Can anyone give some suggestions for a small lightweight stove suitable for minimal kit bike packing, it will mainly be used to boil water for a cuppa.

I’ve had trangia before and like the simplicity of meths and one pot, but a trangia is more heavy and bulky than I want, my worry with gas ones is that they will always run out when I need it (I had a little calor stove that would do exactly that, I think he gas leaked as I didn’t use it that much).

So basic requirement is reasonably compact so I can use it on day out bike rides without it being a pain to carry, something that will go in a carradice barbag im thinking, reasonably fast to boil, can boil enough for two decent size cuppas so maybe 600-800ml capacity.

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/15908177/fire-dragon-multi-fuel-cooker-15908177/

Oooh, sorry for massive url [mod edit, FTFY], but the Army issue stove with alcohol gel block fuel is the thing you need. One block will boil 500 mls of water and then some, easy to carry, easy to clean.

If you head over to the bearbones forum there is tons if advice and diy too.

Thank you for the mod!

The alcohol comes in blocks and is easy to carry, easy to source, can be used as a hand cleaner. You can also ‘control’ it by blowing the fire out when you’re done boiling. You can also use alcohol hand sanitiser gel as fuel if you need to.

https://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/shop/?product=ultralight-22g-meths-stove

There is a smaller/lighter one but not really up to two cuppas at once.

https://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/shop/?product=ultra-ultralight-8g-meths-stove-2

I used the White Box Stove on a two month tour. No complaints.

https://www.backpackinglight.co.uk/cookers-and-stoves/RB105.html

I’ve a white box stove you can have for free, my bikepacking/bivvy days are passed 😊

Gimme a message if ye want it for price of postage, 2 quid or summit.

I’m sure I know where in the garage it lives….🤣

reasonably fast to boil, can boil enough for two decent size cuppas so maybe 600-800ml capacity.

Depending on what you mean by reasonable meths/gel/solid fuel stoves could struggle with this. If you think ten mins plus* is reasonable then such a stove will suit you, if that’s going to tax your patience then it really needs to be gas. If you want to give gas another go then an Alpkit Kraku and a decent windshield is a good option.

*I’ve had 600ml boil in 7.5 mins using the design I linked in the video but that was in my garage. Real world boil times can be a good bit more depending on conditions even with a good windshield. Personally I don’t mind that if I’m just sitting around at a campsite or in a bothy but not everyone agrees.

Speedster stove here.

Despite initial concerns, it’s lasted well and pretty robust.

I combine it with old Alpkit ti mug and home made wind shield.

https://speedsterstoves.co.uk/

Bearbones 8g stove is worth having just for the novelty! It’s small enough to take out walking the dog and making a brew while they run around!

But as above, expect a cup of water to take 8-10 minutes at least. And if it’s cold/windy/raining or you use too much water it may well never boil.

Alpkit kraku (and the tens of variations thereof, mines the ‘original’ fire maple Ti version) on the other hand, will burn whatever is in the mug in seconds, and go on to boil water quicker than you can get the teabags out.

Gas stove is obviously heavier. Meths is maybe 8g + 150g of fuel. Gas is 50g + 200g canister (plus mug, windshield, flint etc for both, maybe a stand). Realistically your looking at half a lb extra weight for gas. Not a massive amount to worry about, but it all adds up when you take a slightly heavier sleeping bag, bivi, tarp, mat etc all weighing 0.5lb more than they need to.

Then there’s jetboils and their copies, I’ve never bothered, you would need to be treking across the poles to makeup for the weight in gas saved.

My decision is usually – 8g stove for an overnighter to just make beadtime tea, morning coffee, instant porridge, etc. And the gas stove for anything else.

Isn’t the default the MSR Micro/Pocket Rocket?

Then there’s jetboils and their copies, I’ve never bothered, you would need to be treking across the poles to makeup for the weight in gas saved.

