# Outdoors > Gear and Equipment >  Cooking systems - Light vs cost

## PerazziSC3

Hi guys,

Looking at a new cooking system for lightweight weekend trips where i will be walking a fair way. Sort of considering a jetboil but they don't seem to be very light and limit you to just boiling water?

Other option would be just a single small gas burner and a pot of some description. 

What is everyone using and can you also put a link up to the cheapest place etc

Cheers

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## gimp

I use a tiny macpac canister stove and a 90gm Esbit 700ml titanium pot.

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## PerazziSC3

Yeah im looking at somehting similiar, but a 900ml pot, $80 sound ok?

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## gimp

Cheaper than I paid

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## BruceY

Hi...Kovea stove or similar, screw type propane, ali pot n pan...in the ali cook kit, I pack 6 eggs in news paper ( firelighters) and on the top 400gm pack of bacon = 3 yummy breakfasts...good luck...

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## kiwijames

I have a MSR micro Rocket and a Primus EtaPower pot (1.2L?). Really light, very grunty and the Primus pot beats everything hands down. Ive had plenty of titanium bits and they pale in comparison. The heat ring is the deal breaker on the Primus. It directs the heat 1000% time better than anything else. Super fast boil and I thought it more easy to clean and more flexible than the Jetboil.

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## PerazziSC3

So you can use those primus pot on a standard burner? good to no. I cant find the smaller version 1L pot anywhere online just the 1.8 and 3l

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## kiwijames

> So you can use those primus pot on a standard burner? good to no. I cant find the smaller version 1L pot anywhere online just the 1.8 and 3l


Yep. Just like a standard pot. I got mine from R&R Sport I think.

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## PerazziSC3

Ok sweet,

Ive only ever had the cheap ($20ish) single burners like this Camping Gas Stove Butane / Propane - Lightweight | Trade Me

Seem to go alright, any real word benefit on going to a branded version like the macpac that go for around $100?

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## kiwijames

Cookers in general are fairly cheap anyway. I bought the MacPac one, The Pocket Rocket and then the Micro Rocket in one go. The Micro Rocket was the best for sure. Smaller, lighter, plus burnt better. The real performer though was the Primus pot. I really can't take too much credit. I was put onto the pot by the West Coast guys. Adam (Baldbob) gave me the heads up and I bought one for both myself and R93.

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## PerazziSC3

So this is the pot  @kiwijames? Primus Pot ETA 1.0 Litre | Buy Cooking Online | Shop @ Torpedo7

I see the weight is 280grams. Do you know if that includes the lid and what looks like a red bowl?

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## Pengy

How do you alpine hunters rate gas in general, for cooking at high altitude?

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## kiwijames

primus-etapower-pot-1l/ This is the one i have. Primus have a shit website. Probably mine is an older version?

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## kiwijames

> How do you alpine hunters rate gas in general, for cooking at high altitude?



Never had an issue with gas after years of lugging a great big liquid fuel cooker around. I don't think our HB ranges count as "cooking at altitude"

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## Smiley

Pardon the stupid question, but are these refillable or throw away?

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## PerazziSC3

Yep it's a good setup, and tidy having it all together. The orange bag it comes in is very handy to keep the lid from rattling

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## GravelBen

> @GravelBen - I see your point but I just like the idea of one tidy little unit ready to go & then just add whatever food each trip.


Fair enough, each to their own!

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## MassiveAttack

It's also handy if you can get your bag of ground coffee into your billy that way you can just pull out the billy and brew up instead of having to dig through your food bag to get your hot drink stuff.

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## Nibblet

What kind of altitude are we talking when gas canisters for jetboil and the likes start to have issues?
Is it the cold as well causing icing through the valve or something?

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## gimp

I've had trouble with them this week at a mere 1400m (it was snowing, ice on the outside of the canister). Slow as. Didn't have the meths cooker to compare sadly. Might take it up tomorrow, going to be at about 1900-2000m the next 2 days

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## PerazziSC3

Keep the canister in the tent or at bottom of sleeping bag when sleeping and it will be good to go on the coldest mornings

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## Nibblet

Be curious to know if a neoprene sleeve or something would help?

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## scoped

i think about minus 5 is when it really starts to make a difference, as said above, keep it in your sleeping bag etc over night. my msr reactor should arrive tomorrow  :Have A Nice Day:

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## GravelBen

> Be curious to know if a neoprene sleeve or something would help?


Off the top of my head I don't think it would - its a while since I studied thermodynamics but essentialy the evaporation of liquid to gas inside the canister requires energy, which it has to absorb from the outside to maintain operating pressure. Thats why the outside of the canister feels cold when its running, and can ice up even when the air temp is well above zero - its the temperature drop inside thats cooling the outside. Some people use little heat packs which you can stick under the canister if it gets too cold, simple solution but seems to work as it doesn't take a lot of heat to keep it the gas evaporating. Even wrapping your hands around it (which obviously gives you cold hands) or sitting the canister in a pot of slightly warmed water can sometimes be enough to get it cranking.

Liquid fuel stoves don't have that issue because you pressurise the fuel bottle with the pump to make the liquid flow, and then its the heat of the stove that evaporates the liquid to gas (which is why you have to prime/pre-heat them to get started). IIRC they're also a fair bit more efficient/cheaper to run, a 1l bottle of fuelite/white spirits for will give a heap more use than a 230g gas canister and not cost much more. If you're burning a lot of fuel doing things like melting snow for drinking water then it can make quite a difference.

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## GravelBen

My maplefire 1L heat exchange pot arrived today, did a quick comparison with a normal (wider shaped) alloy pot. Both on the little BRS ti cooker on the same setting, though it wasn't on full power because I didn't think about that until I'd already started. 500ml of tap water.

