You should switch to an alcohol stove for ultralight cooking. The switch will save you heaps of grams. Certainly at least the weight of the empty canister (approx 150 grams) plus unused fuel – a weight saving of at least 200 grams – almost more than your entire current cookset weighs.
Just can’t imagine why anyone uses a canister stove apart from just that the weight of fuel + cartridge + burner is exorbitant – and that they use ‘fossil fuel’ rather than ‘renewable’!
There is the added problem that they are prone to fail and cannot be repaired in the field, leaving you with cold, uncooked food perhaps for days – and if they should explode they will blow you to smithereens!
Since Tinny over at Minibull Designs stopped producing his wonderful ultralight alcohol stoves a few years ago (See Tinny’s Gnomes) the choice and availability of alcohol stoves has been somewhat less.
This problem is being addressed.
Batchstovez represents one of the best ways forward for alcohol stoves at present. They are available to purchase at Dutchware.
They are beautifully designed (and built), weigh only a few grams and are quite inexpensive.
Here are a couple of my favourites:
Batchstovez 1.0 at 20 grams US$15.95 (Jan 2023)
Batchstovez 1.1 at 59.53 grams and US& 54.95 (Jan 2023.
Also, Zelph is still making his excellent Fancy Feest stove (with a simmer ring).
Fancee Feest alcohol stove with Stainless Steel Simmer Ring Total weight of the 2 pieces is 1 ounce. US$25.00 + $5.00 shipping (Jan 2023). They will ship internationally if you ask first.
You will remember I made my own out of used cans some time back but I decided to buy one of Zelphs just to see how well it worked. Indeed it simmered very well. If used with my DIY $4 & 20 Gram Roll Up Titanium Stove you will have an excellent cooking set-up.
And Aaron at Brasslite is still in business. I have been using his beautiful (simmer) stoves for many years. A design which would be difficult to better.
I now have some carbon felt in mine (as Batchstovez has done) though to see if it made lighting it easier. It certainly did. No need to use the ‘primer pan at all.
In simmer configuration with carbon felt added:
I also tried placing a coin on the carbon felt to reduce the diameter of the flame to see if it would cause the stove to simmer lower (useful for baking perhaps). Again this also worked.
Coin on top of carbon felt. The flame is much lower.
The Brasslite Turbo 1D (1.7 oz, 47gm) US$30 (Jan 2023)
Also worth considering is Trail Designs 12-10 stove 16 grams (US$11.95 – Jan 2023)with simmer rings 3.5-10 grams (US$9.95)
All about alcohol stoves: If you haven’t found your way to this site Zen Stoves you should do so now.
It is easy to calculate just how much alcohol you need t o take and to just carry enough in a lightweight bottle weighing only 20 grams or so. I use a cheap soft bottle something like a Platypus.
I calculate a little under 10 mls (around 8) to make a cup of coffee. If (eg a Continental Pasta) meal calls for <400 mls of water to be bought to the boil that will need maybe 15 mls of meths. Then 5mls will simmer it for the 10 minutes or so that it needs. So about 35 mls for a cup of coffee and a meal.
Meths (aka ‘denatured alcohol’) weighs .8 grams per ml so around 23 grams of fuel for my evening meal plus say one cup of coffee for breakfast – call it 30 grams per day! Plus the weight of a burner (16 grams) and a bottle (20 grams), and less than a gram for a plastic measure.
Not much weight for a weekend trip (less than 100 grams – including the stove and windscreen) compared with what you are currently carrying for your dangerous and environmentally unsound canister stove.
Of course a windscreen will save you fuel whatever stove you use and will make it much less likely your stove goes out. Toaks make a suitable one at around 14 grams but I prefer my DIY $4 & 20 Gram Roll Up Titanium Stove which can burn wood if I happen to run out of fuel.
See Also:
DIY $4 & 20 Gram Roll Up Titanium Stove
Alcohol Simmer Stoves – PS: The Brasslite takes some beating. I have used them for many years.
I bought a batchstovez about 15yrs ago when I was hiking in NZ. It was not a successful purchase. It just wasn’t good enough. However, I bought the Trail Designs stove along with a caldera cone and this has proved to be superb. I use it 90% of the time. Nothing to go wrong, relatively fast, very light.
I am sorry to hear it especially now that one can no longer buy Tinny’s creations. I have been planning a DIY instructable for one of his ‘gnome’ stoves in the future (as I find it very good) so that seems something needful. I do have the 12-10 and the Brasslite both of which work well. I made a copy of the Fancy Feest and have ordered one from them to try out. I am sorry that there has not been more progress on control-ability of alcohol stoves. I used to throttle one of Tinny’s back to a very slow simmer in order to make Johnny Cakes many years ago but I have lost track of my method – besides the stoves are no longer available. However, most people only ever boil or simmer (and are indifferent backcountry cooks anyway) usually just reheating bought meals. Still an improvement to the cooking apparatus might spur on culinary delights. Who Knows? Thank you for your input. Cheers, Steve.
Steve, just for the record, I mainly only boil water with my stoves. Very rarely do I heat food up and I never “cook”. I am not bothered if it takes 3 minutes or 8 minutes because I am in no rush. I do have a Soto windmaster gas stove but to date I haven’t used it. I do know that it will not replace my 12-10.
I think the simmer feature of the 12-10 could be used to improve your hiking diet. I have a number of meals which need simmering you might try out (including the Johnny Cakes). You can find them here https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2020/06/05/a-hiking-food-compendium/ The soups and stews are cheap, small, light and tasty. I must come up with some more new ones soon. Cheers, Steve.