I too am a massive non-fan of jetboils. If you are unconcerned about weight, bulk and versatility (i.e. you just want to boil water) they might work for you but if any of those things are a factor for you then there’s much better options out there.

Not as light as some, but about half the size of a standard Trangia, you can get the Swedish Army version…

It works as a standard meths burning Trangia, but can also be used with solid fuel (i.e. twigs and sticks) or hung over a campfire with the built in hook.

Very robust and really versatile with the fuel/cooking options.

OP, YGM.

Isn’t the default the MSR Micro/Pocket Rocket

Not for me any more.
I have two gas stoves of mine, two more in the household.
For a day/one night I often take my 6g titanium hex stove.
For more than one day I take the speedster more often than not.
In cold or really bad forecast I reach for the Edelrid ti pocket rocket style gas stove.

I had a Pocket Rocket but now use an Optimus Crux. Performance is much the same but it folds away smaller and will fit into the concave lower of a 250g gas cartridge.

Paired with an Optimus Weekender cookset you get the advantages of the heat exchanger (less fuel/more even heating) and a big enough pot for two cuppas.

This guy is pretty small and light …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XNLSNFR/?coliid=I2KEW9RVIW46R2&colid=2AQVUZVRDXQGR&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

I too am a massive non-fan of jetboils. If you are unconcerned about weight, bulk and versatility (i.e. you just want to boil water)

I like my jetboil as it’s really quick & pretty immune to wind. The newer ones have a simmer function which makes them really good for cooking. I have done spag bol, curries etc in mine. Don’t think they’re especially heavy but yes they are bulky so I don’t always take it!

Day trip with some friends in Finland: chilly, so a hot lunch was the plan. no caffs, so stoves and dehydrated meals. 3 jetboils and my 22g bearbones stove. They’d pretty much finished eating by the time I’d boiled my water. Any advantage I might have got from lack of weight and bulk was well and truly beaten by speed.

I still use my micro rocket with an Alpkit reactor type pot (early Brukit?). Using the pot saves at least 30% gas which over a week allows you to go longer on one canister possibly without carrying a spare.

My ‘cooking’ is limited to adding water to stuff so pukka chefs may need to look elsewhere.

Depends what compromises you want to make really.

When bikepacking you tend to be short of space so stoves like the DIY alcohol/meths stoves are ideal, even more so if you are just boiling water as they don’t really have a simmer option. A Jetboil on the other hand takes up nearly as much room as my entire bivy kit! The downside to meths are that it isn’t energy dense, doesn’t like cold and doesn’t like more than a gentle breeze. Yes it’s slow but if you are bivvying then does taking a couple of extra minutes to get a boil going really matter?

I’ll sometimes take a small gas stove and canister – the smallest sized canister will fit inside my mug – but it’s usually my homemade meths stove.

Once it gets really cold then petrol starts to become the better fuel especially for longer trips. Of course, it too has its downsides – bulky and pressurised containers, explosive nature, etc.

The above reminded me: I’ve an MSR X-GX stove, it’s nearly forty years old and the plastic pump had perished so a few months ago I got a new pump for it but for whatever reason I hadn’t fired it up 😋 (That’s right, MSR still sell parts that work on a forty year old stove!)

A litre of fire juice in the bottle. Attach fuel line to fuel bottle. Pump to get pressure. Open valve and let some fuel into the preheat tray. Use the flint ignitor to set that going. A minute or so later and there’s gasifying going on so open up valve again and let it rip. Except …

It spluttered a bit. So shut everything down and waited for it to cool down (about ten minutes!), I’d got the kerosene jet fitted not the gasoline one. A quick swap over and repeat the above process and … there’s the familiar Saturn V roar of old.

I’ve deep fried chips on this stove at 4000m on Mt Kenya, it’s got history! According to the blurb on the fuel bottle, 1 litre of fuel will either melt enough snow to make 24 litres of water or will boil 24 litres of water.

The above reminded me: I’ve an MSR X-GX stove, it’s nearly forty years old

Mine is only 30 years old – almost new!! Something very reassuring about that roaring flame. Not light or compact, though.

