Loved the video Paul. Ultimately, sometimes, we obsess about speed these things cook. Reality is what justifies such speed? We are camping. We arent going anywhere. Shaving 1min and 40 seconds....really? We dont go wild camping to shave 1min and 40 seconds of our time.....we dont go wild camping to save time period....its about stretching out time, enjoying the moment and its surroundings.
I tend to agree. I have time at my campsite after setting up, and propping my feet up. Just to sit and watch the breeze move the trees. Appreciate the video to the Newlywed
Same here. I got the cheapo one here as part of a whole set including pots and cutlery. The gas can and stove fit in the pots which go into its own mesh bag. Same with the regulator; the cheap one doesnt have it but all it means is i have to open the valve more when gas is low, to get the same amount of heat. I will say that the build quality are not great. I'd recommend them for people on a budget or newbies getting into camping like i was when i purchased this. For someone who camps a lot, may want to spend a bit more for reliability. Or just buy 10 of the cheapo stoves ;)
just in gas difference you get an extra 3 boils out of a 100g canister we also didnt get to see the performance when the pressure in the can wasn't as high since there is no pressure regulator
On the other hand, on a through hike at the end of the day, you want to be done with your evening chores and get horizontal as soon as possible. The minute and 40 seconds can seem like forever when you’re beat and hurt. That was my experience on my AT through hike attempt this year.
I will say, when out on my last alpine trip in Chamonix . I carried my Jetboil flash and one of these £7 stoves for emergency use. The Flash refused to ignite and was burner inefficiently . I resorted to the £7 stove and I can say it allowed us to cook, make tea and melt snow very efficiently when twined with a small wall of snow to stave off wind
Just boiled water for my pot noodle and cup of tea with my Soto Amicus camped on the cliff tops! Brilliant stove a burner head similar to MSR PR deluxe and four folding arms. It's like 20 odd quid, one of the best things I bought in my kit
Paul, good video - worth noting however, a regulator only maintains a constant pressure, it can do nothing to increase it. So if the canister is, say, 50 PSI, the the MSR “micro regulator” can maintain, for example, a constant 40 PSI, but only as long as the canister is above that value. The other property is flow-rate, the cheaper Amazon one has a simple tap that controls this (just like on your bathroom sink). But a tap set to half-open on a canister at 50 PSI is allowing a lot more gas to flow than if the canister was at 40 PSI. That is to say, the “half-open” tap will be delivering different amounts of fuel depending on the pressure inside the canister. The MSR’s regulator will always deliver the same fuel flow rate for a given setting, irrespective of how much pressure there is in the canister. In practice, this is not really that much of a benefit; the reason the MSR performs better is to do with the surface area of the flame, and distance the flame is from the bottom of the cup, I.e. the MSR likely has a bigger flame surface area and is closer to the cup, making it more efficient at transferring heat. If you want to be more scientific/ accurate in your assessments of things like this, then give me a shout, I’d be more than happy to help. On the other hand, I completely appreciate that your channel is not about being a science lesson, and the overall results are still the key information that anyone is interested in (I.e. MSR costs more but boils water faster and for slightly less gas). Keep the videos coming 👍
Thank you for articulating scientifically what my experiences have taught me. I tried a few brands when I was in the military yet have stuck to Jetboil for over 15 year’s. Current one is over 10 year’s old. It has a consistent flow, boil and cooking rate and can withstand tough as hell weather conditions. I hope Paul reach’s out for you, your information was fantastic.
