Backpacking Stove Efficiency, Part 2: Wind Effects 

god bless you GearSkeptic. You're a camping superhero.

I’m cancelling all backpacking, hiking, and camping trips until I see Part 3. Please hurry!

Just want to thank you for all your videos, the nutrition series cleared out a lot of noise for me and helped me better understand nutritional choices on the trail and life in general. I'm a gear freak too, so I'll be sticking around for whatever else you are willing to bring to the table (pun intended).

Not the backpacking hero we asked for, but definitely the one we need. Love your videos and approach to these questions.

The Art of boiling water - I love it! BIG THANKS from Germany

WOAAAAH the elephant in the room is a huge one indeed!!! Can't believe how much more fuel at just 2mph!! I think after this series you've convinced me to cold soak my food for eternity... save me a headache and ibuprofen weight LOL LOL. Just kidding, I love nerding out on this stuff, thanks again!

This guy. THIS GUY. He answered questions I didn't even know I had.

Great video and helpful advice in your conclusion! Low wind use low flame. Medium wind use medium flame. High wind use high flame.

My best windscreen results came not from a ground-connected windscreen, rather a pot-connected windscreen. Using the same 0.005" Titanium windscreen material (e,g. Dutchware), but securing it halfway up the pot (e.g ss-cable-tie or spot-weld) with a 1/8" white-ceramic insulation, it allows super-heated airflow halfway up the pot's sides. Thus the windscreen extends only an inch below pot-bottom. That inch (to inch and a half) both blocks the wind and contains heat under and against pot-sidewalls. Thus, it aids in wind and without wind, yet weighs only a few-grams. (more...) While it looks like Jetboil's heat-sink idea, it's actually much lighter and more effective means to encapsulate stove's hot-air around the whole pot, rather than attempting to conduct more heat through massive metal fins. Construction: Simply cut windscreen material to size, wrap around pot and spot-weld, leaving 0.010" space for airflow up around pot-sides. A fold on the extended end is less sharp and should be bent with heat to ensure a nice rounded edge. OR... Cut windscreen material to size, plus the 1/8" or less space for insulation, wrap around pot and secure with a ss-zip-tie from Lowe's. This configuration weighs a few more grams, but is adjustable and removable (should one want to try it out before committing to spot-welding one's favorite pot).

Yeah Mr. Skeptic! Yeah science!

23:12 The angled supports you mention later is also why this happened. The wider bowl sitting higher is allowing the bowl burn to be overwhelmed faster, as indicated by the loss of red glow at 3mph (22:42). This didn't happen with the pot at 3mph (17:42).

As a trained scientist, this is some quality content

The videos on this channel are fantastic. With all the material on youtube, it's amazing to find info that you literally can't get anywhere else.

This kind of content really meets a need part of my brain desires. Also helps me be a more efficient backpacker. 12/10

Shit like this is why I love this channel

this guy is the Project Farm of hiking/camping. goated

Thank you for all your videos! I just purchased a good wind shield from Flat Cat Gear. It's called Ocelot 6 for the Soto Windmaster 4 flex.

A bit late, i know, but I like your extreme thoroughness on these videos. I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but when comparing the BRS and PR Deluxe in weight.. Yes, the PR is heavier... but you'll need to carry an ignition source to start the BRS while the PR has a piezo igniter. Just thought i'd mention it 🙂🙂 And yes i have a PR deluxe 😂

Great video. Thanks. This is important work you are doing, doing your part to help the planet. Your video is confirming my recent field experience. We used up our whole cannister on the first day camping out boiling only about 5 times in medium wind. Now I have a Soto Windmaster on order for the next trip and will use shelter in higher winds. Cliff

Great follow-up to part 1. I've known about the practical side of wind on stoves in an out in the field sense for many years but it's so nice to see a more scientific demonstration giving gas usage figures. Thanks. 👍👍

Exactly why I fabbed a chimney/windscreen, though it also increases the efficiency of the stove by holding heat closer to the pot longer (up the side).

