When it comes to those canister stoves, I became a bit of a convert once I discovered that there were plenty of hoses, adapters etc that would allow them to use the butane that you can get from Home Hardware in a pack of 4 for $9.99. That's about $10 for 32oz of butane. In contrast, the tiny 3.5oz canisters are around $6 a piece
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| $10 for 4-8oz cans |
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| $6 for 3.53oz |
The problem is that the connectors are different and you must use some kind of adapter. Additionally, the cheaper canister perches the stove on top of a tall skinny and often unstable base. Here's a look at a common adapter gizmo:
If mounting the stove like this is not for you, there's also this type that connects at right angles:
Also, if you scour Ebay, you'll find other options that include braided hoses and the like, as in the following picture:
All of this will allow you to have a nice canister stove, save the expensive canisters for the hard-core use, and use the cheap butane when you have the room. The cheap ones don't perform as good in cold weather, but you can't have it all :)
In keeping with the canister stoves, I have one final nice one to comment on. It's from the JetBoil folk, but it's their basic stripped-down cheapest model; the JetBoil Zip, likely designed for the snobbier snotty outdoor posers, but I have one anyway :)
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| JetBoil Zip, collapsed for packing |
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| Zip Set up |
This thing has one function, and that's to boil 2 cups of water. It does this in just over 2 minutes, and one tiny 3.5oz canister will do 24 boils, or about 12L of water. There's some sort of funky flux-ring heat concentrator on the bottom that prevents the sides from getting overly hot. You actually leave the neoprene cozy in place. Review
HERE...
More to come in Stoving 4 :)