The best stove I have ever used is the Soto windmaster. Very nice flame throw to cook on so no major hot spot. For just boiling water going lightweight on a hike/bikepacking trip I take my cheapo £5 BRS copy and only weighs 23g. That is only good for boiling water though, terrible for cooking
@@PaulMessner yeah tbh it is only good if I go on a day hike and boil 1 brew, otherwise the windmaster goes with me everywhere. I have heard of some BRS ones failing, I have been lucky as mine is a cheapo chinese copy
I'll do a +1 for the Windmaster! best gas stove i've ever used and when combined with the MSR Lowdown, flipping (well not anymore, hahahahaha) neigh on unbeatable! Well, apart from on price anyway! ; ) As for the BRS, I'm pretty sure they are just a rebranded generic chinese model, no difference to the others from the swamp at all, apart from maybe first dibs! And I reckon they'll conk out at least 5x more often than a decent stove!
I have both stoves.... i bought the really cheap one when i first started and its been pretty reliable ... however with such a small burner area and unregulated gas pressure have found the food burning on the bottom of the pot so simmering is a pain and you have to keep stirring the food. For boiling water the its been great.... thanks for the comparison on these two stoves you really did cover the pros and cons 👍👍
In my experience, the build quality on these super-cheap stoves varies a lot. Some examples are good, some are ... crap. So if you are lucky, you get a good one that will work fine for many years. On the big brands you can expect all examples to be more or less the same quality.
Thanks Paul. I just bought a new stove this week from Decathalon for £30, and I was beating myself up a bit thinking that the cheap Amazon stoves would have sufficed. But after seeing the cheaper one perform in the video, I think spending just a bit extra for sturdiness and efficiency was worth it. Especially with the cold weather around the corner. Keep up the great work!
There is a trick to get a better flam of the canisters in cold weather it to heat them or pick the right gas. The gas in most of the container are primary Butane and it boils at 0C so you get no gas just liquid if it is colder and slower evaporation if it is a bit above that. There will be some propane in most container, around 25%. It boils at -42C. So you can burn it, the flam will be smaller and you will run out of quite quickly. Some canister will replace some or all Butane with Iso-Butane that boils at -12 C So it can be a good idea to carefully look at what canister you use in the cold, so use the cheaper with Butaner when it is warm and the a bit more expensive with lots of Iso-Butane when it get colder can be a good idea. There are adapter so you can use stoves like this in pure propane canisters, the drawback is they are heavier because the need o be able to handle higher internal pressure in warm weather. So if you can heat it with just your body before you use it it will function a lot better. Put it inside you jacket an appropriate time before you intend to use them and you heat them up Another way is to use water, If you can heat some water when it do not burn efficiently and use it heat the rest of the gas. Put the canister warmer
Thanks for the video. Entry cost shouldn't stop someone getting to enjoy the outdoors. I've started as many have with the cheap and cheerful, they work (most of the year)! I really rate the Soto Windmaster, for 500ml takes 2 minutes to boil with no lid on and costs around £42. The big advantage for me is not on gas saved but time to boil water for a few people. Can get 6 people with a coffee/hot choc 300ml cups in their hands within 6 minutes (lid on) then chill with a drink in hand. Superb when taken to the beach with kids/ other people as have done a good number of times. I'm still blown away. The rest of the time on your own, you get the benefit that you already have it. By the time you prepare your mug and blink hot water is ready for your drink. Performs better than most also in cold temperature and when gas tank is low. Its a little heavier than others, especially the brs's out there. Pros and cons to suit each one.
It's just a butane torch tip and a twist valve. Should last forever and how much better can you make that. Pricey might be sturdier or 10g lighter....wooooo
I much prefer my mini Trangia - the time it takes to boil water is not an issue to me. What is a couple of minutes? A chance to pause and reflect for me.
Another good video Paul. I have a few stoves, but my favorite is the Soto Windmaster. I also wish it had the pop up supports. Maybe someday they'll redesign that. Meanwhile, one strong benefit (for me), that not many people mention, is the four wide supports rather than three. I won't use tri-supports anymore. It's just too tippy and I got tired of pot/skillet spills. The Windmaster is nice and spread out. Cheers from the Hudson Valley, NY USA.
Love my PR2 Deluxe. It's been rock solid for us on every camping trip so far. Cheaper options however work great for boiling water. Thanks for sharing!
