Some questions... I've been looking at the mini-cartridge stoves to take with me to NZ this summer (Dec/Jan for us!).

In particular, the Kovea titanium looks to be a good little stove (88gm) with piezo ignition. (www.kovea.com)

The competition is the MSR pocket rocket - flimsy pot-rest arms
The Primus mini-titanium cooker - expensive and with a flame control nozzle which seems too small to work with gloves and with a pot on the boil.
The SnowPeak Giga-power titanium - pot rest arms too short.

Does anybody have any comments on these stoves? I am taking one b/c it is light and my MSR is bulky. This is for summer mtn-ring so I probably won't need to melt much snow (but comments welcome on that too). Yes, I have read Twight saying he will only use his MSR on big routes... I don't do "big routes"

I love my MSR multi-fuel but if I can get cannisters and cook on something which weighs a fraction of the MSR it seems like a good idea to me!

What do you guys think?

Alan.

>Hi Guys,
>
>Some questions... I've been looking at the mini-cartridge
>stoves to take with me to NZ this summer (Dec/Jan for us!).
>
>In particular, the Kovea titanium looks to be a good little
>stove (88gm) with piezo ignition. (www.kovea.com)
>
>The competition is the MSR pocket rocket - flimsy pot-rest
>arms
>The Primus mini-titanium cooker - expensive and with a flame
>control nozzle which seems too small to work with gloves and
>with a pot on the boil.
>The SnowPeak Giga-power titanium - pot rest arms too short.
>
>Does anybody have any comments on these stoves? I am taking
>one b/c it is light and my MSR is bulky. This is for summer
>mtn-ring so I probably won't need to melt much snow (but
>comments welcome on that too). Yes, I have read Twight
>saying he will only use his MSR on big routes... I don't do
>"big routes" :-)
>
>I love my MSR multi-fuel but if I can get cannisters and
>cook on something which weighs a fraction of the MSR it
>seems like a good idea to me!
>
>What do you guys think?
>
>Alan.
I wish I had seen this posting earlier.
I have been using th Kovea for about a year. it is the best cartridge stove I have ever used. in fact I use it as my primary stove all year for all hikes.
Kovea also makes a great latern on the same platform and I'm having trouble finding one here in the US but Kovea is easy to find in NZ.
Would love to hear about it if you get a chance to use one.
Here in the US Markill is marketing the kovea line under the Markill name.
Sean

Had and loved PocketRocket but have switched to SuperFly. The PR has good pot supports even though they get the hit they are not. The angled up at the ends bite on pots fairly good and very good on BlackLite pots. Primus flame adjustment is too small and reccessed for easy use. SnowPeak pot supports are small in diameter and flat (parallel to the ground) and do not offer the best stability but I have never seen this as a high priority thing for stoves.

>
>Does anybody have any comments on these stoves? I am taking
>one b/c it is light and my MSR is bulky. This is for summer
>mtn-ring so I probably won't need to melt much snow (but
>comments welcome on that too).

Build a solar still in basecamp on snow will decrease fuel consuption of having to melt snow.

>Yes, I have read Twight
>saying he will only use his MSR on big routes... I don't do
>"big routes"

Twight is good guy but he is able to aquire brand new XGK stoves for each and every trip so they are not gunked up with years of use. While they are very hot output stoves for boiling lots of water, one batch of bad fuel, clogged fuel line, clogged jet and such and you sitting there working on your stove getting fuel all over, well I got tired of it. It doesnt happen often if you give your stove high maintainance cleaning all the time but who does and it is hard to tell what is in the fuel. Plus I have had pumps go bad, O rings crack and split, and while repair kits are not that heavy, they do add unwanted wieght. While they are nice there are many gray areas when considering it all but cooking inside a tent with a cartrige stove hanging system is clean, fast and reliable.

>I love my MSR multi-fuel but if I can get cannisters and
>cook on something which weighs a fraction of the MSR it
>seems like a good idea to me!
>
>What do you guys think?