The Perun of backpacking youtubers. Fantastic content keep it up, I was riding a rollercoaster of emotions after having bought the BRS, hopefully some basic wind screens will keep it in the game.

Just wanna say much I love your videos. Not only am I a pedantic nerd who loves to see the real life numbers/stats of various camping appliances, I also appreciate what you describe as “perspective.” Particularly your early videos on backpacking food. I may not remember the exact numbers when I’m actually out backpacking, but having learned the ground work of what is efficient vs inefficient or what are good general principles to follow has made my hikes a lot smoother. Please please please keep up the good work GearSkeptic . I’m pretty sure you’re the only RU-vidr and maybe even only reviewer in any format that will put in the work like this and present it in a way that’s easily understandable and most importantly, factual!

Based on this data wouldn't a Caldera cone system with a small pot using ESBIT trump all others in most 3 season conditions?

And once again thank you for the crazy amount of work you did here. Now onto the last part.

your the king man. literally getting a masters degree from watching these videos

Best reviews I've ever seen. Thank you

Naturally, the next question is both windscreens, and most importantly - heat exchanger pots. You already have the setup and method sorted, so you might as well. THAT would be really interesting. I use both methods, and subjectively, I seem to get at least a 30% improvement. Kudo's for all the effort, and a great series.

Be sure to include in your heat exchanger test a couple of non-integral or non-system pots like the Olicamp HTS or the Jetboil Stash pot. I have used both of these pots with an Amicus stove on longer trips. Fuel consumption is quite low. Wind effects as well. Also had very good performance using a Pocket Rocket Deluxe with a Jetboil GCS pot in strong, gusty conditions, right next to an MSR Windburner, similar results.

"Gander" ....appreciate the humor

For part 3 comparing the screens vs "just digging a hole", as I've learned back in the day, would be interesting. Especially since you might be carrying a trowel with you anyway.

Thanks again for another outstanding video!

Always a good day when a new GearSkeptic video releases!

Isnt the most energy lost from the open top of the vessel? So a wider pot with a lid could potentially be more efficient under high winds than the regular one with a lid? Very nice to hear, that you will test windscreens. I assume only the very light ones (e.g. titanium foil) will be worth it.

Yees! Made my day! Always great content

Ah yes, Graham Phobic, a good man. 😹

Soto is more efficient in windier conditions than the MSR, because there are 4 pot supports, not 3. The Soto pot supports, although fiddly to install, help block more of the wind.

Thank you very much for your hard work and your dedication. It is greatly appreciated. Please keep making videos.

I still love my old Coleman dual fuel 500 series precisely for the wind protection it provides. Would enjoy a comparison to whethe le these new stoves are better given the fuel burn. Great content. Thanks

While doing the windscreen test, please test the "place a backpack to block the wind method" or "use the tree to block the wind method" or both, those have been my methods of choice over the years. And whilst they are not ideal (wind reflection, means the wind comes from multiple directions) they have made my boil times much faster and i'm assuming that as a proxy for fuel savings. Been loving every single video you have made. Thank you so much

⁠​Another thought is that if you have a lid on your stove, then the only way to know that it’s done boiling is the steam coming out of the holes of the lid, besides checking it periodically. That means it is boiling longer than the 200 degrees in your test, which strengthens your argument that a lid isn’t worth it. Especially if your pot is much larger than the water volume, as I found out this weekend with my own test with a 1.4 liter pot and two cups of water.

Project Farm, meet Project Campsite! More fantastic data. Thanks GearSkeptic!

I figured wind would drop the efficiency, I didn't expect it to change that much. I also wonder how much of the extra heat loss in the wider pots comes from extra surface area for evaporation. A lid on a larger pot/bowl would weigh more of course but might do more to reduce heat loss.

20:50 My explanation of this is that the primary source of energy loss when heating water is heat of vaporization. The radiative effect is actually quite small by comparison. But the rate of this vaporization (sub-boiling point) will depend on the concentration of water vapor in the air in contact with the water surface. At a certain point if no new air is circulated in the local concentration will reach a maximum and no additional water will vaporize until boiling is reached, thus nullifying this source of heat loss. But Increasing the wind speed will ensure new air will always be in contact with the water surface. This effect will naturally be greater for the wider pots and higher winds than narrower pots and lower winds. It would seem the increased rate of sub-boiling vaporization for the large pot caught up with its more efficient heat transfer at higher wind speeds.

