chrisx

A tinder box could add a couple of grams, not many, just a couple.



As far as stoves
My
-Snow Peak Giga Power with wind screen https://www.meyergallery.com/thumbs/...esw-w806-0.jpg works well, and the wind screen does something. The pizo igniter works sometimes+
-Snow Peak Litemax Titanium stove works fine, and weighs very little, no wind screen.
-msr XGK EX works in the snow and frozen wonderland. It does not simmer. If you need to melt snow for yourself and some friends, get the XGK.
-MSR Dragonfly makes the best food. It has the best simmer control. You get fuel on your hands when you set up an MSR stove.

I use alcohol stoves, mostly in hotel rooms. I do not use methyl alcohol, heat, paint thinner, etc. I do use ethyl Alcohol, medical alcohol.
They are not commonly used for long term outdoor use, they are carried for emergency use, perhaps all the wood is wet after or the hiker is too tired to build a fire.

Cooking on a fire is the best. The food tastes better, fire wood is free. Cook on the red coals, not on the yellow flame.

J.Higgins 

That sure does look good!

I dont eat poorly. Not at all. I carry "My Mix", which is typically a combination of oats, nuts, dried cranberries, dark chocolate bits, and a little of whatever I feel like at the time. This is my sustaining mix. It gets me going in the AM and makes for a nice chew after I settle down in the evenings. I nosh on it throughout the day. I supplement this mix with Nuun, and Starbucks instant. I also carry some jerky or biltong. I eat hot foods at stops along the way - I just don't pack a stove. I got sick of cleaning it all up just to break it down and do it all over again the next meal.

JohnJ80

Yeah, that's the problem with butane and especially for upright stoves. There are ways around it but most of them are a pain. That's what I like about the Optifuel stove. The design is well thought out.

Hopefully someone finished off our canister, be nice if it was you.

J.

Carbonfiberboy 

We do our 10-day backpack in September every year in Washington State. So we see the successful thru-hikers. As I said, I've never seen one use an alcohol stove. Maybe they start with one, but by the time I see them they've switched to canister. One is either hiking or sleeping. They don't have time for fussy or slow. Jetboil is the most common thing, but of course one can't call that "cooking." But they don't care. They just want fast and light. Instant rice and black bean flakes. Think Anish. Those folks are up and gone before we even wake up.

chrisx

I do not use plastic cook wear.
Plastic lids on a pan, plastic bowls to eat hot food out of, plastic spoons and forks to eat hot food. Do not eat or store hot food in plastic. Heat causes plastic to leach into the food, the plasic gets into your blood stream, and lodges in your brain.

wahoonc

I own and use a wide variety of stoves. My perennial favorite here on the East Coast USA is my Kelly Kettle, second favorite would be my MSR WhisperLite or a similar liquid fuel stove. Both are very easy to find fuel for. I also use my Trangia a fair bit. I don't like the disposable aspect of the butane type cartridges, I have also been left short when a cartridge leaked and I ran out of fuel in the middle of cooking dinner and did not have a second one available. I would say it boils down to what works best for you, different horses for different courses.

Aaron

cyccommute 

I'm not so sure I would call the white gas all that "clean". The few times I used a Whisperlite, it was black and filthy due to the priming procedure. It was a large part of why I went back to canisters.

I use a Soto as well. Partly that's because they perform better at altitude than other canister stoves. Piezoelectric ignitors have troubles above 8000 feet or so. The Soto ignites better above tree line here (11,5000 feet).

Aushiker

No heights like that here but good to know the lighter works well anyway.

skookum

lodges in your brain, does it? That might explain some of the posts around here..

These kinds of topics (stoves, not plastic eating utensils) always fascinate me. You get a huge range of responses and everybody thinks their choice is the best. Still, you get an overview of what works (almost anything, depending upon circumstances).

Personally, I'd stay away from twig stoves in cold damp places, and I haven't had much luck with alcohol stoves, despite having the cutest, lightest little titanium alcohol stove. Canisters are the most convenient and gas stoves like the International are the most versatile. Just about anything will work, if you have the patience to master it. Even going without a stove at all, as some have pointed out.

chrisx

More so than you know.

