Liquid Fuel - MSR SimmerLite

Advantages

• Light weight
• Faster boil times

Disadvantages

• MSR no longer produces this stove
• Uses more fuel to achieve faster boil times

Notes

• Pack weight: 11.5 oz. (327g)
• Single fuel: White gas

What terrible name for this stove. Luckily I bought this stove for its weight, not for the promise the name implies. Like almost all remote liquid fuel stoves the SimmerLite does not excel at "simmer". If you need "simmer" capabilities you need to look at the MSR DragonFly, Optimus Nova, or Optimus Nova+. From a quick search on the Internet MSR took quite a bit of flack for the inability of the poorly named SimmerLite to actually simmer.

I actually like this stove, but I only use it to boil water (or melt snow). Having previous experience with the inability of remote liquid fuel stoves to simmer, I never thought too much about the name. You know a name is after all just a name. My regret is that one of the lightest liquid fuel stoves is now off the market. Since, I almost exclusively, backpack in North America where White gas is always available, a single fuel stove is not a disadvantage.

The burner technology for the SimmerLite is similar to the WhisperLite.  If you look at a WhisperLite stove vs. a DragonFly stove you will see many differences but the one I am referring to is the burner where the WhisperLite has a typical gas stove type flame spreader, while the DragonFly has a inverted bell with a concave flame spreader. The result for the SimmerLite is a much quieter operation.  The inverted bell and concave flame spreader of the DragonFly make like a small jet engine.

One interesting note is that the MSR Windpro II stove is the canister stove twin of the liquid fuel SimmerLite. So MSR is still making the burner, but just jetting it for canister. Too bad there is not a conversion kit. If the name was the reason they quit sell this stove. MSR should have just changed the name and re-marketed the stove. Luckily the pump is identical to the WhisperLite so if I ever need to replace or repair the pump I can. Since all the seals and O-rings reside in the pump I am also covered with the Maintenance kit.

My use and testing show that the stove boils 2 cups (~500 ml) of water using a MSR Titan Kettle in 3 minutes using 3/5 oz. (by weight) of white gas.

Liquid Fuel - MSR DragonFly

Advantages

• Liquid fuel
• Fine grain adjustable flame
• Efficient

Disadvantages

• Weight penalty for adjustable flame
• Noise level (not quiet)

Notes

• Multi-fuel is: White gas, unleaded auto fuel, kerosene, diesel, jet fuel
• Pack weight: 16.8 oz. (475g)

There are two things to note about almost all liquid fuel stoves with an external fuel bottle. I say "almost" because I know of a few stoves that solve either one, or both items. Inverted canister stoves share these same issues to some extent.

First, external liquid fuel bottles stoves are basically designed to boil water. These stoves lack the fine grain flame control required to simmer. Which I discovered on a trip, when I tried to make pancakes. My only excuse was that it was my first extended trip and only my second trip ever with the stove and I just did not think about "simmer" since I usually only boil water for dehydrated food.

With the fuel bottle some distance away from the stove, and the valve controlling fuel flow located at the bottle you can begin to understand the issue. With the valve open, the liquid fuel with pressure from the bottle pushes down the fuel line, then spews through the jet, where it ignites and burns to boil your water. If you close the valve to decrease the flame, less fuel is delivered down the fuel line, and less pressure pushes it. What I am trying to say is that the flame begins to sputter. It does not go out, but it no longer burns at a constant level.

While you can simmer, the stove really functions best at higher flame output.

The MSR DragonFly addresses the flame adjustment issue, and does so very well. The DragonFly adds a second valve at the stove just before the jet. This allows you to leave the fuel valve open to deliver fuel at pressure to the stove, then restrict the amount of fuel delivered through jet controlling the flame. The only penalty you pay, is the slight increase in weight caused by the hardware of the second valve. I measured the weight difference of my WhisperLite International to the DragonFly at 2 oz. (~55g). Note that the stove utilize different burner technologies so the weight difference cannot all be attributed to the second valve.