Has anyone used the Bearbones 22g stove with an Alpkit mytimug or similar? 10cm ish base and 650ml volume. What kind of boil times did you get with a full mug?

I have a little Lixada wood gas stove that runs on sticks, alcohol or just about anything else that burns. It’s awesome and only £13 off ebay. We mostly use it on the beach for cooking sausages plus boiling water.

I have a few slithers of inner tube plus a clipper lighter to speed up the lighting process.
It’s the one I have for the forthcoming zombie apocalypse

I have the gas powered Trangia. It’s one of the best bits of kit I own. It’s perhaps not super packable but it’s lighting quick to boil water.

I’ve cooked some tasty meals on the pans too..

I’ve messed about with quite a few pop can meths stove designs lately. Obviously there’s a hard barrier in terms of speed and efficiency due to the fuel. The best I’ve managed is about 7.5 mins to boil a full mytimug using c25ml of fuel, a speedster wind shield and the design I linked above (the one needing only scissors a knife and a single can). Most of the other designs are 10 mins plus in the same conditions.

Has anyone found a design that does much better on either parameter (but mainly speed!)?

Has anyone used the Bearbones 22g stove with an Alpkit mytimug or similar? 10cm ish base and 650ml volume. What kind of boil times did you get with a full mug?

My Speedster does a half mug in about 5-7 mins. This assumes I’ve got the windshield and base reflector, it’s above freezing and not a howling gale. I can usually boil two full mugs or three half mugs per full fuel load.

Below freezing or strong wind increases this a lot. You get good at hiding the stove behind walls, rocks, tent etc….

I don’t mind the extra time – it shaves a lot of weight and cost from my gas stove or eldest_oab’s FireMaple copy of a jetboil.

Alpkit Mytimug 650 with 500ml of water on a homemade pop-can stove (side burner) with windshield and reflective base takes about 7mins. The starting temp of the water was that of normal tap water so 15-20C or so?

It’s not really about speed though, you’re going to be pitched up for 8-12hrs depending on time of year so another couple of minutes isn’t going to make any practical difference.

Boil speed has never been a factor for me. Never been in a rush so the extra couple of minutes are an irrelevance. Just set it going then set up your tent/tarp. It’ll be ready long before you’ve finished faffing around with guy ropes.

I’m a big fan of my Trail Designs Caldera stove, the only thing I don’t like is it can be a bit rattly in its case but otherwise pretty much perfect for me. A big factor in this might simply be I’ve got used to it’s characteristics in terms of temps etc. The wind shield is highly effective. I also have two full size Trangias which I’ve owned for year’s which probably influence the ease of use.

I’ll occasionally take a Pocket Rocket if conditions seem like that might be a better choice.

To be honest, neither are expensive or heavy so owning both was easy enough to do.

OK. Did a test, two actually. Both stoves indoors on the stone hearth of our fireplace. Stoves and fuel spent a couple of minutes in my pocket to remove the chill from where they’d been stored, quite important with meths but the masses involved are small so it’s easily done.

1. BB 8g stove with windshield. 400ml Alpkit Mytimug with 400ml (well just below brim full) of tap water. Filled the stove – approx 15ml of fuel I think. 9 mins to a boil.

2. Homemade pop-can stove with windshield. 650ml Alpkit Mytimug with 500ml of tap water. Filled the stove with enough fuel to reach the top of the “dome” in the base, probably 20ml. Surprisingly it also took 9 mins to bring to a boil.

Both stoves ran out of fuel about 30 seconds after the water began boiling.

I thought there might be some figures about the BB 22g stove so did a search and:

The “controlled conditions” were: 500ml of tap water at approx 18degC; 750 ml Ti mug; stove mounted on cardboard+foil pad; vertical Ti windshield; still air; Rezillos on the player.
As Stuart mentioned, 750ml pot is a lot of pot to heat up, then again 18degC is probably more than “stream temperature” so maybe those balance out. Surrounding temperature was obviously June and not Winter-Bivi.

