Compact stove advice

[dfanonymous]

When does altitude/cold start affecting lighting and burn on these canisters ?

About 15 degrees for isobutane.

The reason some of us mention altitude is because of the change of boiling point. The canister/stove doesn't have to work as hard at 18 f, at 10k vs if it was 18f at 2000 ft for instance.

 

[biednick]

When does altitude/cold start affecting lighting and burn on these canisters ?

It all comes down to boiling points. High altitude has basically no impact. You can push them a bit colder at high altitudes since liquids boil at a lower temperature the higher you get, but it's not a huge difference. You'll likely never notice. Temperature depends on the fuel mix. Most canisters are a mix of butane and propane. High n-butane blends will start to struggle in the mid-upper 30s and completely fail around freezing. Isobutane blends work well down to around 20 and completely fail around 10. Inverted canisters work well to about 0, maybe a bit colder. The propane will still vaporize and push liquid butane out to the stove. Pure propane will work even colder, but given the weight penalty of a propane canister I'd rather just carry a liquid fuel stove (and probably wouldn't be out in the first place).

 

[dfanonymous]

If some of you are wondering about the limitations of these butane canisters in cold, here's a visual representation:



Not the most scientific but you get the idea.

Also if you're interested in some of the brands and how much fuel they have in them:

 

[cohunt]

All good info, what liquid/gas stoves are the best ---- I have a coleman old school white gas stove (the kind you pump up , but the fuel is kept in the stove baee and i worry about fuel leakage if put in a pack) and it works well at normal temps but is heavy compared to the ultralight stoves--- I guess I've never realized that white gas stoves were better in the cold

I see msr has "dual fuel" stoves that can use iso/but or white gas/kerosene/unleaded fuel

I guess the real thing comes down to total packable weight, size, and how low of temps you expect to encounter--- also weather you are boiling water for freeze dried food or if you plan to cook any traditional food too---- and length of your trip and availability of water.

If you aren't packing all your water then your boil times per meal for freeze dried food would be increased due to having to purify your water--- In the areas i hunt, there is water available but often times its in a pond and would definitely need increased boil times--- you could use the water filter systems but I'm still not 100% trusting they get all micro nasties out and still boil/purify my water

I suppose on longer adventures, something like the biolite would eventually over come the weight penalty of having to carry a bunch of iso canisters since you just use sticks for fuel on the biolite stove and can easily increase cook times for traditional food with more sticks.

Sounds like you get about 18 liters boiled ( not purified/sterilized) per 8 oz canister -- and maybe 10 liters purified per canister

If you were boiling/purifying 1 gal per day for food/drinking ypu would get 2 to 2.5 days per 8 oz canister -- so if you had a 10 day hunt you would need 2.5 pounds of iso fuel plus the stove and pot so about 3.5 pounds for the combo-- where as the biolight stove and pot weigh about 3 pounds - you use sticks but also have the ability to charge your phone off the battery pack, I wonder how the biolight battery pack performs in cold weather ?

All good stuff to consider