Maplefire about 1 min 50s
Normal pot about 2 min 20s

So thats about 22% faster/more efficient, and the different probably would have been bigger if the cooker was turned up higher.

Maplefire weighs in at 187g pot only, and 220g including the silicon plastic lid.
My comparison pot is 162g pot only, but if you add its lid (which is pretty solid because it doubles as a bowl or frypan) and pot holder (because it doesn't have a built-in handle) you end up with 419g total.

So I'm happy enough.

One minor downside - the arms of the ti cooker were a few mm too wide to fit inside the heat exchange ring of the pot, but not wide enough to give a stable platform with the ring sitting on them. Problem solved by bending the arms in slightly to fit inside the ring.

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## stug

On a cold morning if you do have some liquid water in a small bowl and sit the gas canister in it. It will make a big difference.

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## gimp

> My maplefire 1L heat exchange pot arrived today, did a quick comparison with a normal (wider shaped) alloy pot. Both on the little BRS ti cooker on the same setting, though it wasn't on full power because I didn't think about that until I'd already started. 500ml of tap water.
> 
> Maplefire about 1 min 50s
> Normal pot about 2 min 20s
> 
> So thats about 22% faster/more efficient, and the different probably would have been bigger if the cooker was turned up higher.
> 
> Maplefire weighs in at 187g pot only, and 220g including the silicon plastic lid.
> My comparison pot is 162g pot only, but if you add its lid (which is pretty solid because it doubles as a bowl or frypan) and pot holder (because it doesn't have a built-in handle) you end up with 419g total.
> ...


Be interesting to try it against a 114 gram Ti comparison pot&lid. 22% less fuel or 100% less weight of pot, which is lighter?

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## GravelBen

> Be interesting to try it against a 114 gram Ti comparison pot&lid. 22% less fuel or 100% less weight of pot, which is lighter?


Depends how long the trip is I guess! With the normal pot I used about 40g of gas on a recent overnight trip (weighed the canister before and after just to be geeky, because I've never really checked how much I use) - there was a bit of wasted energy boiling the same water multiple times though after only using some of it.

If 40g/day is normal then the heat exchange pot might save 10g/day (rounded to 25% for simplicity), at that rate it would take 11 days to use 110g less fuel - the contents of 1 small canister, which weighs about 210g total. So for shorter trips than that the ti pot will save more weight, but the heat exchange pot will save more money.  :Wink:  Obviously those figures will change a bit when cooking for multiple people and/or above the snowline etc, the more fuel you use the better the efficient pot will look.

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## gimp

I use my meths cooker mostly too which is cheap as heck to run, a couple of bucks a litre

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## veitnamcam

> I use my meths cooker mostly too which is cheap as heck to run, a couple of bucks a litre


Where do you buy meths?

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## gimp

tbh I haven't in a while and don't remember exactly what it costs, I recall it being something like $6/l

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## veitnamcam

> tbh I haven't in a while and don't remember exactly what it costs, I recall it being something like $6/l


yea I use it in my fish smoker and am sure its more like 6-8 bucks not "a couple" per liter at the gas station i use.

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## gimp

I consider 6 bucks to be "a couple". linguistic nuances


e: It's clearly grammatically incorrect, I clearly don't care

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## GravelBen

Coffee-wise, I got one of these the other day and it does the trick. Weighs 17g, the (pretty pointless) lid adds another 9.

Brew Basket | Equipment | Clearance | Macpac New Zealand

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## gimp

nice

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## WillB

Yeah I've got one of those they're really good

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## 25/08IMP

> Cooker stashed in the concave base of the canister. Probably room on top for racing spoon, lighter, pot scrub. Mine is a 650ml. 650ml is full right to the brim. 500ml is about an inch below the top.


I have the same set up and it works a treat I think I got the 750ml cup.

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## MassiveAttack

> Coffee-wise, I got one of these the other day and it does the trick. Weighs 17g, the (pretty pointless) lid adds another 9.
> 
> Brew Basket | Equipment | Clearance | Macpac New Zealand


Thats what I use.  Spent $50 buying the msr one a decade ago and then just picked up a new one for $5 from macpac....

Life is too short to drink instant.

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## MassiveAttack

> On a cold morning if you do have some liquid water in a small bowl and sit the gas canister in it. It will make a big difference.


Take the lid off your billy, put the gas can\cooker in the lid.  Pour some warm\hot water from the billy into the lid and that warms up the gas canister.  Of course to do this you need the cooker to work well enough to warm up some water first...

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## outdoorlad

> On a cold morning if you do have some liquid water in a small bowl and sit the gas canister in it. It will make a big difference.


Also if there are two of you with a cooker, heat one of the gas canisters over the flame of the other one for "a little bit" to warm it up & then use it, gets them cranking, good for getting the last bit out of a nearly empty one

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## Danny

All this talk about Meths cookers has me thinking. Any pictures? 
Who uses Jetboil?

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## Ricochet

Here's a little one I made from a Red Bull can. Fit's into the 450ml cup pictured. The little container fits 60ml of meths & so makes me 2-3 cups of coffee depending on wind.



Always wanted this one but I can't imagine it works too much better than mine & it probably weighs more. Looks cool though.



Ti Stove

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## GravelBen

Do the meths cookers work just by burning the meths as it evaporates through the holes?

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## scoped

yes but for it to vapourise it has to preheat - meths is ok but its slow and not very windproof. the system is simple and the stoves can be made easily. the downfall is that by the time you bring enough fuel and all the crap to use it, you might as well have a proper gas cooker/jet boil setup.

got a new msr reactor. will be testing it over the holidays  :Have A Nice Day:

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## Ricochet

What crap to use it?

U have meths a stove & a lighter.

I can tell you that it weights a shit load less than a MSR reactor which is like half a kg.

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