You’ve just spent all day hiking. You’re exhausted. All you want to is that giant burger to stuff in your face. But you don’t have a giant burger in your pack, backpacking food is all you’ve got. Chances are you need to heat water or food before you can eat it. And you probably want to heat things up anyways. A hot meal after a long day hiking, especially in cold, miserable weather, could be the best part about backpacking. The wait while you’re cooking can be excruciating but that warm satisfied feeling laying around camp after a good meal can’t be beat.

With so many stoves on the market right now, how do you choose one? We’ll walk you some of the basics of stoves and which one to go with for your situation.

First a few questions. 

Questions to Ask Yourself

The first thing we need to do is look at how you’re going to use your stove. There are some questions you should answer before even looking at any stoves. The answers to these will direct you to the type of stove you’ll be happy with. Stoves are just like tents, there are many options but many not be only 1 best choice. Most of the time you can narrow it down to a small number of choices that will suit you best and then you can decide from there. So grab a piece of paper (or computer or tablet or phone) and write out your answers to these questions. These are also nice to remind yourself what exactly you are buying your stove for when you go looking at new shiny gear.

What are you going to cook?

How many people are you cooking for?

Where are you going to use it?

Where will you get fuel from?

How much weight do you want to carry?

How much space do you have?

Now that we’ve got those questions out of the way, we can move on to the features of the stoves and how they relate to your questions. Keep your answers from the questions above handy as you go through the features and examples at the end. 

Major Features of Stoves

Now we’re into the major features of all the stoves. These specifications or features are different on every stove so watch for these when you are buying.

Type of fuel and canister

There are a few different types of fuel on the market for stoves these days. Most stoves only have the required parts for one type of fuel. It may be important to be able to use different kinds of fuel because you travel or like different types for different applications.

Iso-butane Canisters

These are the small metal canisters you can get from outdoor gear stores. They are very convenient to use and light weight. These stoves are fast and easy to light. You cannot refill the containers though and it can be tough to see know how much you have left. Many backpackers have a pile of half-used canisters because they don’t know how much are in them. Some canister manufacturers are starting to put measurements on the canisters so you can float them in water and see where the fuel level is.

Liquid White Gas

White gas has been used in camping stoves for a long time. The benefit to white gas stoves is that you can see how much you have left and refill the fuel bottles. These are heavier to carry though. Bigger, more powerful stoves are often white gas. White Gas stoves are great for big groups or melting snow.

Alcohol

If you’re looking to go ultra lightweight, a small alcohol stove may be your best option. You can make one out of a pop can. These can be finicky to light but are nice and light.

Others

Some stoves are able to use fuels like diesel or other liquids that burn so it’s easier to find something you can cook with. Others, like the BioLite stove, are turning to wood you’d find on the trail to keep your fire going.

Weight of stove

Always in the mind of every backpacker, the weight of the stove can be important. Do you want to carry a big stove around with you or a tiny little pocket-sized cooker. There are perks to each size. It just depends on what you want to do with it. If you’re going to be cooking gourmet meals for large groups then you’ll be getting a bigger stove with more space on top. If you need to be fast and light and are just boiling water with the occasional soup, then something tiny and fast might be the way to go.

Boiling speed

Every stove has a different speed at which it can boil water. It all depends on the size of the flame under the pot, the intensity of that flame and amount of wind protection you can give it. If all the heat is going out the side with the wind, you’ll be waiting a long time for your food! Boiling speeds range from 3 minutes up to 5 or 6 minutes. The boil times will range with a given stove depending on the temperature, wind speed and fuel canister pressure. IsoButane canister pressure drops as you use the so your boil time will increase as you use the canister. White Gas fuel bottles can be pressurized whenever you use them so the boil times will stay more constant.

Operation at Altitude and in Weather

These factors will affect how much pressure is in your canister and how much heat is getting to your pot. Some stoves like the MSR Reactor have a bunch of special parts and a special pot to conserve all that heat and direct as much of it as possible straight into the pot. Wind and bad conditions will slow that process down.

