Stoves and Cookware

The Olicamp XTS Anodized Aluminum pot has built-in heat exchange fins that reduce the amount of fuel required to boil a pot of water by about 40%. The pot, which has a 1 liter capacity, is large enough that you can fit a 250 gram gas canister inside it including …

The Light My Fire FireSteel (Army Model) is the most reliable way to light a backpacking or camping stove, fuel, or tinder that I’ve come across. I’ve been carrying one for the past 10 years since I section hiked Vermont’s Long Trail and had a disposable lighter jam so I …

Esbit Cubes are the simplest, lightest, and most reliable way to boil water or cook food on backpacking trips. There’s no extra container weight to carry with Esbit Cubes, like a white gas stove bottle or isobutane canister, and you can even ship Esbit Cubes via ground transportation (in the …

I became enamored with cook pots that include heat exchange fins this year after watching a friend melting snow with one last winter with far less fuel than me. This led to my changing my cook pot for this winter from a 1.3 liter ultralight titanium pot to a comparatively …

Lightweight and ultralight backpackers have a lot of different options available when it comes to picking an ultralight backpacking and camping stove. Here are the pros and cons of using alcohol stoves, canister stoves, solid fuel stoves, and wood stoves. Alcohol Stoves Alcohol stoves are popular with ultralight backpackers and …

The MSR Reactor Stove System is not the lightest weight backpacking stove available or the most flexible because it can’t simmer, but it boils water really fast and is 40% more efficient than most other pot & canister stove combinations. Those two properties make it a very reliable companion on off-the-grid adventures …

If you use a canister backpacking stove like a Jetboil Flash or an MSR Pocket Rocket 2, you probably have a lot of partially used isobutane canisters in your gear closet. While the ease of using canister gas stoves has revolutionized backcountry cooking, it also creates a lot of waste …

I replaced my old Titanium camping pot with the more compact 1 liter, 3.9-ounce Evernew titanium pasta pot (formerly sold by REI), in 2010 before hiking coast-to-coast in Scotland’s TGO Challenge. While my primary reason for doing this was to compress the size of my gear, I also like the …

If you plan on winter camping or backpacking, you should get yourself a liquid fuel stove that burns petroleum distillates like white gas or kerosene instead of a canister-based stove that burns isobutane fuel. Canister gas won’t ignite in its gaseous state below 15 degrees Fahrenheit, which really limits its …

I have a weakness for ultralight titanium cookware and when I saw the Esbit 750 ml Titanium Mug Pot over the winter, I knew I had to try it out. I was pulling together a new wood and solid fuel-based cook system for ultralight backpacking trips and the size and …

I like to switch to a separate cook pot and canister stove system for shoulder season and early winter camping when the days get shorter. When I spend more time in camp I tend to cook more elaborate meals, such as dried cheese tortellini, which needs to simmer for 13 minutes: …

While there are many camping cooksets available on the market today, the Coghlan’s 4-pot Hard Anodized Aluminum Cookset caught my eye because it has many of the same properties I like in the simple backpacking pots that I prefer. Features like fold out butterfly handles and lids with integrated strainer …

I rarely carry a stove wind screen except in the winter when I really need one to conserve fuel for melting water. Other times of year, I either have plenty of fuel (wood/canister fuel) or can more easily situate my stove behind landscape features to keep it out of the …

Here is a problem that has been vexing me for a long time – safe isobutane canister disposal and recycling. The recommended way to dispose of a used canister is to vent all of the remaining gas in it and punch a whole through the sidewall using a screwdriver. After …