They did a 10 year study at Oregon Health and Science University.
Keep the plastic away from hot food.

cyccommute 

No it doesn't. Your brain isn't a blood filter.

WNCGoater

Another vote for the pocket rocket & canister. This is all backpacking related but I also tried a whisperlite. Dinking around with filling the tank, can't fly with the tank, having to hook tank to burner then pump it with pressure, then do a "pre-light" to heat which can get darned exciting if you start with too much fuel in the burner....
vs.
Screw on the canister and light it.
I spent 4 days in the Idaho back country with the pocket rocket and never used up one canister, doing breakfast and dinner each day.
Other than using it on a few day hikes, I never carried the Whisperlite on a backpack trip and ended up selling it to an individual.
You can't fly with the Iso/Butane canisters but they are readily available with several brands out there. Not sure as to availability overseas.

WNCGoater

Another option. I carry one of these in titanium on day hikes & hunts. On backpacking trips I carry as a backup and in a daypack when hiking as an emergency. They work great and can boil water with twigs. Probably wouldn't be first choice for primary stove, just depends on needs.
https://emberlit.com/collections/stoves

Western Flyer 

I use either my homemade alcohol stove or an Optimus Crux canister burner. Both work great. I prefer the alcohol stove for touring but if I’m going to be camping in high fire danger situations where open fuel stoves are banned I take the Crux. After 30 years of sitting in my shed unused I got rid of my dual fuel Coleman backpacking stove. It was too messy and fidgety to bother with.

fuzz2050

I have a spider, and find it a great compromise between the light weight and ease of use of an upright canister stove and the all weather functionality of something like the XGK.

For fair weather trips I still take my Snowpeak Litemax. Under normal conditions, there's no need for the (admittedly small) weight penalty, but when the weather is cold (consistently sub freezing) or windy, the Spider shines. It can run with the canister inverted in liquid fuel mode down to something like -25 F. Also, a small windscreen makes it pretty secure in the wind, and the total package is all of six ounces.

Chuck Naill

Don't forget the Fire Ribbon.

staehpj1

If you fly to and from most of your tours like I do, being able to check your stove as baggage and also to pick up fuel easily upon arrival are important. Naptha and kerosene stoves fail on both counts there and gasoline on the first count.

I have had good luck with butane stoves getting trough the TSA check fine. Same for alcohol stoves, but home made pop can stoves are easy enough to make and essentially free so taking a brand new one each trip would be easy enough if you were worried about TSA snagging them. I just take a used one and figure if it ever gets taken I'll make a new one while on the tour.

Carbonfiberboy 

We've flown to and from bike and backpack touring and had no problem with our Optifuel stove. We dry and wash the stove and pump so that it has no smell, then wash and fill the fuel bottle with water and label it so. Works for us.

JohnJ80

That would work. But I don't think you even need to bother with putting water in it. Great stove.

J.

no rules

MSR Pocket Rocket 2. Tried and true. Continue to save weight and invest in a titanium cookset.

rifraf

I'm still gutted about having my Optimus 111T confiscated by Qantus on a national flight.
It was clean and the tank filled with water.

It was particularly galling due to it having done extensive international travel without so much as raising an eyebrow previously.

Still points to Qantus staff erring on the side of safety for its passengers I guess.

Whilst I wouldn't want to haul such a heavy stove around with me on the bike these days, I still miss it being part of my collection.

Tourist in MSN

Major bummer.

irwin7638

I've used many different fuel stoves over the years for both bike travel and backpacking. I really prefer the Trangia alcohol stove. They are slower, but simple and the fuel is cheap and easy to find.

Marc

TallTourist

One strike against the Whisperlite is you can't buy naptha most places in north america and western europe especially in non- camping seasons and good luck convincing a gas station to let you fill your gas bottle in most of these same places. I sold my Whisperlite after I got back from the UK. They were the best in the 90s but now? No way.

Ghazmh

Last spring I picked up a Snow Peak ti stove and ti mug. The combined weight is 6oz. Before that I used a jetboil. Admittedly my tours are 3-4 days long and in populated areas. At most I'm boiling water for the first cup of coffee in the morning and the occasional freeze dried meal.