trail_monkey

My stove is the snow peak giga power. I just got my GSI Halulite minimalist pot set in the mail today. My fuel is Coleman butane and propane mix from Walmart. I was expecting miracles I guess with this aluminum pot from everything I read about the properties of aluminum and heat conductivity. The test conditions today were approximately 40° outside temperature, very very light breeze if any at times, 20 ounces of 54° tapwater. The flame pattern on the stove does not go past the edge of my pot. It takes almost 10 minutes to boil water in these conditions. It’s pathetic. I was expecting to have a rolling boil on at least 2 cups of water in four minutes or a little better. I tried 2 cups of water as well and it didn’t improve things a whole lot. I’ve got a limited time that I can return this pot to Amazon and order a larger diameter pot if the diameter is what’s causing the problem. Can someone tell me if a larger aluminum pot will fix this problem or am I just expecting too much out of my stove? I’m beginning to think I wasted my money and should’ve just kept playing with my alcohol stoves. This is not what I expected

nickw

Are boil times your #1 criteria? I'm rarely in a hurry, so don't care as long as there are other benefits that offset like packability, weight, low maintenance, etc.

I think my Trangia stove is probably somewhere near 10 min for that much, maybe a bit less.

trail_monkey

I decided to run another test in the exact same conditions and it’s even worse than it was this morning. It took eight minutes for this stove to get my water up to 123 degrees Fahrenheit with s starting temp of around 54. Something just doesn’t add up because with my other stove set up, which was an alcohol stove and a stainless steel pot in a windscreen, in seven minutes I was getting water to around 150 to 170°

trail_monkey

No they aren’t and they really shouldn’t be. It’s just that if my boil times were faster then getting the water to say 150° would be faster as well. I’m just really disappointed in how fast this setup heats up in general.

CreakingCrank

The advertised boil time for your stove is almost 5 minutes (1L). I suspect that's under favorable conditions. With 54F water and 40F ambient temp, 10 minutes doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Are you sure your alcohol stove was tested in the same conditions?

trail_monkey

I’ll accept your theory. As I type this I’m outside doing back to back tests with both stoves. Now in all fairness I’m using a windscreen for my alcohol stove. I do not have a windscreen for my canister stove due to the danger involved. Now there is such a little if any breeze today the wind screen pretty much just serves to hold heat in the pot when using the alcohol stove. 1 ounce of alcohol in a homemade can stove will get the water to around 170° in 10 minutes before burns out. Running the same pot with the same amount of water on the canister stove will get the water to about 175° in nine minutes and 30 seconds. So they are so close in the results that I’m not even sure there’s any advantage at least in these conditions to using this canister stove. I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have just saved my $35 LOL. Now I will say.....this new minimalist pot that I got works really really well with my alcohol stove so it was potential he a smart investment.

CreakingCrank

Thanks. Good feedback. A test is worth three expert opinions.

trail_monkey

This is just results I am getting. I should be more of an expert in what I am as much as I’ve messed with these alcohol stoves LOL but I’m not. As far as the canister stoves I’m a newbie and I’ve never owned one before this snow peak. So take my results for what they’re worth.

Tomorrow I will try to test in my garage in more of a summer type environment that’s controlled with no wind and see what both stoves can do

reppans

Yeah those boil times don't sound right for cannister stove, an alcohol stove should be in the 6-8min range for a pint and a Jetboil with heat exchanger in the 2.5-4min range - I would think yours should fall right between the two. Maybe the fuel is bad/cheap/sub-optimal for your Snow Peak...maybe try an OEM cannister?

seeker333

Could it be your fuel? I never used the Coleman fuel, only the SP. There is clearly something wrong if it takes 10 min to boil 2.5 cups / 20 fl. oz., when it should take ~3 min. Is there something wrong with valve or burner head that would inhibit operation at 100% output?

I'm fairly certain I've brought 2 cups coldish water to boil with my SP Gigapower stove many times in ~2.5 min, typically outdoors with light breeze and no windscreen. The official SP rating is 4.8 min for 1 liter (4.23 cups). I rarely need 1000 ml of boiling water, most of my experience is with 1-3 cups.

