It;s not about the Big Three

[KC]

pretty much down to go, except I've got a 3 month old to take care of right now. I've got to save up my chits with my wife so I can cash them in summer!

Balzaccom, sounds like you're pretty experienced with alcohol stoves, but mostly opt for the standard canister set up. Do they really save weight given the alcohol one is required to carry? With the new jetboil stove being about 10 oz I'm debating whether it's worth it to make a new investment. I like my Jetboil PCS a lot for its ease of use, but definitely want to go lighter. It weighs over a pound with the canister included.

[oakroscoe]

I've been pretty happy with the whitebox stove:
http://www.whiteboxstoves.com/
Weight wise the stove itself is only 1.5 ounces. For fuel, I would generally burn an ounce (or slightly less) of denatured alcohol per each container of freeze dried food I wanted to eat (which is roughly 600ml of water to a boil). So if you know you will want to have 4 or 5 dinners, its easy to figure out how much fuel to bring and how much total weight you are carrying.

As I stated earlier, I do have the snow peak giga stove, and I have been very happy with that as well. I don't have any firsthand experience with the jetboil, but I have heard good things about it.

And finally, here is a video review of the white box stove:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYjn8Urk7YA

[AlmostThere]

Everyone loves the Jetboil, I can't figure that out. I guess because I started out with alcohol stoves and saw no reason to haul all that weight just to boil water. It's not even the fastest boiling stove. Not even as simple as a Snowpeak Giga - when the piezo fails (atrocious failure rate, roughly two thirds of the many that have been brought on our group outings had nonworking piezos) you have to have a long match or pull the top off the stove to light it with a bic.

Alcohol stoves are cheapest, lightest and simplest of all. There are so many different types that I think newbies get confused, and there are lots of falsehoods spread about them not working in cold weather (stick the fuel in your pocket - same as canister stoves, warm the fuel and it works fine) and not being able to adjust them (only partially true, many models don't adjust, some do, the most adjustable stove I have is the Featherfire - I get a nicer simmer with it than I do with the Giga. and if you don't want a Featherfire make a simmer cat to carry along with the supercat. still lighter than a 3 oz Snowpeak).

[KC]

For me the jetboil's all-in-one setup is convenient and allowed me to ditch my classic pot set. To be honest, this was one reason I jumped on it when it first came out. I usually don't worry so greatly about boil times; hence, my initial question about an alcohol stove.

My biggest concern about any stove is the use I can get out of it on a trip. The jetboil does real well for me. I can have coffee and breakfast in the am, dinner and tea at night, and only need one canister for a 5-6 day trip. However, the entire setup with a full canister is over a pound, so something lighter would be nice.

The piezo on my jetboil never worked great for me. I just use a match to light it.

For a 5-6 day trip, how what would the fuel-weight ratio be like for the Whitebox stove? For $20.00, it's quite intriguing.

[AlmostThere]

I've never used a classic pot set, so have never really considered that an option. My main pot is a REI branded evernew .9 liter, the other one I use is a heinie pot with hardware cloth stand. The convenience you describe is about what I would expect from my Giga with the windscreen.

The thing that always tweaked me about the jetboil - why anyone would want to use something that only worked with a single pot. You can't take a one egg wonder and fry/scramble eggs, or a fish, or use any other pot (sometimes I like to steam bake, you need a wide pot instead of a narrow one). For any kind of cooking at all you have to further increase the weight by putting in their Jetboil pots and pans, which are total overkill for me. It reminds me of the guy who brings his Whisperlite, two quart kettle and entire maintenance kit to make cocoa on a summer overnight.

I like the Primus canister stoves - the EtaExpress solo is lighter, faster, more economical than the jetboil and you can remove the windscreen and put a different pot on it. If I were not happy with the current set of stoves (I have a LOT of alcohol stoves, they work fine) or if I were made of money, I'd have one. They don't sell Primus stoves in REI or I'm sure they would outsell the Jetboil in seconds.

My Whitebox has been sitting in the stove box for a while now - I usually take a Mini Atomic for a narrow pot - even works with the GSI Minimalist - or a supercat with the .9 liter pot.

For search and rescue I don't even do that. I take a GSI stainless cup and Esbit. Solid fuel is the lightest solution even for a longer trip.

I would rather take the Whitebox on a week trip. an ounce boils a pot of water every time - 2 pots per day, 2 ounces. I would put three 4 oz bottles of HEET or denatured in. By the end of the trip there would be no canister to recycle - one of the problems with convenient is the inconvenience of having an empty canister. And canister stoves aren't always predictable - if it gets colder than you expect, that affects performance, says the girl who's had a canister suddenly use more than anticipated and leave her eating nuts and power bars - at least I had those. At least couscous works with cold water!