Tourist in MSN

I have been keeping track of my fuel usage on every one of my camping trips that was at least a week long since 2011. Some trips were butane, some white gas, some kerosene, and some a mix. Forgot to measure fuel used on one canoe trip, sorry. And my Pacific Coast bike tour has no data, most of the stove use was a friends Whisper light, the fuel was never measured. The data includes nine canoe trips (liquid fuel only), four backpacking trips (butane only), two kayaking trips (liquid fuel only), and five bike tours (some butane and some liquid fuel). Two of these trips involved flying on airlines, on those trips my luggage scale was used to weigh fuel canisters or fuel bottle, that scale is less precise than the other trips where I used my kitchen scale at home to weigh fuel bottles before and after.

Some of the canoe trips included one or two bbq meals (wood for fuel) during nine days, and the longer bike touring trips included some restaurant meals. But I would estimate that the restaurants and bbq on those trips only reduced fuel usage no more than 10 percent or 15 percent.

For my butane trips (five trips), I used an average of 34 grams of fuel per person per day. For the liquid fuel trips (some white gas, some kerosene, 14 trips), the average was 43 grams per day per person. And my Iceland trip was about half liquid fuel and half butane, overall that was 35 grams per person per day.

Once I had several years of data, that made fuel planning for trips a lot easier. If I am bringing fuel from home when I go on a trip, I usually bring about 50 grams of fuel per person per day for butane or 65 grams per person per day for liquid fuels, as this includes enough contingency that I am quite certain I will not run out but it is not a lot of excess weight to carry at the end of trip. I might carry more for butane, as I usually bring canisters that are full or nearly full, smallest canister is about 110 grams of fuel.

I noted in a post above and am repeating here that I think there are two reasons for more fuel usage on liquid fuel trips, (1) some fuel is used to prime the stove, and (2) when using butane if I want to shut off the stove for a few minutes and re-light it, I do so. But a liquid fuel stove would lose prime in that circumstance so I am inclined to keep a stove lit on idle if I might want to use it a few minutes later.

And I think my 111B and 111T stoves are less fuel efficient, those trips seemed to use a bit more fuel than my other liquid fuel trips. The 111B in the photo below.



I have had the stove above for half a century, it was so beat up that I repainted it a few years ago, now looks almost new.

I think my Optimus Nova or Primus Omnifuel are more fuel efficient. The Nova is in the photo below, I was moving my pasta noodle pot and my sauce pot back and forth, trying to keep both hot on one stove.



But it all depends on the menu, I would assume that most people will use more or less fuel than me, not the same amount. And I have two cups of coffee in the morning, if you forgo hot liquid in the morning, that is also a fuel saver.



This meal was just boiling two cups of water to add to some dehydrated stuff, thus very little fuel used, below.

robobike316 

I am still using an MSR Whisperlite from the 80s with Coleman fuel. The current ones are almost exactly the same but with the shaker jet. I have never tried auto gas in it. There were different jets with the International I believe to burn unleaded. Lots of stoves out there but this is a time tested classic and gets my vote.

tcs

I dunno if it's for emergency preparedness or the prepper hobby, but the Walmarts here in Parts Unknown shelf inventory 'Coghlans Fuel Tablets'.

FWIW I ordered a supply of Expedition Research solid fuel for my little titanium backup stove. I have a memory of not really liking 'eco' Fire Dragon fuel blocks, but I can't recall what, if anything, was my issue with them.

gauvins

Interesting that you should mention Coghlan's fuel tablets. They are (or were?) a great alternative to Esbit. Have been dropped by the sole retailer that was carrying them in Québec, and is difficult to source at best when on tour. I saw them once in Alberta in a small provincial park's store.

gauvins

Interesting data points. I was using something like 12g/d/p this past summer.
1. We simply boiled water (and very occasionally cooked pasta or such). A typical boil would take about 5 mins, i.e. a fraction of the time required to cook a meal.
2. Never at full blast.
3. [obviously] keep the lid on the pot