22g stove: 30ml of fuel. Bloomed in 1m56s (bit long that, must be broken), rolling boil at 9m33s, ran out at 10m45s.

So it looks like that stove took 7mins 30secs or so to bring 500ml to the boil.

As part of my search on those forums I also came across a post of mine where I’d done similar tests some two years ago and got a boil time of 6m30secs so it looks like my stove has deteriorated 😰 Might need to make a new one.

10 mins is a lifetime on holibobs. Make sure you get something that can shorten the experience to under 7 mins if possible 😉

Or…

Something Bob mentions is the effect of cold on both fuel and water. I’ve recently taken to using meths instead of gas (partly weight, partly the  part-used canister issue, partly the waste issue). However, meths is a real problem once it is really cold. Unless pre-warmed, the fuel won’t even light and then it struggles to heat up very cold water. Gas (winter mix if necessary) lights immediately and, though pressure drops whilst in use, will heat a cold pot of water in a still reasonable time.

…

As someone who customarily lugs a volcano kettle or trangia cookset around in a pannier or backpack I’ll get me coat…

I think technically meths itself doesn’t burn, it’s the vapour rising off the surface that mixes with oxygen and burns so the meths has to be warm enough to vapourise. A small plastic container of 100-150ml of meths doesn’t take long to get up to body temperature and that’s enough to ensure vapourisation.

You’ve also got to allow time and fuel for the stove to “bloom” and get to its operating state. Most meths stoves are of twin wall construction and the initial burn creates vapour in between the two walls. This pressure builds until jets of gas are forced out of the burner holes and are ignited by the main flame -“blooming”. At this point you can start to use the stove. There is a learning curve with them in that you have to work out how much fuel you need for a given amount of water in any particular pot/mug along with the ambient temperature. It’s also a case of if you want 300ml for a dried meal then only heat/boil that amount of water.

I’ve used my meths stove at -6C but didn’t record how long it took to boil. But using a meths stove at those temps is as much an exercise in pig-headedness as anything. I certainly wouldn’t use one to melt snow or ice for water.

It’s not really about speed though

I’m not massively fussed about speed, if I was I wouldn’t be messing about with meths stoves! However, if there’s a design of similar weight that can boil significantly faster with similar fuel consumption then I’d definitely be interested. It looks like I’m not going to get massively better than the ones I’ve tried.

MSR X-GX

Do you mean XGK? Still got my original, still working. Brilliant things in a simple, effective sort of way. But a proper sledgehammer solution for any sort of civilised use.

My take, fwiw, is that a Pocket Rocket-style gas stove has the advantage of just being super simple to use and easy to regulate. You need to go with a winter blend in sub-zero conditions. JetBoils are best thought of as a sort of gas kettle – adjust menus to suit. If you want something that works in pretty much any conditions, MSR’s Reaktor is incredible. Go to gas mountaineering stove.

Trangia’s? No thanks.

Yes and no! I did mean XGK but it’s actually a GK 😉 – MSR’s nomenclature is a bit of a dark art and there doesn’t seem to be a one-to-one relationship between name and variant. Here it is in “priming mode” –

the shot was taken at about the point the announcer would begin his countdown and you’d have to don ear defenders!

It is very definitely a specialised piece of kit: a month in the Arctic? Take the MSR. Pottering around in the English countryside? Take something else. Anything else! Its original design brief was to melt large amounts of snow and ice for high altitude expeditions.

If I was still alpine climbing I’d take a gas stove with a Butane/Propane mix cylinder. Quick, convenient, compact and you don’t have to wait twenty minutes for the thing to cool down.

@spin – you aren’t going to get significant variations in the speed of a meths stove, or at least not without going to some form of pressurised system. There is only so much fuel and therefore heat energy that can turn to vapour at any one time for a given surface area. Most of the design variations are about limiting unburnt vapour.