Size of Pot

If you’re pot is going to be for 1 or 2 people then you can get a smaller stove but if you are going to be cooking giant meals for a group of 10 you’ll want something bigger. A small stove with a lot of people will work in a pinch but it’s much more convenient to get something bigger. Some stoves require special pots so keep that in mind. The MSR Reactor pot doesn’t fit on any other stove and you can’t use any other pot on the Reactor so keep that in mind if you get a specialized setup like this. Aside from a few specialized options, most pots and stoves work very well together.

Type of controls

Some stoves have multiple adjustments on them to make it easier to simmer. If that’s important to you add it to your list.

Location of Canister

The location of iso-butane canisters can be different on the stoves. Some are attached directly to the stove with the stove sitting on top of the canisters. Some canisters are attached remotely and connect through a gas tube.

Specialized attachments

Some stoves have special features on them and other attachments that only fit with that stove. That can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Some have special pots, battery chargers, or wind screens. The MSR Reactor, for example, has special pots that fit onto it’s burner. It’s very fast at boiling but you can’t use other pots with it.It would be a good idea to order these in priority for yourself when you are picking one. Is the type of fuel more important to you than the size of the stove? Is the weight of the stove more important than the size of the pots it can hold. Think about your questions above and then prioritize the features to fit what you want to do.

Stove Examples

IsoButane Stoves

MSR Pocket Rocket

MSR Windpro II

MSR Reactor

Snowpeak Gigapower

Primus PrimeTech

Primus Express Spider

Liquid White Gas

MSR Dragonfly

MSR Whisperlite Universal

Alcohol

Alcohol Stove

Wood

Biolite

Updated August 29, 2022. Originally published November 23, 2013.

The post How to choose a camping stove first appeared on Pack & Trail.

What is a liquid fuel stove?

Liquid fuel stoves are stoves that have a fuel bottle with fuel in it instead of a canister with compressed gas. When you attach the fuel bottle, you pump it up to pressurize the fuel inside. This forces the gas out when you open nozzle and fuel comes shooting out.

They’re a little finicky to light because the fuel in the bottle is liquid, it needs to be vaporized before it can be lit. To do that, you put a tiny bit of fuel in a little bowl on the stove. You light the liquid fuel and, after letting the (sometimes large) fireball die down, open the nozzle to let more fuel out. Lighting the fireball first heats up the hose the fuel goes through vaporizing it and letting it go through the stove and ignite.

You don’t need to know the exact details but just know they are a little harder to light than canister stoves. Practice in your backyard to get just enough fuel in the little bowl to light but still save your eyebrows on the trail.

So if they are hard to light, why would you want a liquid gas stove?Well, they do have some redeeming features.

Liquid fuel stove advantages

Good in the cold – Liquid fuel stoves are good in the cold. You manually pump to keep the pressure up so you are not relying on the pressure in the canister. The stove itself is vaporizing the fuel so it burns. Canisters have issues in cold weather when the gas turns to liquid in the canisters and loses pressure. Running the canisters upside down has helped run them in cold temperatures but liquid fuel still takes the prize on these ones.

Refillable – Just open the lid and pour more in. Liquid fuel bottles are easy to refill.

Easy to see how much fuel you have – Open up the lid and take a look. Canisters are just a guess to figure out how much is left. Liquid fuel, you just open it up.

Multi-Fuel (they can travel well) – Some of the liquid fuel models are able to take many different kinds of fuel. White gas (also called naptha) is the best and burns the cleanest but it may not be available where you are. Some models will burn kerosene, jet fuel or even unleaded gasoline which is nice for travelling. There is a downside though. Dirty fuel means cleaning clogs more often.

Liquid fuel stove disadvantages

Liquid fuel stoves aren’t all rainbows and unicorns. They still do have some downsides to keep in mind.

Heavy  – The stoves and liquid fuel are heavier than the canister equivalents. If you are going for fast and light, liquid fuel may not be the way to go.

Can be messy – Don’t spill the fuel. It’s messy, flammable and smells terrible. Watch out for this when you are connecting your stove or refilling the fuel bottles. You never have to worry about this with canisters.

Hard to light – Try to keep your eyebrows when you light your stove. Use just enough fuel to get it hot and going. It’s an art to lighting these things and takes some practice. Definitely more work than the canister stoves which are just turn on, light, done.

