Bushwalk Australia

Correspondence with Roger Caffin has almost convinvced me to ditch the XGK-EX in favour of a remote gas stove.
Looking only at Firemaple stoves and only the more stable larger stoves is there a stand out model?
Snow melting isn't the place for an UL unit so Rogers current UL isn't an option although I am sure it would work I think I need something more robust and stupid proof for really cold weather

My suggestion would be the Snowpeak Gigapower BF.

It's a very robust stove and long discontinued now that robust is out of favour.

However I have a very lightly used example in excellent condition I'd be willing to part with.

$50 + postage.

http://kovea.com/product/spider/

I have one and its a great stove and can be used with inverted cannisters for cold weather although I doubt you'd get one as cheap as the offer from RonK...

For melting snow I'm not convinced a remote canister stove has an advantage over a white gas stove. Remote canister stoves don't by themselves save that much weight. And when a lot of fuel is needed the empty canisters eclipse that weight savings. Canisters are also bulkier: imagine four 230g canisters next to one 1L fuel bottle. Cost is also higher. On the other hand you do get to avoid pumping, priming and the mess, smell, and noise of a white gas stove.

Stoves:
380g - MSR XGK-EX
315g - SnowPeak Gigapower BF (-65g)
168g - Kovea Spider (-212g)

Empty fuel bottles:
159g - MSR 0.89L bottle (2017)
207g - MSR 0.98L bottle (old style)
149g - MSR 227g canister fuel (empty weight)
596g - 4X MSR 227g empty canisters

Lightest combinations:
539g - XKG-EX + 0.9L fuel bottle (empty)
764g - Kovea Spider + 4 empty canisters (0.9kg fuel capacity)
(0.9kg propane/butane is roughly equivalent to 0.9L white gas)


I use a top mount canister stove in the winter, but I don't just melt snow. I cook. I simmer. I start and stop the stove multiple time. I cook in a closed vestibule. Sometimes I bring the stove into the tent. I accept the fact that on trips of a certain duration there is a weight/volume penalty. It's a convenience penalty.

I'm curious to hear what Roger's arguments were. Maybe I'm wrong?

Roger worries about CO production in closed spaces; simplicity and ease of use in severe conditions.
I have been using both the EX and the Pocket Rocket in about equal times recently I think that a remote stove could be more stable than the top mount when heavy pots are being used
The big advantage I saw in the use of the liquid fuel stoe is eing able to use snowmobile fuel if the shellite ran out
I don't have $50- at the moment Ron although I was/am tempted
None of the stuff I have for sale is selling to fund the purchase

You should worry about carbon monoxide in closed spaces. Even if it is true that, all else being equal, an LPG stove produces less CO than a white gas stove I wouldn't want to use that as a kind of justification for cooking in a sealed tent.

A source of ventilation is very important regardless of the stove type.

The other reasons -- simplicity and ease of use -- those are part of why I long ago said goodbye to white gas stoves for general use.

Top mount is a little top heavy. That said, I routinely put a 2L pot full of snow on my Snowpeak Gigapower without issue. If it's fallen over sometime in the last twenty years it was long enough ago that I've forgotten about it. But I'd be reluctant to try and put a pot that's too much bigger on it.

The other issue with top mount is cold sensitivity since you obviously can't invert the canister. With non-inverted canisters, somewhere below -10°C a mostly used canister can be sluggish to get going. A strategy for heat feedback has to be part of the deal.


Top-mount in the vestibule:

I had my Kovea Spider up at Beeripmo last weekend and found it struggled a bit, even in liquid feed mode. Lowest temp at Raglan overnight was 3.1, so I expect we would have been slightly lower than that. Using straight isobutane (self-filled). Performed as expected again once home. Have never used it this cold previously and initially thought it was a fuel type issue but the same performance when inverted has me questioning the stove.

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Snow melting isn't the place for an UL unit so Rogers current UL isn't an option although I am sure it would work

It all depends, doesn't it?
My V1 remote inverted canister stove has a small area of pot support - care needed with large pots.
My V2 however has a MUCH larger pot support, and should handle quite large snow pots at very low (way sub-zero) temperatures. (Be reasonable about the diameter though!)

Often, 'UL' means that the stove has been designed to be light and is made of materials like aluminium and titanium, rather than big lumps of steel and brass. The XGK makes a good mallet for tent pegs.

I have used metho, shellite, kero and gas (et al). Metho is heavy and slow. Kero stinks to blazes. Shellite goes whoomp when you are least expecting it. Gas ... just works. Had to make warm milk last week for breakfast - it was somewhere between -7 C and -10 C. Kosci, but with summer gear. Skating on thin (thick?) ice in places.

Ice in tarn was at least 5 mm thick. I had to smash it to get water.

Cheers
Roger

Strider wrote:I had my Kovea Spider up at Beeripmo last weekend and found it struggled a bit, even in liquid feed mode. Lowest temp at Raglan overnight was 3.1, so I expect we would have been slightly lower than that. Using straight isobutane (self-filled). Performed as expected again once home. Have never used it this cold previously and initially thought it was a fuel type issue but the same performance when inverted has me questioning the stove.

Two reasons I can think of for liquid feed / inverting a canister:

1. A non-inverted canister requires heat to vaporize the fuel. This is why they get colder in use, dropping below ambient temperature if an external source of heat (e.g. the stove itself) isn't supplied. With an inverted canister the fuel is vaporized down stream.

2. With a non-inverted canister, the fuel becomes increasingly less enriched in the more volatile fuel components as you exhaust the contents. This results in lower pressure at a given temperature, or conversely, a higher temperature limit. With an inverted canister the fuel mixture remains more consistent. But if your "mixture" is just one type of fuel then inversion doesn't make a difference.

You lose much of the advantage of inversion with a single component fuel.

Put some propane in there if you're going to be in the cold. Or externally warm the canister.