Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

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longri
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by longri »

What is "basic cooking"? A cup of coffee and a pouch of Mountain House?

With a stove getting 50% efficiency 20g of fuel works out to boiling about 5 1/2 cups of water.

For comparison, my wife and I go through a 220g canister in about 3 1/2 days in the summer. That's something over 60g of fuel per day for the two of us: Coffee and tea at breakfast; soup, main course and tea at dinner -- about 15 cups of water per day. That doesn't count simmering time or toasting bread or tortillas, popping pop corn, an extra round of tea, or the occasional hot breakfast.
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AlmostThere
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Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by AlmostThere »

I can get 5-6 days from the smaller canisters with my Snow Peak Giga with windscreen, boiling three cups at dinner and two at breakfast. If I get Optimus, the brand a local store sells, that does not happen. if I get Snow Peak or MSR, no problem. I filter my water first and don't get it all the way to a rolling boil.


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longri
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by longri »

AlmostThere wrote:I can get 5-6 days from the smaller canisters with my Snow Peak Giga with windscreen, boiling three cups at dinner and two at breakfast. If I get Optimus, the brand a local store sells, that does not happen. if I get Snow Peak or MSR, no problem. I filter my water first and don't get it all the way to a rolling boil.
You boil 5 cups of water a day for 5 1/2 days with a 100g canister.
That's the same as 5 1/2 cups for 1 day with 20g.
So your stove averages about 50% efficiency.

I wonder why the off-brand fuel doesn't work as well for you? Propane, butane, isobutane all have the same heat content. Maybe your stove struggles more in colder temperatures with the n-butane based Optimus brand canisters. If it takes longer to heat the water there will be greater heat loss to the environment.
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hikin_jim
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by hikin_jim »

longri wrote:What is "basic cooking"?
In other words just boiling water with a minimum of simmering if any.

For me: Instant potatoes, ramen, instant rice, instant soup, instant oatmeal, instant pasta, etc. I stopped using freeze dried food a few years ago.

The UL guys talk about how many 2 cup boils can be had from a 100g canister on a Jetboil. They say up to 20 which is about 5g/boil. With a conventional stove it's more like 7g to 8g/boil in my experience, although that is going to vary a lot with water temperature, ambient temperature, wind, and elevation.

Two cup boils though are generally for soloists. If I'm with my daughter, I typically do 3 cups per meal, three for breakfast and three for supper.

How long will, say, a can 110g of gas last a given person? It's going to depend on how much water they boil per meal and how efficiently they boil that water (as well as the environmental variables of wind, water temperature, ambient temperature, and elevation).

If you boil three cups per meal, it might look something like this:
Image

If you boil four cups per meal, it might looks something like this:
Image

HJ
Backpacking stove reviews and information: Adventures In Stoving
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longri
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by longri »

hikin_jim wrote:With a conventional stove it's more like 7g to 8g/boil in my experience...
That's the same as what AlmostThere reported and what I get too. So 20g per day for two people translates into about 2.7 cups of water per person per day. So basically: a cup of hot beverage and a 2 cup instant meal.

Maybe I'm weird in using so much fuel. It feels right to me.
Would you like another 2 cup mug of tea? Sure!
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hikin_jim
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by hikin_jim »

longri wrote:Maybe I'm weird in using so much fuel. It feels right to me.
Would you like another 2 cup mug of tea? Sure!
Hey, nothing wrong with that. And my trips vary a lot trip to trip depending on what I'm doing and who I'm going with.

On my most recent 5 day trip to the Sierra, I was travelling fairly light and ate instant type foods (except for some trout that we caught). Minimal fuel usage there except on the trout, but we cooked them on a wood fire.

On other trips where it's more casual/shorter distances, I might make something a little nicer. Here's an egg, sausage, cheese, and green onion frittata. This was for night one of a shorter, three day trip. Most of my gear is pretty light, so it worked.
Image

On another trip where we were only hiking 2 or 3 miles to a base camp and then doing peak bagging from the base camp, I brought my baking set up and made blueberry muffins. My friend brought a 12 pack of beer. lol. We had some nice evenings in camp shall we say. :)

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Backpacking stove reviews and information: Adventures In Stoving
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rlown
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by rlown »

would you like another sprinkle of Teflon on your frittata? yikes! pretty sure my AL pot with 35 years under it's belt put me at risk for something. but that would be a different discussion.

That actually looks really good, btw..
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longri
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by longri »

Ha! I've got an old backpacking fry pan that looks a lot like that. It freaked me out a little until I did some reading. Teflon and other versions of PTFE non-stick coatings aren't toxic. If you eat a little bit it's not something to worry about. It might even help things slide out a little easier in the morning. :-)

That egg dish does look tasty. It probably doesn't require a lot of fuel to cook either. What kind of instant eggs did you use?
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AlmostThere
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Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by AlmostThere »

longri wrote:
AlmostThere wrote:I can get 5-6 days from the smaller canisters with my Snow Peak Giga with windscreen, boiling three cups at dinner and two at breakfast. If I get Optimus, the brand a local store sells, that does not happen. if I get Snow Peak or MSR, no problem. I filter my water first and don't get it all the way to a rolling boil.
You boil 5 cups of water a day for 5 1/2 days with a 100g canister.
That's the same as 5 1/2 cups for 1 day with 20g.
So your stove averages about 50% efficiency.

I wonder why the off-brand fuel doesn't work as well for you? Propane, butane, isobutane all have the same heat content. Maybe your stove struggles more in colder temperatures with the n-butane based Optimus brand canisters. If it takes longer to heat the water there will be greater heat loss to the environment.
it operates fine. differences in temperature and usage patterns account for the rest - it would be hard to claim it's at 50% efficiency without some gold standard to go by. I'm probably operating at different altitudes as well, mostly above tree line.

I only know that optimus gets me about half the use that I get with the main brand canisters. that isn't even worth the $.50 price difference. It may be a variance in the valve on the can, or it could easily be that there something in the can itself polluting the fuel. Cheaper brands of fuel are not as clean as the main brands. Sarah kirkconnel has had this experience with cheap fuel before and blogged about it.


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hikin_jim
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Re: Canister Stove Fuel Consumption....

Post by hikin_jim »

rlown wrote:would you like another sprinkle of Teflon on your frittata? yikes! pretty sure my AL pot with 35 years under it's belt put me at risk for something. but that would be a different discussion.
Aluminum was at one time of having a link to Alzheimers disease. That idea appears to be discredited now.
rlown wrote:That actually looks really good, btw..
It was good. [burp] My best was another time at Greenstone Lake (general vicinity of Saddlebag Lake near Tioga Pass). We found wild onions. The blossoms on wild onions are particularly pungent. I diced them up, mixed them with smoked sausage and three different types of cheese. One of the gals was vegetarian. She said "don't tell my husband but that smells so good that I have to try it." :lol: I'd say that one went over well.

HJ
Backpacking stove reviews and information: Adventures In Stoving
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