I was looking at Jetboil and it seems to be a good system, being able to store the stove and gas canister inside the one liter cooking pot. And because of its design, it can boil twelve liters using a single canister. As for complete systems, this seems to offer the best bang for its size. What is your experience with it?

Jeanette Isabelle

There are most likely people that have used theirs more than I have and would ask them to chime in too. I definitely like it. It is compact. Boils waters really quick, especially for low water meals like instant oatmeal or instant coffee. No need for windscreen. Low fuss set up on uneven terrain. I do actually use the little cup that protects the burner unit.

Only con in my book is that the gimmicky heat gauge on the side that shows you how hot the water is, gets really hot when you grab the insulated side to pull the 1 liter pot off. Have to be careful with it. Sometimes I have a problem twisting the pot out of the detent buttons connecting it to the burner unit, but YMMV.

Its a good buy in my book. Pretty much only use a JetBoil or White Box Stove now.

I have the original Jetboil. It's neither as compact nor as light as an alcohol stove, but it's a good stove.

The Jetboil has a lot of in-built wind resistance whereas an alcohol stove is very vulnerable to wind unless you've got a good windscreen. On convenience, speed, and wind resistance, a Jetboil wins hands down.

On price, reliability, compactness, weight, and availability of fuel, the alcohol stove is the clear winner.

HJ

For the same size as a Jetboil cooking system, how many liters of water can one boil using an alcohol stove?

Jeanette Isabelle

With the JB, everything fits into the 1.0 L cookpot. In order to have an alcohol stove have the same dimensions, you'd have to also have a 1.0 L cookpot, which means that there would be no real difference between the amounts that you could boil.

HJ

You said on compactness the alcohol stove is the clear winner. The Jetboil system, which fits in its own 1L pot, will boil twelve liters of water. For an alcohol stove system that fits in a 1L pot, how many liters of water will it boil?

Jeanette Isabelle

If you use a an Etapower l ltr pot and a Standard Trangia and Click stand this would leave around 700ml of space for the alcohol/meths Bottle (assuming a perfect fit). This would boil around 30 litres of water.

http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_Efficiency.htm#Physics

Meths - 18ml to boil 1 ltr of water assuming 80% efficiency

i.e. (700/18)*0.8 = 31.1

Butane/propane mix - 7.54 gms to boil 1 ltr of water assuming 80% efficiency

i.e. (100/7.54)*0.8 = 10.6 (which is near enough to the spec of 12 litres.)

Is there a bottle that will hold that much that would hit in that space?


The numbers are not adding up. Jetboil uses 8.33g of an isobutane/propane mix to boil one liter of water.

Jeanette Isabelle

The Jetboil doesn't specify the temperature of the water when the test was started.

7.54/0.8 = 9.425 gms to boil one litre, the fuel physics table has the following note



The heat exchanger pot systems have raised the overall stove efficiency from around 50% to around 80%.

So it may be that the difference of 9.425 - 8.33 gms = 1.09 gms is just the fact that Jetboil started their water temperature around 20C rather than 10C.

It really doesn't matter, its only for a ball park comparative analysis.

Remember though that the 3 to 1 ratio of alcohol to isobutane/propane mix per unit volume says nothing about the weight difference. The Jetboil + 500 gram gas cartridge will still be lighter than the alcohol setup which boils 30 Litres and will get you 50+ litres of boiling water.

If you are getting around 10-11 gms or less per real world litre boil using cartridge gas your doing pretty well.

No way I can comment on BTU or all that math mumbo jumbo above to boil water but I'll chime in on overall weight under the pretense of a Friday night to Sunday morning backpack trip. To do this, I just this moment decided to weigh out my two kits, a Jetboil and my alcohol stove set up. Here is what I got. Incidentally, 1 meal for me is 2 cups of water for a dehydrated or ziplock meal and 1 cup for hot beverage like tea of Starbuck Via.

JetBoil
1 liter pot w/ lid = 8.5 oz
burner =5.2oz
used 100g fuel can w/ tripod = 7.1 oz.
plastic nesting cup = 1oz.
Total weight= 21.8 oz.

Due to canned fuel, regardless of how many days you go out you cannot adjust how much you carry which will of course decrease as you use fuel. Also you're pretty much stuck on using the 1 liter pot thus have a immovable weight amount. But you have a fast boil time.

Alcohol Stove
3 cup aluminum tea kettle = 5.2oz
White Box Stove w/ provided windscreen = 2.2 oz
5 oz of fuel in 8oz kids plastic water bottle = 5.3oz
Total weight= 12.7 oz

A benefit (or trade off) with an alcohol stove is taking only the fuel you need for your trip. Based on my previous use, I need roughly 1oz of fuel to boil 3 cups of water. So I can carry 4 oz of fuel for 4 meals (Fri night, 2 Sat, 1 Sun)plus 1oz for spill or back up. I use a White Box Stove which is considered a 'heavy' alcohol stove at 1.2 oz (not including windscreen). Other options including making your own can/will decrease weight. There is no set size or style, thus your personal set up could use a much lighter pot,cup, kettle.

While the Jetboil is a faster, less finicky system, it weighs nearly 2x a comparable alcohol stove set up for a weekend trip. That being said, depending on where, when and with whom, I will seriously debate the merits of taking either one. And in some cases I take both with a less experienced person carrying the jetboil as a "2 is 1, 1 is none" principal.

I know this thread was not to compare Jetboil vs. alcohol stove, but it sort of begged for this weight comparison after the turn that it took. I appreciate all the info on fuel here b/c it does impact my decision making process.