Have to pump – The fuel bottles aren’t pressurized to begin with so you have to pump it up. This means you can take the lids on and off which leads to the advantages of being able to refill it and see how much is left. On the flip side you have to pump it once in a while.

Liquid fuel stove examples

These are some quick examples of liquid fuel stoves from a couple popular manufacturers

MSR Whisperlite

MSR Whisperlite Universal

MSR Dragonfly

Optimus Nova+

Primus OmniFuel

Updated August 29, 2022. Originally published September 2, 2014.

The post Liquid fuel backpacking stoves: Pros and Cons first appeared on Pack & Trail.

If stoves are so important, what kind do you get?

Walk into most outdoor stores and they’ll have 2 types of stoves. Canister and liquid fuel (often the white gas variety). Each have their pros and cons, how easy they are to light, refill, and use in cold temperatures. I’ll be writing about liquid fuel stoves soon but for this post I’ll be focusing on the canister stove.

So…what is a canister stove?

Stoves can be classified by the type of fuel they use. Canister stoves use a small metal canister of butane or iso-butane as their fuel. Basically they’re like the canister attached to your BBQ at home but much smaller and lighter. They small, light and easy to use. Attach a stove to the canister, light it and away you go.

Pros to a canister stove

Easy to light – Canister stoves are easy to light. Turn it on, put a match or a lighter near it and you’re done.

Lightweight – Many canister stoves are small and attach right to the top of the canister. Some of the remote variety are larger and have fuel lines to the canister. Remote means there is a fuel line from th stove to the canister, the canister does not screw on to the top. Remote stoves are more stable but larger.

No spills – With the self-sealing opening, you can’t spill anything out a canister. No mess.

Better simmer control – Many of the canister stoves have a nice control on them to finely control how much is coming out. If you need to simmer something, then you need better control than Off and Rocket.

Cons to a canister stove

Doesn’t work well in cold weather – Canister stoves rely on the butane to be vapor when it comes out. Cold weather throws a wrench in that so they don’t work well in cold weather or with weak pressure. Some of the new stoves are trying to correct this by having a fuel line to the canister which is kept upside-down, helping some of the pressure issues.

More expensive in the long run – You can’t refuel canisters so you have to throw them out. This is part of the reason why buying new canisters each time is more expensive than getting liquid fuel.

Can’t refill – It’s a bit of a ding to the environment to throw out the canisters every time.

Hard to tell how much you have left – You can’t open up a canister unless you are throwing it out so there’s no way to see how much is left inside. There are ways to float them in water to see how high it floats to measure what’s left. Some of the newer canisters are even coming with measurements on the side to do this easier.

Less pressure as you use them – The pressure inside the canister will drop as you use it. There’s no way to pump it back up. Your stove will slowly get weaker as the canister empties. Some new stoves, like the MSR Reactor, use pressure regulators to keep the pressure the same all the way through the canister.

No windscreen unless it’s remote – Putting a windscreen around the stove prevents the heat from being blown out the side. With stoves that attach right to the canister, you might blow yourself up if you put a windscreen around the stove and canister. Things get hot and when fuel gets hot, well you know what happens. If the stove has a fuel line to the canister to separate the two then you can put a screen just around the stove.

Obviously there’s a winner?

Now, by the sheer number of disadvantages to a canister stove, you’d think everyone would be going with liquid gas without a second thought. While the number of advantages isn’t as high as the disadvantages, the size of them outweighs other stoves in many situations. Being able to just attach your lightweight stove, quickly light it and have a hot flame in seconds is really nice at the end of the day. Sometimes weight is your number one concern. In those cases, canisters might be what you choose to go with.

Examples of Canister Fuel Stoves

We’ll end the post with some examples of canisters stoves. These aren’t the only stoves or manufacturers out there.

MSR Pocket Rocket 2

Snowpeak LiteMax

Jetboil Flash Cooking System

Primus Firestick

Primus Lite Plus

Optimus Crux Lite

Optimus Vega (remote) 

Updated August 29, 2022. Originally published August 26, 2014.

The post Backcountry kitchen: Canister fuel stoves first appeared on Pack & Trail.