Wow, again, so much to absorb, process, then put into practice. Still, I have gained some good principles to help me make informed decisions. Thanks for sharing

I Absolutely love your attention to detail and your scientific approach. No one, no one has or is doing what you are. This is fantastic information to store in our brains. I would like to see all of these results as they pretain with the variables of barometric pressure. Because you are working with pressurized canisters I'm also interested in the evaporation/atomization flow rate factors at various atmospheric pressures. Pressurized Thermal flow rate variances with positive wind flow at different temperatures. A shame you can't also add elevation factors. As an example, using your present test parameters, is barometric pressure affective in fuel consumption? Example 2, is there a difference in fuel consumption at 2mph when the wind is +40F vs 0F? Great job, Sir. Looking forward to more of your experiments.

This was a very long video chock full of information. A little boring ...but 100% worth the watch. Very interesting AFTER having watched it haha

You have done it again!! Thank you! Can't wait for the next episode on various windscreens! And I see from the comments that you are considering alcohol stoves at some point. Be still my heart! Hoping you can include a Trangia burner in there somewhere!! Wishing you the best.

Awesome as always. I do wish you had included a fully enclosed burner system like the MSR Windburner. It's efficiency in wind is superb, but where is the tipping point for weight vs. performance ? It's other features such as having a radiant burner head, bowl, strainer lid, cannister stand, and insulative sleeve/handle would have to be teased out, but the results would be edifying! Of course, essentially it has a built in wind screen (a safely designed one for cannister fuel) so maybe it will appear in the subsequent video. Side note: aluminum foil lids tend to blow off in wind right when you might expect the greatest gains from thier use, in my experience.

Missed hearing from you, don't be such a stranger. Maybe smaller videos that share veteran hiker tips to fill the mean time between these in-depth scientific studies. Anecdotal and subjective info could be presented separately. Any stories you have about food prep, gear that has been a life saver, dissappointment, etc.? Story time is always fun.

Great video. Even though a lot of conclusions can be arrived at by theory, it's good to know they bear out in practice. I do wonder, though, if the aluminum foil lid will stay on in that level of wind or if it will fly away. If so, maybe putting a weight on it, such as a tent stake, stick or rock on it would hold it down.

Amazing content as always! I for one can not wait for the next installment of this. I submit the humble request to include an analysis of heat exchangers like on the bottom of a jet boil or the msr one that wraps around the outside. Particularly how much flame spilling do they help recapture!?

I'd be really interested to see how alcohol stoves compare, but I suspect the weight savings for the fuel containers will be easily lost on the burner weight and accessories. I wonder how the trangia fully enclosed set would perform with wind if that's an effective design. But again the weight of it surely will never be worth the fuel savings Thanks for your work!

I would love to see an MSR windburner or a jet boil in the wind ! Great vids as always !

Intriguing counterintuitive results on the offset-from-center tests with higher wind. I suppose that as wind speed increases, the hot spot right above the burner, on the bottom of the pot becomes much more dominant relative to the rest of the flames - as you stated, due to the decreasing density of the said flames. Perhaps, past the tipping point, having that hot spot centered on the bottom of the pot allows for optimal heat distribution on the metal and into the water, (as well as maybe creating a better, more symmetrical, benevolent convection cycle in the water?) Also, if the hot spot is close to the wind-facing wall of the pot, it's basically closest to the coldest wall of the pot as well, likely increasing loses. Just some pontification! Love your videos and every pedantic moment of them!

Great video. One question is how windy does it get on the other side of the tent, or in a partially opened vestibule? In other words, what is the highest realistic wind speed that is encountered while backpacking?