Great video, thankyou! So glad I found your channel, I wish more people were so on the point as you. As a very casual camper I now feel my cheaper one will be asbolutely fine
I use the little BRS stove. It weighs less than an ounce and costs less than £12 and it boils a half litre in under 5 minutes (less with a windshield but that adds weight). It doesn't have a regulator but I've used it around freezing with a winter propane gas canister and it was fine, if about 50% slower (but still much faster than my spirit burner!) Combining it with my titanium pot with built-in heat-exchanger trims another 20% off the boil time but adds the weight of the exchanger... You pays your money and takes your choice...
I’ve got the cheap one. Used it loads of times in cold weather windy weather damp weather never failed me.Ive using mine at minus 5 to 6 years. Absolutely perfect
Good video. As someone who has never camped but planning on taking off on a motorcycle tour and camping this is actually really handy to know. Thanks 👍🏻
Nice little analysis there, I was suprised how big the difference was actually. I think the biggest factor with stoves is less about efficiency and more about reliability. If you're halfway into a 5-day hiking trip and your stove packs up, a saving of £20 is going to feel like a sick joke. I think the MSR pocket rocket 2 is the perfect balance of reliability and cost. I can personally attest to having used mine a lot and abusing it a fair bit and it has never let me down. Recenty I didn't dry it properly after a trip (think some coffee dregs must have leaked into the bag) and when I took it out on my next camp it was covered in mould and corroded horribly around the valve with that crusty while aluminium oxide. Thought it was done for but I just blew into it, rinsed it in the loch and it fired up perfectly without me even drying it! I wouldn't expect that from a cheap stove. I think stoves are a bit like sunglasses though where spending a little bit more gets you a lot but any more than that starts to have diminishing returns.
Great comparison video, just goes to show that you needn't spend a fortune on all the top gear when starting out. Personally I fell in love with Trangia while i was on an outward bound course near ullswater back in 1986
The regulators help with cold, as mentioned, but also in high altitude. Worth the investment for flexibility I think, but I love in the mountains lol. Agreed that windmaster is the current king!
My brother give me his pocket rocket 2 stove 2 years ago and still got it he's moved to Canada pocket rocket 2 is still going, thanks for a great video 👍
Thanks. I have, as have most, regretted not taking a windshield with me with those cheap stoves. I've also been in the situation where it point blank refused to boil the water. I now have a little titanium roll-up windshield which makes such a massive difference to boil times, but find myself massively grateful when I bought the Pocket Rocket 2. I think it does go through more gas "per minute", but in the long run you save gas because it also takes less minutes to boil the same amount of water.
I have both of these stoves and I recently tested both using maximum and minimum flame on a nearly full canister and a nearly empty one. The budget stove is extremely close in efficiency in the ideal conditions of my kitchen at sea level. I suspect that in windy and cold conditions and high altitude that the difference will be more significant in favor of the pocket rocket deluxe but most aren't doing that often
Great video! Also interesting to note that pretty much all bacteria and nasties actually die at a temperature *before* water boils, it’s just easy for us humans to use boiling point and bubbling water as an easy marker otherwise we’d always need to carry a thermometer! So the little £7 stove will likely *always* do the job! Multiple studies show that heating water to even just 72 Celsius for about 1 minute will destroy almost all infectious nasties, or even as low as 62 Celsius if kept at that temp for about 2 minutes! Very interesting to read into, especially when you think of the price differences for stoves with that fast boil time… When boiling the water isn’t even *technically* needed at all!
Great video and content as always. I've been using the Coleman F1 lite for 6 years now!! It's out at least twice a week to make a brew somewhere in countryside either on foot or bike. 77g great power, reasonable performance without a wind shield, although I use a optimus clip on canister Wind Shield. It's a two part stove, can be a faff with cold fingers, it's been reliable and abused, and you can pick these up for silly money £12.99 or less.