There are lots out there of all different kinds. A quick search on Google and you can find all these different types of backpacking stoves:

• Canister
• Liquid Fuel
• Alcohol
• Solid Fuel
• Wood

Or not even bring a stove and just light a fire to cook your food and boil your water. Or you could just bring food that doesn’t require a stove at all. Then you don’t have to bring any kind of fuel.

But a few questions come up when trying to pin down what makes a true backpacking stove.

• Does it have to be small?
• Does it have to be packable?
• Does it have to use a certain fuel?
• Do you have to buy them or can you make them?
• Do you even have to cook your food?

Does it have to be small?

You could say that all backpacking stoves are just small stoves. That is true.

Smaller stoves are lighter. They are lighter than bringing a 10 pound car camping stove. But what if someone really likes to cook and decides to pack a larger stove because they want more space. Is it a backpacking stove then? Where is the line to say one is and one isn’t?

Smaller usually means lighter and if you have to carry the stove with you on your backpacking trip, you probably want something smaller.

Even the larger MSR Dragonfly stove is considerably smaller than the 15 pound Camp Chef Everest.

Does it have to be packable?

Often stoves pack down into parts or fold up smaller. Does this make it a backpacking stove?

Large car camping stoves do the same thing. Some alcohol stoves don’t pack up at all, they are just small to begin with. Some stoves have to be put together before you can use them.

There’s limited space on a backpacking trip so you probably want it to be small and packable.

Does it have to use a certain fuel?

Stoves have one thing in common: a fuel that burns. They have to burn something, that’s how they cook. Until we get portable power that can run a portable hotplate, we’ll be burning some kind of fuel to get the heat we need.

Stoves these days are burning anything that can burn from combustible chemicals in a solid block to gas line antifreeze to propane to jet fuel to plain old wood. If it burns we can use it as fuel.

The stove does need to be set up to burn that kind of fuel. You can’t just light a bucket of kerosene and cook your food on it.

Do you have to buy them or just make them?

Most of the stoves out these days are purchased from a store but more and more folks are making their stoves. Wood and alcohol stoves can be made fairly easily. Most people don’t have the metal machinery required to make a liquid fuel or gas canister stove though. In the end though, it doesn’t seem to matter if you build it or buy it, you can get a backpacking stove either way.

Do you even have to cook your food?

Does it have to cook your food? I’m going to say yes! That is the one requirement of a backpacking stove to heat your food to cook it or boil your water.

Of course, you don’t need to heat your food to eat it. You could just pack food that doesn’t require cooking. Or you could just eat rehydrated cold pasta salad for dinner every day.

Whether you need to bring a stove on a backpacking trip isn’t the question of this article though.

Conclusion

So what’s the only requirement of a backpacking stove?A backpacking stove has to cook your food.Is that it? Is that the only requirement for a backpacking stove? It doesn’t seem to matter how that’s accomplished as long as it’s going to cook your food.

What do you think? What makes a backpacking stove a backpacking stove?

Updated August 27, 2022. Original article posted September 24, 2015.

The post What exactly is a backpacking stove? first appeared on Pack & Trail.

It’s still possible to burn your eyebrows off but much harder than with a liquid fuel stove.

Because you can boil water for your lasagna and still keep your eyebrows, I like to recommend canister stoves to beginners for that reason. At the end of a long day, you just want to savor your lasagna, not stop drop and roll.

Since you don’t have your giant BBQ lighter handy, what do you use to light a canister stove? What’s the easiest way to do without having to carry your backyard BBQ gear with you.

There’s 4 main ways to light a canister stove: a piezo igniter, matches, a lighter and fire steel.

You can use any or all of them.

First a quick note about backups. Have at least 2 with you on every trip. That might be 2 lighters, a lighter and a fire steel or a piezo igniter and matches. They fail. They get wet. If you’re depending on that stove to eat and drink, then you need it to work. Besides, rehydrated food with cold water sucks. Crunch. Crunch.

Here’s a quick look at the 4 methods.

Piezo Igniter

A piezo igniter are small tools that use a piezoelectric crystal to make a spark.

