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Gas Stoves
Let me tell you how much I like gas backpacking stoves: my Svea weighs a pound and a half. With enough fuel for a week it weighs two pounds. An alcohol stove with a week's fuel supply would just about cut that in half. I'll still take my Svea, and that's how much I like it. Backpacking is an avocation where footsteps are measured in inches and ounces become pounds. Every ounce you bring that doesn't have a good reason to justify it becomes hated weight. My Svea is weightless.
There are other good gas stoves. Coleman, MSR -- there's no shortage of competition. Each has features you'll love or learn to tolerate. Coleman stoves often use air compression to force the fuel through the system, and the pumping part is not something I've enjoyed. My two burner camp stove, which I take with me on canoe trips, is a monster to get going. Pump it up, light it off, let it burn until the flame is steady, and pump it up again. Then you can cook. But it's a good stove and when I'm patient it never gives me trouble. All that cooking space and the extra burner is just plain luxurious.
Stoves that attach to a fuel tank, like the MSR Whisperlite, give you a chance to save some weight. You're dealing with the valve and burner and one tank, whereas with the Svea you need the stove (tank included) and a storage bottle. With the Whisperlite you also have to deal with a fuel tank that may roll away on a cold dark morning, and could develop a leaky hose that would make it unusable without a replacement. As a maintenance technician I'm suspicious of anything with a hose. The patience to follow the manufacturer's directions to the letter, every time, overcomes all those things.
Let me tell you how much I like gas backpacking stoves: my Svea weighs a pound and a half. With enough fuel for a week it weighs two pounds. An alcohol stove with a week's fuel supply would just about cut that in half. I'll still take my Svea, and that's how much I like it. Backpacking is an avocation where footsteps are measured in inches and ounces become pounds. Every ounce you bring that doesn't have a good reason to justify it becomes hated weight. My Svea is weightless.
There are other good gas stoves. Coleman, MSR -- there's no shortage of competition. Each has features you'll love or learn to tolerate. Coleman stoves often use air compression to force the fuel through the system, and the pumping part is not something I've enjoyed. My two burner camp stove, which I take with me on canoe trips, is a monster to get going. Pump it up, light it off, let it burn until the flame is steady, and pump it up again. Then you can cook. But it's a good stove and when I'm patient it never gives me trouble. All that cooking space and the extra burner is just plain luxurious.
Stoves that attach to a fuel tank, like the MSR Whisperlite, give you a chance to save some weight. You're dealing with the valve and burner and one tank, whereas with the Svea you need the stove (tank included) and a storage bottle. With the Whisperlite you also have to deal with a fuel tank that may roll away on a cold dark morning, and could develop a leaky hose that would make it unusable without a replacement. As a maintenance technician I'm suspicious of anything with a hose. The patience to follow the manufacturer's directions to the letter, every time, overcomes all those things.
That said, there are some stoves like the Coleman Dual-Fuel that deliver what they promise but don't tell you all the problems that
come along with that. The Dual Fuel models will burn white gas, regular gas or kerosene, but they'll only burn white gas well. With
regular gas you'll have problems with fumes and with kerosene there will be oily soot and clogged burners to deal with soon enough.
White gas burns clean. Stoves fueled with white gas have very few problems with soot or fouled burners, and don't impart any taste to the food. If you burn anything else in these stoves you may screw things up so badly that you'll need a new stove. Some trekkers have managed to make Svea stoves work with regular gasoline or even diesel fuel, but it shouldn't be done.
White gas burns hot. It has roughly twice the BTU output of alcohol fuel, and it burns well even at high altitudes. Gas stoves operate on pressurized feeds, either with a pump start or by using the heat of the stove to pressurize the fuel tank. If you insulate them from snow pack and wind they'll work well enough in subzero weather.
White gas burns clean. Stoves fueled with white gas have very few problems with soot or fouled burners, and don't impart any taste to the food. If you burn anything else in these stoves you may screw things up so badly that you'll need a new stove. Some trekkers have managed to make Svea stoves work with regular gasoline or even diesel fuel, but it shouldn't be done.
White gas burns hot. It has roughly twice the BTU output of alcohol fuel, and it burns well even at high altitudes. Gas stoves operate on pressurized feeds, either with a pump start or by using the heat of the stove to pressurize the fuel tank. If you insulate them from snow pack and wind they'll work well enough in subzero weather.
White gas also requires some professional caution, because it's volatile enough to be explosive. Never refill the tank of a hot stove.
Before you light your stove, check everything. Make sure all the valves are set properly, with everything closed that should be closed.
That includes the extra fuel bottle, if you have one. That should be capped tightly and placed a considerable distance away, just in case
you were careless and spilled a little fuel trail that you can't quite see.
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Copyright: All original material on this site is the sole property of the author and cannot legally be copied or used in any form without his permission. That would be me.
Data Collection of Non-Personally Identifying Information:
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.