canister completely empty, but I haven’t found this to be so, which is where the other tool comes in. To be recycled a canister should be punctured and preferably at least partly flattened (they are tough - try a sledgehammer!). To ensure there is no gas left before puncturing the canister another valve can be attached that vents the very last bit. This valve is part of the Jetboil CrunchIt Butane Canister Recycling Tool which also has a sharp spike for puncturing the canister when fully empty.

I was surprised to discover that when no more fuel would transfer between canisters and I attached the CrunchIt to the apparently empty one gas was still vented, sometimes a surprising amount. Only when the hiss of this has died away and I can’t hear any gas coming out even with my ear close to it do I puncture the canister. The empty canister can then be recycled with other metal cans.

Before I discovered the FlipFuel I was wasting a lot of gas by venting almost empty canisters with the CrunchIt. Now I use the two together.

The valves of both tools are designed for the common Lindahl Valve used on most small gas canisters designed for backpacking stoves. The brand of canister doesn’t matter.

I should point out that I always use both tools outside and nowhere near any open flame.

These are not items I’ve ever carried with me, but I guess on long trips I might do so if I was taking several canisters and thought I might want to transfer fuel between them or puncture and flatten empty ones for carrying. They’re both small and at 36g for the FlipFuel and 32g for the CrunchIt wouldn’t add much to the load.

Classic Gear: The Primus Stove

Second in the Classic Gear series that appeared in The Great Outdoors last year. This time, a revolutionary stove.

When explorers started venturing high into the mountains and far onto the polar ice in the second half of the nineteenth century they had a problem. How to stay hydrated. Melting snow required fuel and stoves and took time. Before then polar travellers were ship-based and terrestrial explorers stayed below the treeline most of the time and so had wood to burn. Various alcohol burning stoves were developed but these were slow, inefficient and required large amounts of fuel, which meant heavier loads to carry and a limit on how far explorers could go. The first paraffin (kerosene) stoves were only a little better and gave off soot and fumes.

An original Primus stove

 

This all changed in 1892 when Swedish inventor Frans W. Lindqvist developed the first sootless paraffin pressure stove. This stove had a burner mounted over a fuel tank. To pressurise the fuel there was a pump on the side of the tank. A valve on the burner released the pressurised fuel which rose up vaporising tubes to shoot out of a jet as a gas. Once this gas was lit it spread out round a metal plate in a ring of flames. This design makes very efficient use of the fuel and is the basis for every liquid petroleum stove ever since. It really was a revolutionary design. Lindqvist set up a company to market his invention and named the stove Primus – the Latin for first.

Primus factory in 1907

Explorers quickly recognised the value of the Primus stove, particularly the great Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen. He knew the disadvantages of alcohol stoves from his crossing of Greenland, the first time this had been achieved, when he said he had suffered from ‘arctic thirst’. For his ‘furthest north’ expedition in 1883 he took Primus stoves, which were far more fuel efficient and burnt much hotter for melting snow. Later, in 1911, his protégé Roald Amundsen took Primus stoves to the South Pole. 

Primus stoves quickly became the standard for expeditions and remained so into the 1970s, being used by the successful 1953 Everest Expedition amongst many others. They became standard stoves for hiking and cycle touring too with different sizes being manufactured such as the popular 00 (1 pint) and 96 (half pint) models. In the early 1980s when I led backpacking trips for Outward Bound Loch Eil we used 00 Primus stoves that didn’t look that different from the original design of nearly 100 years earlier.

OmniLite Ti

 

At first glance today’s Primus stoves don’t seem much like the first ones or even the 00 or 96. The big change has been the move of the fuel tank from under the burner to off to the side with a hose linking the two. Modern stoves can burn several different fuels too and are made from materials such as titanium that weren’t available earlier. The basic principles are the same though, as can be seen by looking at Primus’s top of the line OmniLite Ti. There’s still a pump to pressurise the liquid fuel, a valve to release it, and a jet out of which vapour shoots upwards before hitting a metal plate and spreading out. This design has stood the test of 125 years of use. It looks like it’ll go on for many more.

Preparing for a backpacking stove test

A cool breeze, air temperature +5C, light drizzle - just right for a group test of backpacking stoves for the June issue of The Great Outdoors.