Great video. Honest reviews are what’s needed to make informed decisions. I still love my Amicus though, I keep toying with the idea of a Windmaster, just cant seem to justify it.
I use a budget stove, the JobsworthX2 and its never skipped a beat. Biugh6 back in 2018, i just cant justify spending so much on a jet boil. Sod the Hierarche of expensive gear. Hahah. Love the vids Paul. Honest and straight to the point. bBought a few pieces of my kit from your vid reviews and recommendations.
Agreed...well done sir . these stoves are decent but that price tag is crazy........applies to loads of stuff on the market just now . I have a couple of Berghaus jackets which are great , and peform well in most conditions . I also have an old Regatta jacket that i have used and abused ( shooting /snaring ,fishing etc ) for close on 12 years...........and it is STILL unbroken .
I've had one of those cheap stoves for a couple of years and found it to be fine for me, though I do use an optimus clip on windshield. cheers Paul, take care 👍 🙂
Ive used a few cheaper stoves over the years and I didn't notice a huge difference. I mostly use MSR or Primus and never had a problem whereas ive had some cheaper ones start to fall apart on me and when up Kinder Scout and need to boil water I want reliable :)
I have both a cheapo stove, I bought a few years ago too, as well as a MSR Pocket Rocket. I decided that on multi-day hikes I just couldn’t leave my ability to cook food to fate, so I now choose to take the MSR with me.
Good review Paul. I bought a cheap one a while ago after one of your earlier reviews, it cost £8 and has really lasted the course, okay it's a wee bit slower, but it's never failed to make a hot cuppa for myself and the guys in the field with me. At £8 if it breaks, I'll throw it away and buy a new one.
As an audiophile I know that sometimes you have to spend big money to get just a small incremental performance in sound quality. In my younger days I saved up to get that better quality. Now I am very satisfied with the fact that I can still hear and enjoy music. I have a friend who would rather wait months waiting for something that he really wants to go on sale rather than buy a similar budget item. I have both of the stoves you compare in this video. The budget stove gets used while the MSR sits in my 'collection'.
I sleep with the butane can on cold days...so cold gas doesn't bother me. I wind shield it with a bottomless tuna can with 4 slits...and the stove/pot becomes sturdy. I cook breakfast with a regular tuna can upside down and four slits...it spreads and slows the heat...no center scorch. I also carry a few oz of alcohol fir the same tuna can if i want to alch cook. All still fits inside the coffee cup.
Nice video. As I am the camping beginner, last year I bought this cheap stove. Used so far only in summer conditions and was good enough for me. I realise it is not the best piece of equpiment but makes the job, so far :)
Soto all the way for me. Reason being, I own one and it cost money, so I'm intending to get value from it. It's a replacement for a BSR which I didn't trust to not let me down, which is in turn a replacement for a no name Chinese remote canister stove bought for fifteen quid twenty(?) years ago. That still works just fine and is my go to if the power ever goes out!
Multifuel for the winter - edelrid hexon. In Summer I prefer an alcohols stove. For two people, the Trangia 27 or solo, the 30ml speedster. I have to confess to being a stove freak but do not own an MSR. My first stove was a camping gaz globetrotter. Very good in the wind, then I had a svea and an optimus rider as I did a lot of winter mountaineering back in the day. I do like my optimus crux and bought a soto in May that I leave at my sisters so I don't need to carry a stove on a flight. Trouble is that the price of gas canisters is getting ridiculous but I can get bio ethanol or meths easily.
I think stoves are one area the higher price is not always better. I know this from buying jetboil and not liking it. I now have £20 stove which is 30 seconds longer to boil than jetboil at 5 times the price and more stable as it sit low to flow with a tail to gas canister.