They can be attached to the stove or a separate igniter. You’ll never misplace the ones that are attached to the stove. If they do stop working, you’ll be stuck with it attached to your stove though.

The separate igniters are a button on the end of a stick. Turn the gas on and put the sparky end near it and press the button. It might take a couple click to light it but it will spark the gas and light it. Time to cook. They’re good to use in the wind.

Piezo igniters won’t run out light matches or a lighter will but they can stop working at some point. Some people report their piezo igniters not being very reliable.

MSR has a separate piezo igniter available.

Matches

Matches are easy to light and easy to use. Just don’t get them wet. You can get waterproof matches but they’re a bit harder to light.

To light your stove, light your match and hold it it close to the gas. Careful with your fingers. You get to hold the end of the match but it’s still not that far away from where the gas will light. Your reactions will be fast if your fingers are too close when the stove ignites!

Make sure you have enough matches for the trip and watch the wind. A quick breeze and another one is gone.

Lighter

Lighters are my favourite way to light canister stoves. Small Bic lighters are portable, reliable and easy to use. Your fingers have to be pretty close to the flame when you’re lighting the canister but when it lights, you can usually get your hand out of there pretty fast!

There are lighters like the SOL Fuel Free Lighter that use two crossing arcs of electricity to light something. They can just be recharged by USB.

Unlike matches, lighters can usually be dried out quickly and work again. Even if the fuel isn’t working or it’s empty, it will probably still spark and light the gas. If you can get a flame, it will work better but all you need is a spark.

The flame you get with a lighter is easier to light wood for a campfire or other things if you need to. A piezo igniter is only going to give you a spark.

Fire steel

You always need a backup way to light your stove. Fire steel is a perfect backup.

You can use it in any conditions, any altitude. Fire steel sets are a magnesium rod and a chunk of steel. When you rub them together, sparks fly off in the direction you’re pushing. Eventually the metal will run out but you can usually get thousands of uses with it.

Lighting a stove with fire steel is a little bit harder; you need 2 hands to hold the rod and the steel. If you have 3 arms or another person around, they can turn your stove on while you shoot the sparks at the stove burner. Or just turn on the stove and then start making sparks.

You may not want to use the fire steel all the time but since they work in any condition, they’ll give you peace of mind as a backup you’ll hopefully never have to use.

MSR make the Strike Igniter.

So which is the best method?

It’s tough to say which is the best method flat out. There are pros and cons to each.

Lighters are popular. They are nice and easy. Fire steel is a solid backup plan.

Everyone has their favourites. Maybe you prefer to rub some wood together long enough to create fire and then cook on that. Totally up to you.

I think I’ll just use my mini lighter and canister stove so I can eat my lasagna.

Nom nom.

Updated August 27, 2022. Originally published October 15, 2015.

The post 4 Ways to Light a Canister Stove first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Imagine this story.

You’ve just found camp after a long day hiking. The weather is miserable, it’s raining, the wind is blowing it sideways. You’re cold and wet and hungry.

You get camp set up and some food on the stove. You have a canister stove and the wind is blowing all the heat straight out the side. You’ll have to do something about this or the water is going to take forever to boil. It will take hours to make food and waste all of your fuel. What can you do?

A windscreen!

You grab the windscreen you have and wrap it around the canister stove blocking the wind. Almost instantly the water starts to heat up.

And then… boom.

The canister heats up and explodes, throwing a fireball 3 metres across into the air and sending shards of metal flying in all directions.

That would suck.

That’s what might happen if you put a heat shield around a canister of gas and heat it up.

I actually have no idea how big the explosion would be since I haven’t heated one up myself but all the warnings say don’t do it.

Adding the windscreen around the canister and the stove blocks the wind from the stove but it also traps the heat around the canister and makes it hot. If that gets hot enough, it explodes. Not really what you want to happen on the trail. Or anywhere really.

What can you do with the wind?

Wind is a real problem for all backpacking stoves. If the wind is blowing all the heat out the side and not up to your pot, then it’s going to take longer to cook anything. You’ll have to wait longer and will waste fuel.

There are 3 options you’ve got, 2 of them require different stoves. I’ll start with the option if you already have a canister stove that attaches directly to the canister.