One other thing to note is that the DragonFly burner technology, shared by many liquid fuel stoves from various vendors, is rather noisy in operation. The WhisperLite uses a different burner technology and is quieter in operation.

Second, when finished using the stove, and you have closed the fuel valve. The fuel line remains full of fuel. While the fuel in the line is a very small amount, it will still seep out. I you immediately pack the stove after use (and cooling) then you may get fuel on something in your pack. You will definitely have a fuel smell in your pack. This is not a major issue, just something to be aware of. There are a couple of stoves that address this issue, and I will discuss them in the future.

My use and testing show that the stove boils 2 cups (~500 ml) of water using a MSR Titan Kettle in 3 1/2 minutes using 2/5 oz. (by weight) of white gas.

Liquid fuel - MSR Whisperlite International

Advantages

• liquid fuel
• reliable
• Quiet operation (not silent)

Disadvantages

• Stove becomes covered with soot if primed with white gas or kerosene
• Requires priming

Notes

• Multi-fuel is: White gas, unleaded auto fuel, and kerosene
• More suited to boiling
• Pack weight: 14.9 oz. (421g)

You will notice that I did not list multi-fuel as either a pro or a con. I do all my backpacking in North America and white gas is readily available and I have no need to use kerosene. I have tried kerosene with this stove, and it does work very well. However, the priming for kerosene leaves the stove heavily covered with soot that gets on everything. As the stove heats to a glowing red, the soot detaches and floats in the air. When it lands it leaves a black soot stain. You will get soot on your hands, the storage bag, clothing, and even you pack if you are not careful. So I just quit using kerosene. Since I use denatured alcohol to prime the white gas, I do not have any soot reside. However, alcohol does not burn hot enough to prime the kerosene! If you use white gas to prime the stove, you will have some soot to deal with.

The stove comes with a heat reflector, a windscreen, storage bag, pump, maintenance wrench, o-ring and pump cup oil, and instructions in several languages.

The stove does not include the fuel bottle.  MSR fuel bottles are available in three sizes. 11 (~300 ml), 20 (~600 ml), and 30 (~900 ml) fl. oz. models. The fuel bottles now come with a "child proof" cap that only adds weight (28g). MSR sells an expedition fuel cap for a price that weighs 11g. An empty bottle without the cap is 86g. When I purchased my bottles the expedition cap was the standard. I really dislike the new cap so much that I have looked at other vendor's bottles. Unfortunately I discovered that all the vendors have gone 'CYA' with the new heavy useless caps, and sell the ones you really want for an added cost (which I think is too high).

My use and testing show that the stove boils 2 cups (~500 ml) of water using a MSR Titan Kettle in 3 1/2 minutes using 1/2 oz. (by weight) of white gas. A full 11 fl. oz. bottle will hold about 8 oz. of fuel (by weight).  You can do the math. I used the Whisperlite International in the Wind Rivers of Wyoming for a week cooking (boiling) for two people and came home with a half full bottle of fuel.

My "go to" liquid fuel stove

I have never really given up backpacking. The first few years after I married my wonderful wife, our outings became mostly day hikes that could be done in the area. I still managed an overnight trip occasionally. I took my young son on several trips where he carried a small day pack, and I carried everything else. I still remember our first overnight trip. I was so worried that he have a good time, and that I was prepared for any emergency. I carried an 85 lbs. backpack. Of course my son was about 5 years old at the time.

When my son entered scouting in the mid 1990's and I was ask to tag along as one of the "dads", I began to inventory my gear. Several years at a desk job had convinced me that I was no longer willing to carry an 85 lbs. backpack. One of my first gear changes was, once again, a stove.

Doing some research and visiting several outdoor stores, I discovered MSR stoves. There was a very limited backpacking stove selection in most stores, and most of the stoves being sold were canisters stoves. Not the canister of today, but canisters that had to be pierced when attaching the stove, and could not be disconnected until the canister was empty. Very few liquid fuel stoves where on the shelves in my area.