A thought on the decreased efficiency conundrum with off-centered containers and wind. As the wind increases some of that wind hits the pot and travels down not just off to the sides. It would then travel down and hit the burner displacing outward from there. Initially in low wind that might help as the downward air would have little effect or possibly even force some of the heat back down and then under the container. In higher wind tough the downward air disperses the flame to greater and greater degrees before it even get under the container reducing how much actually reaches it in the first place. Just a hypothesis, I'm not a thermal engineer nor did I stay at a Holiday in last night.

Omg, this is so freaking valuable. Amazing stuff mate!

Thanks for all this excellent work reported clearly and with a dry sense of humor. I want to note that the Triflex pot support for the Soto Windmaster gives a lower total weight than with 4-arm support (67 g vs 87 g) and thus lighter than the MSR PRD at 80 g, so that's another alternative if my cousin Graham Phobic ever tires of his BSR. And the Triflex supports are level and not angled if that helps.

I was waiting so bad for a new video 😍 thank you 😊

Another excellent vid. Thanks! Confirms my suspicion that the fancier stoves only provide a tiny amount of resistance to the lightest breeze. If there is real wind (over 5mph), then a windscreen is necessary, no matter which stove you use. 34:17 With a good windscreen the BRS is very nearly as efficient as a more expensive and heavier stove. Looking forward to the windscreen tests!

what about solid fuel vs isobutane weight / efficiency ratio?

I have a Windmaster and a BRS so I've seen it happen, but I'm still surprise just how little wind it takes to seriously impact the BRS's performance. NC State University maintains a weather station on Fryingpan mountain near Shining Rock wilderness. I pulled the top of the hour wind speeds for the past year and then classified it as over/under 5 or over/under 10MPH.. 71% of all hours in the last year reported speeds over 5MPH, and 39% of the hourly records were over 10 MPH. Without a solid plan in place to block the wind, the BRS isn't even a viable option and even the Windmaster would likely struggle.

A remote canister stove is 31g heavier than a canister-stop stove. e.g. for the same burner head, the Fire Maple 117T 106g vs canister-top 116T 48g is 58g but the canister-top should have a canister stabiliser 27g so the difference is actually 31g. As a remote stove (can be) lower then wind speed is naturally lower (friction from ground where wind is zero grows with height) AND you can use a windscreen without the risk of stove / canister overheating. You don't have to re-run your tests you could just alter the height of the wind speed test and measure speed at height then infer from what you've already done. i.e. if you measure the wind is 1mph lower by 2 inch lower you can infer that a 3mph canister-top performance would be similar to a 1mph remote-canister system and then fuel saved calculated then compare with added weight of the remote part. I don't own a windspeed tester so I can't do that first part myself.

I never tought I would learn so much on boiling water on the trail, but here I am taking note at every of your videos. Thanks a lot for this, my friends will find me a bit intense on my next trip! Already, I’m learning that the effect of wind is greater than I imagined. I do carry a windscreen made of light aluminum foiled, I check your next video see if this make sense or not! I don’t know if it got mention at one point (so much information), but when comparing options weight, if I need to bring an extra canister (or bigger) canister in a trip, the weight of the empty canister should also be considered. My 227g canister weighted 374g when full, so 147g empty. If I use the BRS in the wind, and this force me to have two canister instead of one, it is 374g total more that i need to carry.

Once again, thank you very much for making this video Sceptic, I have just changed over my whole cook system from a trail designs. Keg f which is immensely light to an alpkit Kraku stove which is just a heavier duty version of the BRS. I too was concerned about fuel consumption from a breeze, my solution was to buy a bear bones TI mag windshield which is essentially a thin sheet of titanium with some magnets which attach to the bottom of the canister weighing at 7g! The alcohol stove is my go to for shorter trips and for longer thru hikes I prefer the canister setup as fuel density is greater on gas meaning I carry less weight? What are your thoughts on this? Additionally, what your safety thoughts on using a windshield attached to a gas canister, mine gets particularly warm enough so that I am considering punching some ventilation holes lower down near the canister. Cheers

How many hours did you spend getting us these awesome nerding out facts?

the answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind

I wonder if some stoves have a venturi that handle wind better, and what that would look like.