I am another converting away from pocket rocket type of pressurized gas stoves over to alcohol stoves for the simplicity of the stoves and nothing to fail really, alcohol + fire= heat your water or food. The cost of the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe equals a nice Alcohol burner and a lot of fuel for it,. Not to mention a couple of cans and some carbon felt for a wick or for an almost spill free stove use an Altoids Tin with either carbon felt or Perlite gives you a homemade alcohol burner almost free. Not to mention the Alcohol for the fuel source is available from a lot more stores than the more camping specific ISO fuel for the pressurized gas stoves.
I have one of those cheap stoves. The platform is a bit small but apart from that it works well. Good control of gas flow, no problem with the threads or anything. Apart from being cheap, it fits into a large mug even in it’s box and in a small cooking pot I can carry it with a 110gr gas canister, spork, silicone cup etc. The extra distance from the pot bottom could be alleviated with a bit of fettling with a file. Probably a bit flimsy but if you look after it then it shouldn’t be an issue. Can’t really fault it. Especially for the price.
Performance is almost never linearly proportional to cost - I wouldn’t expect a stove costing 10x more to be 10x better 😊. I bought the MSR PR Deluxe a few years ago because of the build quality, concave burner for wind, pressure regulator for cold conditions, and more reliable piezo. I would have got the Soto Windmaster (I’m almost positive they make the MSR stove), but didn’t want to fiddle with the detachable pot supports. To me it’s not the boil time as much as the ability to even boil water in “sub-optimal” conditions, as you mentioned. But, the cheap stove is a great option for anyone starting out in camping who has a lot of gear to buy.
When I was in catterick for training I bought a JetBoil which was the best bit of kit I ever owned, served me well for ages, then got deployed to Iraq and within three days I’d landed hard on my daysack and crushed it completely. RIP jetboil 😁
I think as you mentioned it comes down to purpose. If you are car camping a cheap stove is fine. However, on a longer trip your stove is a key piece of equipment that has to be reliable. I have a cheap 25g stove that has been good on 2 day backpacking trips, though with some issues in keeping a constant flame. I've just returned from a 30 day backpack on the Colorado Trail. There was no way I was going to risk this cheap stove and opted for my uber reliable but heavier MSR Pocket rocket instead.
I have the budget stove. There's a few cons of the budget stove. Poor performance in cold weather, a narrow burn pattern similar to a torch and i had trouble running Coleman fuel canisters because it doesn't open the valve in the can enough. I had to run higher end fuel canisters. Other than that its great for boiling water. I went with the msr windburner. Wide burner for even heat distribution when using a pan or pot. I did modify my stove because msr does not make a pot support. Boiling time (fuel conservation)is not an importance because i dont thru hike.
Great video! I f you use the burner 50-100 times a year, how long would the cheap one last? I have used Primus camping stoves for more than two decades now. And I'm out kayaking and hiking +100 days/year, that will be a lot of use of the stoves. I have had problems with them but the service from Primus is excellent! And that is part of the price you are paying for these expensive brands, the support you get, and that you need it less often as the quality is better.
Excellent Paul. Cheap n’ cheerful for me 🤣 Seriously as you said at the end, if you’re hardcore outdoors in winter like you are, it may be a necessary evil, otherwise not. I use an £8 one with hose to the gas can
Greetings from Northern California. Interesting video Paul. My version of the cheaper stove was called the Aotu from American Amazon at about $12 American dollars. It looks just like your cheaper stove. The igniter didn’t work and I noticed the flame actually lifts off the top of the burner at full throttle which doesn’t inspire confidence in the quality of the stove as it never happens with my Windmaster. But the Aotu would be OK for the budget minded casual hiker.who only uses it once in a blue moon.
I think the point that Paul made about the cold weather performance should be emphasized a bit more. For a few years I was using this cheapo FireMaple nonsense, not too different from the budget option in this video, then I upgraded to the Windmaster recently. Althought the latter may be a few times more expensive, it will make you million times more happy when you're trying to do anything at any adverse conditions. Lost count how many times the budget option simply refused to boil water or warm up my food only because it was a bit cold or windy, no matter how long I was sitting there. Can't be happier about the upgrade