Build a wind block

Not the same as a wind screen. If you can block the wind from one side of the stove then it won’t get hot and explode. Figure out which way the wind is coming from and then put up some logs, branches, sand or dirt in front of it so the stove is hidden behind your block. Rocks, trees or even your hiking buddy can act as a good wind blocker. Watch your shoes and pants if you are the wind block. Those stoves are hot!

Get a remote canister stove

This is an option if you don’t already have a stove or if you are getting a new one. Some canister stoves have a fuel line to the canister instead of attaching directly to it. Something like the MSR Pocket Rocket 2 attaches directly to the stove whereas the WindPro has a fuel line to the remote canister so it can be kept outside the windscreen. This is good for wind conditions.

Get a liquid fuel stove

Liquid fuel stoves tend to have fuel lines to remote canisters anyways, so they don’t really suffer from this problem. Liquid fuel stoves are great in the winter as well so you might consider just getting one of these.

Best of both worlds?

A new option that’s come out recently is the Whisperlite Universal. It’s got parts for both canister and liquid fuel connections so you can use either. It uses a remote canister system if you’ve got a canister attached so it’s not bothered by this exploding canister windscreen problem.

Updated August 29, 2022. Originally published November 25, 2014.

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There’s a lot of gear to backpacking but that doesn’t mean it’s complicated. Anyone can work their way through a checklist of gear and build up a kit that let’s them escape to the middle of nowhere for days at a time.

We’re building a guide to doing just that. Follow the sections below and you’ll learn everything you need to know about backpacking gear. Plenty to get you started on trips of a few days and working your way up to a week or more, off-grid, free to go anywhere you want.

Backpacking Gear for Beginners Course

The pages below are great if you are for everything on PackandTrail.com on hiking boots or backpacks.

If you are looking for a complete walkthrough of all backpacking gear start to finish check out the Backpacking Gear for Beginners Course.

More ono How to Start Backpacking

Hiking Boots

You won’t be hiking barefoot so you need something on your feet? What do you start with? What can you wear day-hiking too? Should you just wear trail runners? We dig into hiking boots here.

Backpacking Packs

There’s no sherpa on these trails. You need to carry everything you bring. We look at how to get a pack that fits right and can hold everything you need.

Backpacking Tents

Tents are only one way to sleep backpacking but probably the most popular. What kind of tent should you get? We’ll sort that out in this section.

Headlamps

It gets dark in the backcountry, like real dark. You’ll need a way to see at night. This section covers the lumens, batteries and the best headlamps.

Stoves

Hot meals on the trail are one of the best parts of backpacking. We dig into different kinds of stoves and which one is best for you.

Cameras

You can certainly hike without a camera but it can be hard to remember all the beautiful places without them. Here’s our tips for buying a camera for backpacking.

More sections coming soon!

The post How to Start Backpacking first appeared on Pack & Trail.

On the other hand there are the liquid fuel stoves that use refillable fuel bottles and a liquid fuel of some sort, usually white gas (aka naptha or coleman fuel). These stoves burn hot and loud and are good for cold conditions or melting a lot of snow. They tend to be larger and heavier than their little canister cousins.

There are always trade-offs.

What if you could get the advantages of both without buying 2 stoves? You could get the simplicity of a canister stove (screw the stove on and light) when you want it and the cold weather performance and refillable fuel bottle of a liquid fuel stove. Now you can.

Some new stoves allow you to connect a liquid fuel bottle to the stove, then swap a couple parts and connect an iso-butane canister. You probably wouldn’t be taking both on one trip unless it was it was long enough but it still gives you the option to choose for each trip, without having to go buy another stove. One stove, 2 fuel options.

What stoves do this?

MSR Whisperlite Universal

MSR Whisperlite Universal

A modification on the old classic WhisperLite, the Universal has been updated to connect to iso-butane canisters as well. A quick change of the jets for each fuel and the fuel bottle attachment and then you’re using a different fuel. Uses MSR Shaker-Jet jet cleaning technology (shake it to clean it).

Weighs 329 grams. 

Primus OmniFuel

Uses any type of fuel. Just change the bottle connection and jets. You can use diesel, kerosene or gas canisters in liquid feed mode for cold temperatures. Comes with a maintenance tool with a cleaning needle for cleaning the jet.