For additional savings:
5. Heat to 180F (80C) -- implies using potable water. 180/80 is hot enough for most uses (25% savings)
4. Use a pot with a heat exchanger (20% savings)
5. Leave the burner on the canister (each cycle wastes .5g or so)

staehpj1

I don't have numbers, but I'd guess I am at the low end of the range on fuel usale for touring. I tend to forgo coffee in camp and usually have a granola bar of something before rolling out early. Sometimes I may have instant oatmeal and coffee in camp, but pretty seldom. I like to get 20-30 miles under my belt and have a nice diner breakfast. Breakfast in a diner is uaually a decent value and a chance to rub elbows with the local folks. If I miss out on finding a diner, I'll snack a bit until lunch.

I never cook for lunch. Lunch is typically cold food either eaten on the roadside or sometimes at some sort of restaurant. It could be a diner, fast food place, or what ever.

Dinner is cooked in camp the large majority of the time. There may be times when I splurge and eat in a nice place to sample the local cuisine. There are also times when I eat a snack to hold me over after a big dinner mid day. I have been known to rough camp and eat a sleeve of fig newtons rather than fix dinner now and then. That might be because I didn't shop or because I didn' really feel like cooking/eating. Eating can be a joy, but at times it can become a chore, that is when I just eat the fig newton to have some fuel..

Tourist in MSN

I was not trying to save grams, I was keeping track so that I would make sure I have more than enough when I packed for a trip. Decades ago I was backpacking in the Rockies with a couple friends, we were all in our 20s. One was a fisherman, and we kept finding lakes that were so full of trout that they were jumping out of the water to get to his bait. He was frying up so many trout for us all to eat that we had to come out a day early due to fuel shortage. We were above timberline at roughly 12,000 feet, so practically no wood for a cooking fire. He would catch a limit and it would be time to get out the stove. That was the only trip I have been on where we had to leave early due to fuel shortage, I do not want that to happen again. So, I bring a bit more than my past history suggests and keeping track of usage helps me do that.

steine13

>> He was frying up so many trout for us all to eat that we had to come out a day early due to fuel shortage

Man that would be traumatic for me, too. All of a sudden, your bean counting makes a lot of sense.

Hmmm...fresh trout.

cheers -mathias

Tourist in MSN

I am way off topic here, but I think the OP won't mind.

I was eating similar meals on my canoe trip this year as my backpacking trip, often hot cereal and two cups of coffee in the morning. And supper was two cups (a bit under a half liter) of boiling water to mix into dehydrated stuff (see photo a few posts above). I forgot to mention it above, but typical supper also had a packet of chicken or spam mixed in for protein and flavor.

Most of the fuel was in morning. When I camp where I was on both of those trips, I filter water that I drink but if the water goes on the stove, I skip filtering it and boil instead. Yeah, I could have saved several grams of fuel if I spent the time to filter all water and shut off the stove at 180 degrees, but fuel savings to that extreme is not that important to me. And if I skipped coffee, that would have cut the morning breakfast water and fuel use by quite a bit, but I have no interest in that.

My backpacking trip, I was trying to avoid having a severe calorie deficiency each day, my breakfast was two packets of instant hot cereal and two oz (about 55 grams) of dried fruit. The canoe trip is lower energy, I had one packet of hot cereal and the same 2 oz of dried fruit. The photo below is from my canoe trip (one packet hot cereal). I generally really do not like hot cereal, but this stuff is not too bad, costs more than the standard instant but I think it is worth it. The dried fruit was raisens, diced pineapple, and I think the orange was papaya.



If you are interested in trying that hot cereal, it is:
https://www.betteroats.com/products/organic-bare/

I do not remember ever cooking for lunch, I know nobody that does.

This year for my canoe trip and backpacking trip, most days I stopped to make a lunch. One packet of either Tuna Sensations or Chicken Sensations and a couple tortillas to make a sandwich. In the photo below, the tortilas were too big to be practical for a sandwich so I cut them into quarters at home before my trip. And I brought some dehydrated banana chips from home too.




I also had plenty of granola bars each day, kept hiking while I ate them.