Great video! Love the information and thank you for doing this.

I'm impressed the BRS held its own though in ideal conditions. My go-to for winter and challenging weather has been the elusive "Reactor". The next step would be to source windscreen, cozy... Stop wind and retain heat in the container of choice. I am positive we can all attain somewhat remarkable results without having to spend many hundreds of virtual pesos.

Some part of the efficiency loss in wind is the wind directly stealing heat from the sides of the vessel - I wonder if a carbon felt pot cozy around the circumference would make a difference, or if the vast majority of the losses are just the flame movement. A tall windscreen would help both of course, but a pot cozy is multipurpose since it can be used to lift the pot and keep food warmer longer.

Fond memories of being out hunting, in a freezing gale trying to dig a hole so the wind would stop blowing my spirit burner out. My friend was very smug with his gas burner until the canister froze.

A true champion! Incredible data!

You remain a National Treasure and must be protected at all costs.

hello gear skeptic refering to your gear hiking video about hiking recovery what are some ingredients I could buy as a plant based eater to create a good recovery mix.

Thanks for your patience, thoroughness, and clear explanations!

Curious to see if things like the Trail Designs Caldera cones will make an appearance when discussing wind screens! I'd love to see your level of analysis applied to those things

Thank you so much for this, I love all the data.

Oh Great & Powerful OZ ! I heed thy words

Excellent stuff!

Great video! Please be careful with heat shields and wind screens. Some manufacturers warn that an aluminum foil windscreen can overheat the fuel canister and cause it to explode.

I used empty freeze dried meal pouches creased/folded lengthwise, then leaned the v-shaped pouch against the pot as a windscreen. You can use up to three pouches by overlapping them while leaving the valve handle exposed.

Excellent myth busting using scientific method there. Would love to see something on alcohol stoves

I’d be interested in your analysis of pots with metal fins on the bottom such as the JetBoil Stash.

The wider pot moves the pan higher up from the burner. The narrower pot keeps it closer to the burner. That’s what causes the biggest difference. The Soto wind master has a flat pot support so that the pan always maintains the same distance from the burner.

Another factor that may effect the shifted pot results, are the burn marks underneath the pots. A dark spot in the middle will absorb more heat than the more reflective outer areas.

Sciency

That's it! Thanks for watching my TED talk.

Oh you are good, you are real good, factoring in all relevant variables, thank you.

So having concluded a wide pot on a low flame in the previous video it's now raise the flame in wind and a narrower pot wins in the windier conditions. So as we can't always know the weather conditions we're left deciding what exactly?

I've been subbed for 3 months now, just posting my first comment. I'm so glad I found your channel, the deep dives you perform on equipment is exactly what I've been searching for. Too many channels will only say, "Well, this is good gear because.....) Then, go on to extole its virtues without explaining why, or comparing it to other similar types of equipment. "The Grayle" comes to mind, the greatest thing since sliced bread. So everything we used before was sub-par, and only now admitting it?, which I've been told, watching other channels. That's all for my ramblings, Thank You so much for your channel.

Great video. I now know, based on my experience and your video, that I hardly ever cook with my BRS in >2mph of wind exposure. Because the small canister usually lasts me at least 16 boils. I achieve this by placing my food bag and food items on the windward side (usually freeze dried meal pouches) and I also look for rocks in the environment. Would love if some sort of "improvised wind protection" was in Part 3 of your excellent series!

Thank you for a very informative video. I am anxious fot the windscreen episode. I am confident it will be excellant.

unbelievable work. the major takeaways I always want are the neat tricks and knowledge like watching for those cherry red edges of the stove supports!

With respect to the anemometer, what is the difference between the average reading and the peak reading? Great video!

As ever, super informative. Thank you for your efforts, they're very much appreciated.

Another excellent video. You are doing God's work sir.

great vid as always! I always recommend your channel to any backpackers i meet

Much appreciate your thoroughness, and as usual, bravo! You must have settled thousands of person hours of online discussion on this topic :)