MSR was well represented, and as I did some investigations, I was impressed by the ability to field maintain the stove. A maintenance kit could be purchased and carried. The fuel container could be attached, detached, refilled for each trip. I decided that I liked the Whisperlite International stove. I thought the ability to use kerosene was important since it was less volatile that white gas. I soon purchased the Whisperlite International stove.

Two decades later I still have that original stove. I have never had any field issues with my Whipserlite. I have used it in sub-zero weather, altitudes about 12,000, and one week long outings using less that 5 oz. of fuel. I have learned that using kerosene is not something I would recommend. It is messy. Priming the stove is difficult because kerosene need a higher temperature to vaporize. It leave a heavy soot on the stove. I would only use kerosene if no other fuel was available!

Until recently I had great faith in MSR and their product line. In recent years it seems that the product quality and product selection has diminished. I have no hard facts to back up the decline in quality, other than several product failures I have had in the last couple of years with new gear. I must note that MSR has been quick to replace the failed gear, but that didn't help much when my new water filter failed on the second day of what was supposed to be a four day outing! I like to blame this on their acquisition but a larger company, and on more worry about the bottom line as big companies seem to do. Don't get me wrong, their equipment is still better than almost any other equipment that I have compared it to. Just maybe not, in my opinion, what it once was, or still could be.

Would I recommend a MSR Whisperlite International stove? Yes, I would. The stove meets and/or exceeds expectations and is still my "go to" stove. At about 15 oz. (in the pack weight) it is not my lightest liquid fuel stove, but neither is it my heaviest, and I am not counting my Peak 1 stove.

3 1/2 minutes to boil 500 ml water using 1/2 oz. (15g) of white gas in a MSR Titan Kettle.

Note: Some time ago I started tracking my fuel use by weight, not volume. I made things simpler for me. I could weigh the fuel bottle or canister on any scale and know how many boils (meals) I had in the bottle and how much weight I was adding to my pack. No conversions to specific weight and volume required.  So when I say 1/2 oz. of white gas, that is by weight!

Learning from mistakes

As I was putting away my alcohol stoves, I began to reminisce. Sitting on the shelve were the stoves that I have acquired over time, beginning in the mid to late 1970's.

My first backpacking trip should have soured me to backpacking. As a scout, I was not involved with the planning, but as I recall we were supposed to hike every other day. Fishing on the off days. The first night out, the plans changed as the adults talked with people on the trail. We ended up hiking every day from daybreak to dusk. We went down a wrong fork for most of a day.

Instead of vowing to never go backpacking again, I realized how unprepared I really was for the trip. My pack was home made, and very heavy (without gear). Cooking on an open fire after extremely long tiring days was a bad experience.  Heavy sleeping bag. No map or idea of our planned path. The list could go on and on.

We lived in a small town and, looking back, I realize how tight money was for our family.  Even then my parents were able to get me a new pack for Christmas. Later they contributed a better sleeping bag, and even added backpacking tent. I still have all that gear. The bright orange pack never fails to remind me of the many trips I took as a youth.

Since water filtration was not a necessity at the time, the most important problem for me to solve was the cooking over a fire. It took significant time, blackened cook ware, and left a scare on the land. Without any knowledge of backpacking stoves and without ready access to any data to do research, and with only one sporting goods store in town, my choices were limited. The local store catered more to fishing and hunting than anything else. Everything in the camping section seemed to have the Coleman label. My older brother, by nearly a decade, was into scouting as a leader and had just purchased a Coleman Peak 1 stove. So I did as well, mostly because the Peak 1 was the only stove available to me at the time. The stove is heavy (1 lbs 14 oz. or 837 g)  and bulky. But this stove solved my dilemma at the time. The attached fuel chamber and pump work flawlessly. The Peak 1 also has a built in jet cleaner. The folding legs make a steady platform. Liquid fuel so I could use the stove in the winter

Coleman still sells a version of this stove today as the Sportster and markets it as a backpacking stove. While I bought this stove in my youth, I cannot recommend it for backpacking today. There are too many better choices and over the course of the next few post I hope to explore them.

Stove preferences

The last few days as I have posted about some alcohol stoves causing me to reflect on how my stove preferences have changed, yet remain the same.