IIRC my Mini-Trangia will boil 2 cups in ~5" with my DIY windscreen/pot stand made from scrap Al flashing, burning ethanol.

trail_monkey

I don’t know about my fuel but I certainly am disappointed. I will say my canister appears to be more than half empty though. I probably have close to an hour total of burns including tests a week ago. I just assumed when I made the step up to a canister stove I would get boil times like you guys are saying. I could only hope it’s the fuel. If the canister is 39 degrees to match today’s ambient temperature would that slow down my fuel output?

I will say that most the results I see on the Internet from everybody else is really tough to duplicate myself. I have done a ton of alcohol stove experimentation with good wind screens. I’ve used pot stands and stoves that didn’t need pot stands and everything in between. And the most efficient combination I have come up with would get 55 to 60° water to around 180° outside in cooler weather with 1 ounce of fuel in 8 to 10 minutes . The only time I was able to achieve a rolling boil with an alcohol stove was in my garage in controlled environment.

Canister stoves though seem almost foolproof. You screw them together you hit the igniter you put your pot on top and you just let it do it’s thing. I can’t tell you how frustrated I am that this is the kind of results I’m getting. Its kind of depressing.

I was hoping somebody would tell me that that cheap Walmart gas was the problem LOL but I really don’t know if it’s any worse than something I’d buy a camping store.

trail_monkey

Can I ask if there is a btu difference between isobutane and butane? My Coleman fuel is butane/propane mix

seeker333

If I google first sentence above from ...btu diff.. I get first return:

https://www.elgas.com.au/blog/1688-bu...-petroleum-gas

stove specific: https://zenstoves.net/Canister.htm

I just cooked a bunch of water with my 1997 Snow Peak (SP) Gigapower stove and Primus fuel, and my Mini Trangia (MT) stove with denatured ethanol.

My goal was to determine time required to boil 2 cups cold water, measure fuel usage, and compare SP canister stove to MT alcohol stove in this regard.

Procedure: Measure 2.0 cups of tap water @ 55F into room temperature (60F) 1.0 L Ti pot, cover with lid. Light stove, wait a few seconds for "bloom" (MT only, SP requires no warm up). Set pot on stove / potstand (MT), make sure centered to flame. Start timer, wait, listen for boil, stop timer at rolling boil. Stove + fuel weighed before and after each test to determine fuel consumption. Three tests performed with same procedure on each stove.

Results:SP boils 2 cups in a bit over 3", using ~7g fuel. MT boils 2 cups in a bit under 5", using ~16g fuel.

SP t1-3:05,08g / t2-3:00,07g / t3-3:05,07g

MT t1-4:50,15g / t2-4:45,17g / t3-4:45,16g

OP, I estimate you'd need <4" to boil 2.5 cups with your SP.

trail_monkey

May be but it isn’t working lol. I am going to call the company I bought this from tomorrow and explain things and see if they will return it. I am sure they won’t but doesn’t hurt to check. I may get lucky.

RobotGuy

3 things you need: wind screen, lid, paint the bottom of the pot black. These will all help quite a bit.

But more importantly, what’s the rush? You’ll be back at your office desk before you know it... in the meantime, slow down and enjoy the process.

trail_monkey

Pot is anodized aluminum so black. It has a lid. I tried a windscreen to block the wind. I had to hold it up as I didn’t want to wrap it tightly and overheat anything. There’s no rush. Just frustrated cause if I can’t make it perform better than this then there’s no reason for toting it along. My alcohol kit is lighter and more compact even with fuel lol. Not complaining just not what I expected when I purchased all this stuff. 👍

I am sure I am doing something wrong although I don’t know what.

MAK

I have little experience but I've read that the efficiency of canister stoves diminishes as temperature drops. Try an experiment indoors and it should work better. Canister stoves work best in the summer.

trail_monkey

Yeah that’s why I was asking earlier about the temperatures I was using it in plus I think my canister is getting close to empty. Maybe I don’t have as much pressure coming out so I’m only putting out half the BTUs the stove should be.

trail_monkey

I’m going to go run a test this morning in room temperature garage with no wind. I did some research and have found out that the Coleman fuel I bought from Walmart is an extremely poor blend to use in cold weather. It is a straight butane and propane mix and I think the temperatures I was trying to use it at yesterday was killing my output due to the mixture.

