If I could only have ONE camping stove for all my backpacking trips

today's video is sponsored by surf shark vpn as you can probably gather i'm going to be talking about stoves again today it's another one those silly videos where i imagine that i don't have any of these stoves and if i could only have one which camping stove would i buy so over the years i've used many different types of stove from wood burning stoves solid fuel tab stoves loads and loads of different alcohol stoves and the most popular of them all is probably the the gas canister stove i have had a lot more than this actually but as you can see from the table they all come in different shapes and sizes and they also have different price brackets too the biggest differences though are the fuel types that they use i'm not going to go into them all in great detail as i've probably done a video of all of these bits of kit somewhere i will drop links in the description below if you want to see any of those so i'll start off the chat with wood stoves wood stoves are great because they they've got a pretty much endless supply of fuel again they come in different sizes shapes and budgets this one's quite expensive but i have used cheaper models like the lexada this one is obviously more durable but at the end of the day some of the cheaper models have worked perfectly fine for me wood gas stoves are also great and they're very efficient next stove i'll quickly touch on is the alcohol stove so the one i've used the most of is probably the trangia this is the 27 model i think there's a variety of different pot supports for these so this is just a cheap one from amazon but you can also get the the more expensive trendier triangle which is brilliant by the way another great thing about these is the fuel is very cheap and you can pick it up from most hardware stores and even some supermarkets and corner shops alcohol stoves are very simple at the end of the day it's just a small bucket that you fill up with some kind of fuel and light it there's very little that can go wrong with them um however you do need to be careful if you're using them um near your tent but if you knock them over unless it's something like this one which has got you know a gauze and a mesh inside it and which soaks up the alcohol because if you were to knock this over anywhere near your tent the whole thing could go up in flames in no time and then you're in a bit of a pickle the alcohol that i use i take in one of these little nalgene bottles i use bioethanol i get it from b and q that's um a hardware store in the uk it's about eight quid for two liters the next type of stove i use is a canister stove um there's two types of these really so this one is just the simple screw on type this is the msr pocket rocket so this just screws on top of the gas canister you turn on the valve light the stove and then you're away these again there's very little that can go wrong with them and they come in different shapes sizes and budgets this is the smallest one that i have of this type this is the brs 3000 i think this is titanium weighs about same as a ladybird i think very small not as efficient as the pocket rocket but you know it's great for a backup in your pack um or if you're going ultra lightweight when it comes to your backpacking again something like this just screw onto the canister and away you go so one thing to bear in mind if you're using this kind of stove and alcohol stoves is that you probably need some kind of windshield and brought one with me today but if you get a lot of wind it will blow the flame away from your pot and so you really want the heat to be protected concentrated around your pot that'll reduce boil times keep the efficiency up on your stove so next up we've got the integrated stove system so you've seen me using this a hell of a lot lately this is the jetboil i've used a number of different types of these basically the stove the pot you can usually fit a canister inside pot support everything goes inside here really compact units but these tend to be a lot heavier than if you want something say the storm in norman co which is a fraction of the weight of one of these but these boil really really fast so if time is of the essence then you know something like this would be great so some of these stoves can be quite expensive so for example soto windmaster i think this is 40 to 50 quid i can't remember off the top of my head this is just like one of these canister stoves um so this one's about 30 pound the msl pocket rocket which again is not that cheap but if you're just starting out you can get something like this which is just a cheap version of one really um i think these are made in china though so if you're not into your chinese goods at the moment um you might want to avoid this but it works perfectly fine you screw this onto your canister this one's even got a piezo igniter on it so turn it on and there we go and this one here is only about seven or eight quid where it was that one's 30 is there a lot of difference well there is in performance um and a little bit on efficiency but but if you're not splitting hairs then maybe look at something like this alcohol stoves are probably the cheapest because you can just make them yourself this one here as you can see is just made from a tonic water can i didn't make this myself this was bought from the late storm in norman um but there's loads of tutorials on the internet on how to make these and the penny stove is a great little project for you know for getting your kids involved if you're into camping and stuff like that you must have had a go at making a penny stove at some time if you haven't i recommend you have a go at it it's really easy to do and then you've got the most expensive