This has been a work in progress for a few years now and I’ve used multiple pots and stove combinations, like a half a dozen of each, in the process. It was easy enough to find a lighter pot/stove combo than a Jetboil, but nothing I came up with could compete with the efficiency of the JB. The way I figured, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense having a system that was lighter than a JB, but nowhere near as efficient, and I’d just have to carry more fuel. It wouldn’t be a problem if the hunt was just for two or three days, because any canister fuel system would work just fine using a small (100 g), fuel canister. The problem is, I never go hunting for just two or three days. I only go on a few hunts a year, but I never go on a hunt that is less than 10 days and many times they are upwards of two weeks.
I decided to just focus on putting together an ultralight canister fuel system because I like the simplicity of the canister, and I didn’t want to mess with Sterno or alcohol.
With a bunch of testing from many different stoves (Pocket Rocket, PR2, BRS, JB’s, a couple different Soto’s, etc.), I came to the conclusion that the stove itself didn’t really make any difference in regards to the overall efficiency or how long it took to bring said pot of water to a boil, all the stoves would bring the water up to boil very quickly, but they would all fail miserably when compared to the efficiency of the JB. Even the JB stove became inefficient, when coupled with any regular aluminum or titanium pot. And like I said before, efficiency was my main concern, as I really don’t care if it takes two minutes or four minutes to get the water boiling. Although, in past tests I would include the time as well because some people want to have that info.
So, it quickly became evident that it is the pot design that makes all the difference. The heat conduction “fins”, on the JB pots are ingenious (I think JB came up with that design, but I’m not certain), and although they do add some wt. to the pot, they easily make up for it in efficiency. The neoprene sleeve on the JB also helps with efficiency and easily makes up for its wt. penalty, plus I like the built in heat indicator.
So, I could have just taken one of my JB pots and coupled it with my favorite UL stove, and called it good. The problem I had with that was, I felt that the JB pots are all unnecessarily big for my application, and I really didn’t want to go about cutting it down, then having to file the sharp edge and find a suitable lid, etc. I also wanted to do this on the cheap, and destroying a JB seemed counter productive to that idea.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, someone on here had mentioned a cheap pot that was exactly what I was looking for, only it didn’t come with a neoprene sleeve, and the lid was way too heavy. I bought the Sterno pot on Amazon for $24, and in order to get free shipping, I just went ahead and ordered another BRS stove for $15.
The BRS is hands down my favorite stove. It’s very inexpensive, waaay lighter than the competition, just as efficient as anything else, and so far, has been very reliable. I’ve been using the same BRS stove now, almost exclusively, for the last 5 years without any issues whatsoever.
I bent the feet on the BRS, to make it easier for the stove to fit up into the pot, and fit more stable in between the fins, and I also went ahead and did some cutting and stitching on the JB sleeve to make it fit the new pot. The JB lid is not perfect fit, but it stays on ok and it’s fairly light wt.
In the past I’ve pretty much only eaten Mountain House, and 16 oz. of water is the most that any of them use, so that’s what I’ve looked for in a pot. Just this past season I started taking Peak Refuel, which most use 8 oz. of water, and some even less than that. I’ve stocked up on several hundred dollars worth of Peak and, I think going forward, this will be my preferred meals, so based on that, a canister of fuel should go much farther.
My typical stove uses in the past have been about 24 oz. of water in the morning for a MH meal and coffee, and approximately 32 oz. in the evening for another MH and a hot drink. Going forward I expected to cut that down to about 11-16 oz. morning, and 19-24 oz. in the evening.
Here are a few pictures of what each of the items weigh individually.
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