When I first started using a stove, I did very little research and chose a stove because someone I knew had the stove.  Selection was limited at the time, research difficult (no Internet), and funds were tight. My selection was a Coleman Peak 1, now marketed as "Sportster II dual fuel™1-burner stove". Other than color, mine is black, the stove appears identical.  Now the Peak 1 is heavy and bulky, but after much use and many trips I began to get an idea why a stove was a basic backpacking necessity.

Cooking over a wood fire may sound fun, but it really is messy, difficult, and time consuming.  While a backpack stove is none of the above.  Of course today, fire restrictions are in place in most, if not all areas.

My next stove was another liquid fuel (petroleum) stove. I enjoy winter camping and the liquid fuel stove alternate, a canister stove, was not a viable option for temperatures at or below freezing. Canister stoves also did not perform well at altitude, and I backpack at or above 10000 ft regularly. I also regularly enjoy winter camping. So I bought a liquid fuel stove that has a remote fuel reservoir. Today almost all liquid fuel stoves utilize a remote reservoir.  The obvious exceptions being the Coleman stove mention above, and the Optimus SVEA.  The stove I bought was the MSR Whisperlite International.  My Whisperlite is several decades old and I have never had an issue.  I bought the stove because of the ability to use kerosene. The reality, after using kerosene a few times, I went back to white gas because it was less hassle to prime.

After years of using liquid fuel, I was planning a trip into the Grand Canyon (Havasupai) with some friends. I was looking for something small and light, for a warm climate. As a result, I purchased my first canister stove on the recommendation of the local shop. It was the Optimus Crux, and it folds and stores in the concave bottom of a 8 oz. canister. The ease of use and convenience of the canister stove had me wondering if I should change from my liquid fuel stove.  Some investigation showed me that canisters still had low temperature problems and some minimal altitude issues. FYI, the fuel in a canister stays a liquid at following temperatures, butane 31º F, isobutane 11º F, propane -43º F. So in a mixed fuel canister at 0º F, only the propane will be available to burn, leaving butane and isobutane in the canister. If you do the math, you see that an 8 oz. canister has very little fuel available to burn even though the canister seems almost full. Some vendors have started making a remote canister where the canister can be inverted. These stoves use the propane pressure to push liquid butane to the stove. The stove then functions as a liquid fuel stove. Of course you still need to be able to light them before inverting the canister. The MSR Windpro II and the Optimus Vega are two such stoves.

Then came my alcohol stove phase. These stoves have absolutely no moving parts. Nothing to break down in the field. Their drawback is the heat to fuel ratio, which translate to weight you must carry in fuel.  More fuel is required to boil than either the liquid petroleum, or canister stoves. And alcohol stoves are very sensitive to wind since the flame burns without pressure.  Think candle flame. The slightest air movement deflects the flame (heat) from your pan.  Ultralight, fun to build your own, but ultimately for me, not my go to stove.

Then came my stove system phase.  The JetBoil, MSR Reactor are examples.  Both stoves are great systems.  My testing showed that the JetBoil suffers from wind.  In fact, I have had this stove blow out on me multiple times.  The Reactor does not suffer from wind, but is more difficult to light. Both stoves have a regulator, that makes the stove work on a much lower canister pressure. This helps the stove perform better in colder weather, and higher altitudes.  It is my understanding that both stoves have an over-heat kill mechanism that is a "one and done" system. If the over-heat triggers, the stove will no longer work and needs to be replaced.  Both stoves are extremely fuel efficient. But I continually worry that the stove will kill itself during one of my extended "no resupply" trips.  So I always carry a backup canister stove. I have become enamored with the Reactor, and I prefer it to the JetBoil.  The new MSR WindBoiler reminds me of the JetBoil, only without the wind issue. I actually dislike the bayonet connection of the JetBoil. I backpack and this feature is just in the way for me. So the WindBoiler does not really have a place in my pack. However, I must note that the WindBoiler contains the same kill mechanism as the Reactor, but with one difference. You can reset it, once. My pack configuration with the Reactor is to carry the Optimus Vega as my backup since it is small, light, and with the inverted canister has some cold weather capabilities.  Why not just carry the Vega. My 1 liter Reactor boils water in about 70 seconds, wind screens are not allowed.  The Vega, three minutes, and the use of a wind screen is almost required.

