I thought I
would try out a new alcohol stove and compare it to the Bud Lite stove I
already have, as well as against the canister stoves I have. I have heard many good things about the Fancy
Feast stove and found a DIY version on YouTube.
I put together this new stove which was pretty easy and wanted to try it
out. The Bud Lite stove I have is also a
DIY stove and works well at boiling water.
I did a pretty un-scientific comparison and found the Fancy Feast stove
works really well.
I boiled 2 cups of water in my Imusa pot with cover. In the alcohol stoves I used 1oz. of denatured alcohol.
The results were pretty similar.
Bud Lite stove: Priming time: 2 min.
Boiling
time: 8 min.
Total burn time: 8:30
min.
Fancy Feast stove: Priming
time: 0 min.
Boiling time: 7:30
min
Total burn time:
10:30 min.
Both stoves did a nice job
but I like the fact that the Fancy Feast stove does not need time to
prime. I was able to place the pot on
the stove as soon as it was lit. The Bud
Lite stove needs time to heat up, I need to wait for flames to start out the
holes, before placing the pot on. Both
stoves are very light, weighing 1oz for Bud Lite and 0.9oz for Fancy
Feast.
The canister stoves are
tried and true, both work well and boil water in almost half the time of the
alcohol stoves. I used a MSR Pocket
Rocket and a Primus stove.
They are easy to set up and light and have the ability to simmer more so then the alcohol stoves. If you need to do more than boil water, the canister is probably a better choice. The results for the canister stoves were;
MSR Pocket Rocket: Boil
time: 4:30 min.
Primus Stove: Boil
time: 4:15 min.
The canister stoves are
heavier which may help with deciding which stove to bring. The Pocket Rocket weighs in at 3oz. and the
Primus is the heaviest at 7.5oz. I like
the flame pattern of the Primus stove, it seems to cover more surface area on
the pot then the MSR, but really didn’t seem to make a difference in boil
time. The MSR comes with a hard plastic
case while the Primus comes with a draw string bag.
All in all, any of these
stoves will do a good job on the trail.
I think it is nice to have options for each trip and to customize my
cook kit to the trip I’m going on. I
also enjoy playing around with different gear choices and DIY projects.