Backpacking Stove Kits – Lightest and Fastest

I am a gear junkie. There is no denying that fact. I love to test gear and figure out if it is right for me. I love looking at the positives and negatives, the rights and the wrongs, and sometimes wonder what people were thinking when they decided to make that little piece of junk. You never know. Sometimes it looks good and you think it is the latest and greatest, until it is too late and you realize you wasted good money on that piece of junk.

Backpacking is such a fascination to me. I love how you have to have everything you need before you leave, for there is no returning to get what you have forgotten or replace. You need to test things out, figuring out how to set that tent up, know how to blow up your mattress, making sure the pack fits and is not too heavy, and ensuring that your stove kit can boil water so that you can properly eat.

Since, for me, there is nothing like a good hot meal at the end of the day, I want to be prepared for this. I want to know what I have will work, work efficiently, and the chances of disappointment are a minimum.

Due to that fact, I have purchased and put together several different stove kit options. Some heavy and efficient. Some light and take longer requiring much more patience. I tested each kit to see which one will be the best for me and not test my patience. I tested each one on a cold (46 degree) windy (about 12 mph with gusts), all with cold tap water from the sink at my house. I weighed each kit and then timed each one to see how long it took to come to a boil.

Here are the kits, weights and times. NOTE – Not sponsored by any of these companies. This is completely unbiased information for my use in backpacking.

Kit 1

Weight – 7.30 oz full kit Boil Time – 9 min, 4 sec.

Toaks 550 Light Titanium Pot with Lid and bag
Vargo Windscreen
8 Matches
Blackbeard Firestarter (3)
Esbit Stove
2 Esbit Fuel Tabs
Pot Cozie
Bic Mini Lighter

Kit 2

Weight – 5.47 oz full kit Boil Time – 7 min, 15 sec.

Trail Designs Caldera Keg-F Stove
Trail Designs Pot Bag
Pot Cozie
3 Esbit Fuel Tabs
Blackbeard Firestarter (3)
Matches
Baggie
Trail Designs Caldera Cone

Kit 3

Weight – 13.58 oz full kit Boil Time – 3 min, 13 sec.

Snow Peak 700 Titanium Pot
Homemade aluminum lid
Windscreen
Snow Peak Stove
Mini Bic Lighter
Pot Bag
Jetboil Fuel Can

Kit 4

Weight – 15.94 oz Boil Time – 1 min, 49 sec.

Jetboil Stash with Lid
Gossamer Gear Pot Cozie (doubles as food cozie)
Trail Rag
Lighter
Jetboil Fuel Canister

Kit 5

Weight – 12.33 oz Boil Time – 4 min, 27 sec.

Vargo BOT HD
Hilltop Packs DCF Pot Bag
Trail Designs Caldera Cone
Bic Mini Lighter
Trail Designs Liquid Fuel Stove
Bottle Liquid Fuel (full – 8 boils)

Kit 6

Weight – 19.37 oz Boil Time – 2 min, 01 sec

Snow Peak 900 Peak Trek Titanium pot/skillet
Pot Cozie
GSI Pinnacle 4 Season Remote Canister Stove
Windscreen
Jetboil Fuel Canister

Kit 7

Weight – 13.46 oz Boil Time – 9 min, 16 sec

Snow Peak 700
Folding Esbit Stove/Wind Screen
2 Esbit Tablets

Kit 8

Weight – 13.56 oz Boil Time – 5 min, 21 sec

TOAKS 700 ml pot with lid
Folding Stand/Wind Screen
Coke Can Liquid Fuel Stove
Liquid Fuel – bottle full (8 boils)

Thoughts

This was very eye opening to me. Patience is required for liquid fuel or Esbit type stoves. You have to want to sit there for a few minutes, or at least be ok with it, in order to shave some weight and carry a lighter kit. Sometimes the weight savings is significant. When you talk about the weight difference according to time, you are saving 10-15 oz (almost a full pound of weight) for 5-7 minutes of time. A pound of weight is huge.

So, do I ask myself…am I willing to take the time? I am just there to enjoy myself anyways, right? Is my complete setup (tent and items, chair, etc.) easy enough where I don’t mind to take a little more time to setup wind screens, stoves, liquid fuel, and other items that are not easy or convenient with butane powered stoves?

The last time we went out, I decided not to make coffee in the morning due to the fact of the complex setup of my stove. Actually, to be completely honest, I asked one of my buddies to heat me up some water in order to have coffee to save me the time and trouble. This was nice of him to do, since he had to wait on his coffee drinking in order to oblige me. I was very appreciative.

The one thing I think about is fuel. Yes, if you use matches, the more you use, the less weight you will carry but you will not notice the weight of 2-3 matches being gone. Esbit tabs are not light, but they are not extremely heavy. They are pretty bulky for one burn, and it is hard to save a used portion to be used again. The liquid fuel is noticeable as weight, but doesn’t use that much to boil water. You can take exactly how much you need or a little extra and the more you use, the less weight you haul each day.

BUT, with a fuel canister, such as the Jetboil Butane canister, you will have to haul that canister until you are finished or until it runs out, and then have to find a place to dispose of it. Yes, the butane canister stoves boil water considerably faster, they are much heavier and bulkier than the others.

Conclusion

I am ordering today, from Amazon, smaller containers for liquid fuel. I will most likely go with HEET when I get them in tomorrow. This way, they can be stored inside the pots with everything else to keep the bulk down and also make it where I only have to carry what I need.

I will be using the Coke Can type stove from this point on. It is way faster than the Esbit Fuel Tablets and much easier to light. Using these I won’t have to have the Blackbeard Firestarters to help start the tablets as the liquid fuel lights easily. The Coke Can Stoves are also some of the lightest I have seen. With a lightweight pot, windscreen or Caldera Cone from Trail Designs and the liquid fuel stove, I believe I will have the lightest weight with a decent boil time.

I can live with that.