What does all this mean?

My preferred stove, especially for extended trips and all winter camping, is still a liquid fuel (petroleum) stove. It just gets the job done! I always have a fuel bottle with enough fuel for my trip. No need to carry a second canister, and then need to carry out the empty canister. FYI, for an 8 oz. canister, the empty canister weighs at least 5 oz.

For shorter trips, only a couple of days and not in the winter. I may grab the Reactor with the Vega as backup.

For overnight trips in the summer.  I may grab the Crux because it is small and light.

I almost never take an alcohol stove.  Not by any conscious decision that there is something wrong with them. I normally carry either a liquid fuel (Petroleum) stove, or the Reactor, so I seem to just take either one of those stoves and my alcohol stoves sit idle. The reason may be that I use my liquid fuel stove so often, that I feel more comfortable with it than any other stove and the Reactor still has me enamored.

Habits are hard to break.

Alcohol Stoves (Fuel bottles)

Whether you use a canister stove, a petroleum fuel based stove, or an alcohol fuel stove you must transport your fuel.

Years ago, I purchased two red Nalgene fuel bottles, a 500ml and a 1000ml bottle.  The year was 1978, and I had just purchased my first stove and I was looking for a way to carry fuel for that stove. The Nalgene fuel bottle label states "You can safely store white gas, kerosene, gasoline or stove alcohol in this fuel bottle".  The bottle has a pour spout that stores inside the bottle mouth. Nalgene no longer produces these bottles which to me is sad, because they make excellent alcohol fuel bottles.

Apart from the now unavailable Nalgene fuel bottles, I have never seen a fuel bottle labeled for alcohol available in my area. In my area I can purchase MSR fuel bottles or Optimus fuel bottles.

MSR fuel bottles

First, alcohol and aluminum do not mix well.  Alcohol causes the aluminum to corrode to a white powder.  MSR bottles are unlined aluminum.  Do not use MSR fuel bottles for alcohol!

Optimus bottles

While made of aluminum, these bottles are lined, much like soft drink cans. For an experiment, I placed some alcohol in one of the fuel bottles and left it for six months. When I opened the bottle, there was white powder around the O-ring seal, and the green outside paint was bubbled around the mouth.  Apparently there is a gap between the interior coating, and the exterior paint.  I would not use Optimus fuel bottles for alcohol.

Plastic

I have seen disposable water bottles used to carry alcohol.  While this works, those bottles are now so thin that I would not feel comfortable using them.  I suppose that you could use sport drink bottles since they are a bit more sturdy.  But I have found a bottle and a cap that I like better that any alternative that I have found, and the cap is the reason.

Trangia makes a plastic bottle specifically for alcohol. The Trangia bottles come in 300ml, 500ml, and 1000ml sizes.  What makes the bottle different than the Nalgene bottles, (besides the fact that you can still purchase them). The pour spout. Every time you use your alcohol stove, you must pour fuel into your stove. The ability to pour without spillage is extremely important. The Nalgene bottle was great because of the included pour spout. The Trangia bottle is better.  For the Nalgene, you opened the bottle and pulled out the spout, reversed it, and placed it back in the mouth of the bottle. You always got some fuel on you hands. With the Trangia bottle you turn the top nob, to pour you depress the top. When the stove is filled, you release the top, and turn the top nob to tighten the seal.  No spills, no mess.

Note that the opening of the Trangia bottle is the same thread pattern and diameter as the MSR and Optimus bottles. I have never broken the Trangia cap, but for the more paranoid you could use a more rugged cap, and carry the Trangia cap for pouring. Plastic is the way to go, find what works for you.  For me, I will use a Trangia bottle.

300ml, 500ml, and 1000ml bottles
placed on a 8.5" x 11" carbon felt
to show relative size