I have two WG stove, FireFly from 1984 which still works but requires triply maintenance and a SimmerLite which is for roadside or longer than 4 day trips. My #1 stove is SuperFly with Bibler hanging system and 1lb fuel cans. If I am moving, then I take 8oz fuel cans. This way, in basecamp type set-up I do not have to worry about blowing a seal on the 1lb and losing fuel un-twisting it several times. With 8oz, if I do I have back-up fuel. For the initial pot of water in normal temps that I camp in (not below 0f), my SuperFly hanging stove will have bubbles on the bottom of the pot by the time my WG stove is assemblied, pumped, primed and steady to roar (tested at 25F), and there is no foul soot or gasses. If you dip from the heated pot as you need water then add snow or more water never removing the pot or the hear source, you can get a very fast system of water and eating. Cart stoves work for me better than WG and I have gotten spoiled to the hanging system and ease of use.

They "seem" filmsy, but, reality is for me that is pretty stable, as long as the cartridge is stable. It just looks filmsy, way up in the air. But, there needs to be distance from the flame to the pot, and from the flame to the bottle...and the long arms do provide some descent stability.

>The Primus mini-titanium cooker - expensive and with a flame
>control nozzle which seems too small to work with gloves and
>with a pot on the boil.
>The SnowPeak Giga-power titanium - pot rest arms too short.

I like the looks of the Snowpeak but haven't tried. Compact!

>Does anybody have any comments on these stoves? I am taking
>one b/c it is light and my MSR is bulky. This is for summer
>mtn-ring so I probably won't need to melt much snow (but
>comments welcome on that too). Yes, I have read Twight
>saying he will only use his MSR on big routes... I don't do
>"big routes"

I've gone to a pocket rocket for most of my shorter alpine climbing (weekend stuff). Lighter and less bulky.

Cookin' in the wind is a concern for me, but, tent cookin' with a cartridge stove is not near as risky as a white gas model that needs priming, IMO. I notice a huge loss in efficiency between cookin' inside a tent and outside in any wind. For instance, I did a three day trip with all the boils for a party of two with the smallest cartridge with left over fuel. Next three day trip, cooked outside exclusively on the next larger cartridge and ran out of gas the last morning (1/2 pot of water boiled though). So, almost double the fuel usage. On a 2 liter Ti pot. Different brand cartridges though, too.

One thing I really like about these cartridge stoves....they are FAST. No priming time, easy to light, easy on and off. No soot. Seems like minimal CO output. Burn seems always optimum. No shaker jet or clogged fuel lines. Compact, light (3oz?). Easy money.

Brian in SLC

As ice dawg and others will tell you, the Pocket Rocket is really quite sturdy, as well as being light and compact. For superlight and compact, with a little sacrifice in boil speed, I have been using the tiny Markill titanium stove (HotShot). I also use the MSR Superfly when I don't mind the extra few ounces, since it is really fast (about as fast as an XGK when the cartridge is full, a bit slower on a 1/4 full cannister). I haven't had any problems with stability with the larger diameter cartridges (the ones with the lindal/EPI/"industry-standard threaded" connector, even on tussock grass (we have that in parts of North America, too). But it does seem that the advantage of being able to scavenge left-over fuel ("white gas" translated to the local country via your countryman's marvelous "Fuel Names" website) is a big one. I have burned various qualities of liquid fuel in XGKs, Whisperlite (International 600), and Primus MFS/LFS/Omni - white gas, autogas, avgas, JP4, autodiesel, kerosene. Plus the Primus MFS and Omni can use compressed gas cannisters as well as liquid fuels. The versatility has been a lifesaver several times (I hate noodles soaked in near-freezing water, even flavored with sauces mixed with near-freezing water - just gimme a little bit of heat to make things edible).

The Old GreyBearded One

I took a pocket rocket to NZ for hut based stuff a couple of seasons ago. Despite the apparently flimsy pot holders and high centre of gravity it did OK. None of that's really an issue in the huts (although it becomes a pain in the arse when cooking in the vestibule trying to balance the cannister on tussock grass). Can't comment on any of the other stoves...are they any more stable? Do they also run on 'calite'/white gas?

A definite advantage of the whisperlights etc is that there always seems to be an endless supply of left-over calite in the huts. If you get hut bound due to the weather and have to stay beyond your planned exit date, you don't have to worry about running out of fuel. This is always a real possibility in NZ. It happened to us when I had the PR and we lived on discarded noodles/oats in cold water for a few days. This year I took my whisperlight and we scavenged fuel in a couple of huts.

Getting the fuel bottles to NZ used to be next to impossible but both air NZ and Qantas have reasonable rules on this now. See their websites for details if you do happen to return to the whisperlight.

Cheers,

Andrew