EDIT.....I realized this morning that I left the heater off in my garage so it had an inside temperature of 50 degrees this morning.

Let's just end this topic as solved. I ran out of useable fuel this morning 4 minutes into my test in a controlled 50 degree environment. I could sense something wasn't right when I didn't hear that loud roar of burning fuel (flame was low even on full on position). Come to think of it I thought it sounded uncharacteristically quiet yesterday. I suppose the combination of getting low of fuel, a butane blend instead of isobutane, and ambient temps around 38-40 degrees coupled with a cannister that gets colder as it burns, resulted in my crappy performance. I did notice a little sputtering of the flame yesterday and wasn't sure at the time what was causing it (I blamed it on the wind)

In 3.5-4 minute test this morning, 20 ounces of 50 degree tap water only got up to around 95 degrees on the Snow Peak using a GSI Minimalist pot. The same amount of time testing an alky stove, following the Snow Peak test, got me around 150-160 degrees in the same conditions.

I am learning as a newbie that fuel selection needs to be based off of conditions expected. This coleman fuel will no doubt be fine for warmer temps. But if I plan on doing any colder weather camping it sounds like MSR or Snow Peak or Olicamp are the better fuels to choose. OR maybe leave my cannister stove at home in colder temps and take my alky stove along which performs just fine. Maybe there's a reason to keep both types handy and not be limited to just one style.

markf

If you read the fine print, most of the advertised boil times for stoves are at 70 degrees air temperature, 70 degrees water temperature, and no wind, so it's pretty unrealistic to expect real world performance to be anything like the advertised performance.

Regarding wind screens: the canisters are designed to be safe at temperatures up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit when they are full. As the fuel is used, the safe operating temperature goes up, since the pressure is dropping as the fuel is used. Put the windscreen around the stove as tightly as you want, but reach in and touch the canister with your finger every minute or two. If the canister starts to feel warm, take away the windscreen, take off the pot and turn the stove off. Unless you're cooking on a hot summer day, it's pretty hard to overheat the canister. If you're using the Snow Peak windscreen designed for your stove, It should be even harder to overheat the canister.

I've heard claims that Snow Peak fuel is better quality than the other brands of fuel. It might be fun to do a back to back comparison of all the different brands, if someone else wants to buy the fuel.

trail_monkey

I have been offered a full refund by the company. Even though I have determined that the stove is not at fault I am thinking I may be better off returning it and buying an MSR pocket rocket as it seems to be more efficient at just boiling water? Opinions?

markf

I think your long boil times are due to the conditions you ran the tests in. Cool water, cool temperatures, no wind protection to speak of, and sub par fuel quality. Your final test was run with an almost empty fuel cartridge. I seriously doubt that any other gas cartridge stove would have performed any better.

trail_monkey

Well I stopped at the local Walmart on my way home today and they had one canister of primus power fuel sitting there with all the Coleman stuff like what I had recently purchased. The Primus was isobutane and propane mix. I went ahead and bought it for five dollars and brought it home. It fixed the problem. The consistency and the output of the flame is night and day difference between this and that Coleman stuff I was using. I don’t think that Coleman stuff ever put out such a hot flame even one that canister was brand new but I guess I can’t remember as that was over a week ago. Needless to say in my shop I was able to boil water that started at 54°F in around 4 minutes and 30 seconds. It actually bubbled out the lid and put my stove out LOL. Lesson learned use decent quality fuel

jefnvk

Glad you figrued it out. For all saying that temps affect boil time, I've got this: https://www.optimusstoves.com/us/us/...he-cook-system

Boiled 1L of water at 40F in wind in Iceland in the advertised 3 minutes, no issues whatsoever, nor any significant difference from a warm calm 80F day.

trail_monkey

After my boil test with the Primus fuel in my garage I was curious to see what that stove would do in the wind with a good fuel canister. So I came out to my patio and it is significantly breezier today than it was yesterday. The stove still worked way better than it did yesterday and I was satisfied but there was a significant difference. Four minutes outside in the wind I was able to achieve a little over 160°F. I’m satisfied with that but i’d be curious to know how you was able to do it in three minutes in the wind in colder temperatures? What are you using some sort of a windscreen to shield it?