Weighs 350 grams. 

Primus OmniLite TI

Same as the OmniFuel but smaller and lighter. Burns the same things.

Weighs 239 grams. 

Optimus Polaris Optifuel

The problem with most of the multi-fuel stoves is that you have to change the jet. Each fuel requires a different part in the stove to work properly. The Polaris Optifuel has changed all that. No more changing jets and possibly losing or breaking parts. Just hook up a different fuel and away you go. Use the gas canister upright for efficiency mode. Turn it upside down for liquid feed mode in cold temperatures.

Weighs 475 grams. 

Kovea Booster+1

Burn white gas or butane gas canister without changing canister.

Weighs 530 grams. 

Kovea Booster Dual Max

Burns white gas and butane canisters, but not any of the other liquid fuels. Less expensive than some of the other brands.

Weighs 340 grams. 

Kovea Hydra

With the Hydra you can burn white gas and butane canisters. Save time and fiddling without needing to switch nozzles.

Weighs 422 grams.

Know of another stove that can do iso-butane canisters as well as liquid gas? Let us know!

Last updated August 27, 2022. Original article published August 13, 2015.

The post 7 Stoves that can burn liquid fuel and iso-butane gas first appeared on Pack & Trail.

Alcohol – Alcohol stoves are popular in the lightweight backpacking community. They can be easily made and just require a bit of alcohol to burn which can be purchased at many hardware  or drug stores. Alcohol stoves take longer to boil water than liquid fuel stoves and iso-butane stoves.

Canister – Stoves that connect to an iso-butane gas canister. They tend to be small and light. They can sit on top of the canister or be remote (see below).

CrunchIt – A tool from JetBoil used to punch a hole in iso-butane canisters so they can be recycled. They cannot be recycled if they still have iso-butane in them. You can also do this with a screwdriver through the side of the canister.

Drip-feed – Using a remote iso-butane canister upside down and using the liquid from the canister. The liquid is used to burn instead of the the pressurized gas. When the liquid is used, it’s a lot less temperature dependent. The gas reduces to a liquid at a low temperatures and if you don’t use the liquid from the start then the liquid won’t work in your stove.

Esbit – A brand of Hexamine tablets.

Fuel free lighter – Some lighters like the SOL Fuel Free lighter just use electricity to start fire. They can be recharged with USB.

Fuel jets – The jets spray the vaporized fuel out to be burnt. They can get plugged if you are using a dirty kind of fuel. The jets might also have to be changed out if you are using a different type of fuel like iso-butane or kerosene compared to naphtha.

Hexamine – A type of solid fuel that’s often sold in tablets. You place the tablet in a holder under your pot and light it. The tablets were originally used to heat military rations. Can be expensive.

Iso-butane – the mixture of butane that canisters use for canister stoves. It’s pressurized in the stove. It’s a lot less volatile than propane and doesn’t have to be in as thick of containers.

Kerosene – A type of fuel that can be used in some liquid fuel stoves. It’s available widely outside of North America and can be used as an alternative fuel while travelling. The stove jets often have to be changed to use Kerosene and might have to be cleaned more often.

Multi-fuel – Stoves that can use different types of fuel. It used to mean different types of liquid fuel like white gas, kerosene, gasoline or jet fuel. Some new stoves can burn iso-butane canisters as well as liquid fuel.

Naptha – The liquid fuel that comes with a lot of camp stoves these days. It’s often called Coleman or White gas.

Priming – The process of heating up the tubes on the stove so that the liquid fuel can be turned into a gas and burned in the stove.

Remote – Remote stoves are not attached directly to the fuel canister or bottle their fuel is from. There is a fuel tube that connects the stove to the fuel bottle. Non-remote iso-butane stoves attached directly to the top of the fuel canister. Remote canister stoves can be used upside down with a drip feed attachment that makes them work better in cold temperatures.

Trioxane – A type of solid fuel that’s often solid in tablets. Often cheaper than Hexamine. Gives off many different chemicals when burned so keep away from fumes.

Updated August 28, 2022. Originally published April, 2015.

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