kind of stoves which is a jet ball this is anywhere between 100 150 quid something like that depending where you go is it worth the money i like it so to me it's worth the money um but i wouldn't recommend this to everybody if you only go in every now and again camping this is probably a bit of overkill when you can get away with something like this right before i go into choosing which one of these stoves that i would have if i could only have one i'm going to narrow the list down a little bit because some of these yeah they're not gonna make the top four and i'll quickly explain why but before we move on drop me a comment below let me know what your favorite stove is and why i'd be really interested to hear your views and if you've got any of the stoves that i've got on show today let me know what you think of them so the brs stove is quite cheap probably 10 15 quid i don't know exactly anymore but for me it wasn't very reliable wasn't very efficient so for that reason i'm going to to discount this particular one next up is the appalachian avenue stove now this one is like a multi-fuel stove so i can use um this is a little tiny wood stove and there's also an alcohol stove with it which isn't too bad the alcohol stove this is ideal if you're in a pinch so you could little grill pan here this doubles up as a little wood stove where you just feed wood into it put your pot on and cook that way if you wanted but but it's too my new and it's incredibly expensive for what it is this is over 100 pounds for this kit and it really isn't worth the money one that i regret buying so that one can go away for now so next up these are great if you're just starting out but they are quite dirty um so it is a gel uh fuel stove so this is from uh fire dragon bcb i think make it these make the stoves for the military so basically you put the stove sorry basically you'd put the gel fuel in there take it out the wrapper light it and then you would put your pot on top of the stove and boil your water or cook your food but they do produce quite a lot of salt so you get that black stuff all over the bottom of your pot um so it's quite messy for me so i'm not gonna bother with that even though it's only about a fiver for the whole thing which is great value what else this one was a little bit of a tougher call um i was going to choose between the soto wind master and the msl pocket rocket overall the pocket rocket has been a better stove for me i have done a test with the windmaster the pocket rocket and the jetboil and this actually performed the worst a lot i think although it is good in the wind because it has a low height on here um i do prefer the pocket rocket so this one is going to one side and this will make my shortlist wood stoves so i've used these quite a lot and they are great if you're doing some woodland camping but most of my camping these days is up in the hills and mountains so these are not ideal at all so there's no wood stoves gonna make my shortlist even though the fuel is free i'm going to discard this cheap stove just because i have got better ones here so this stove is great for beginners but it's not for me so that leaves me here with my final four stoves i believe it is so let's get them lined up so first is the pocket rocket too this is so easy to use turn it on boils your water really quickly it's got a decent swimmer control actually and these three little blades here are great for you know keeping it lit even when it gets quite windy weighs virtually nothing and it's a decent price under 30 quid so this is a well worthy contender on my shortlist of stoves big thanks to surf shark for sponsoring this video so in the wilderness of online content there's lots of website out there that take your data without you even knowing it but by using a virtual private network like surfshot vpn you can stop these websites from tracking your data and then sending you targeted adverts etc another cool thing is surf sharks hack lock id protection where you will get alerted when some nasty piece of work tries to log into your email or similar accounts but one of my favorite features about surfshark is that can view content that's not yet available in the uk i'm a huge fan of the series blacklist and they're not all yet available here in the uk but i'll just log in with surfshark pick a server over in the usa for some reason i tend to pick chicago and bingo i can stream the latest episodes right to all my devices i also find it works great for certain sporting events so if you want both protection of your data and freedom to watch content online then click the link in the description below and use the promo code paul messner it not only gives you a whopping 83 percent off the regular price we also get three months free surfshot do offer a full 30 day guarantee so there's no risk to try it out for yourself so once again big thank you to surf shark next up we have the trangia mini burner i do really like this stove it's so versatile i can use it with many many aftermarket pots let me move this a minute so you can see the stove this little pot support just sits on top however it doesn't allow you to put the simmering on whereas if you're using the trendier triangle put the stove in here you can still fit the simmering onto the stove then so if you want to control your temperature a little bit more that gives you a lot more control for if you're cooking more delicate foods one issue with the trencher triangle though is that it's not great for taking smaller diameter pots and these three supports here are great for frying pans or kettle so i have this aftermarket custom made ring here which was made by alan thank you alan that just fits over the top here and this allows me to put small pots on no bother at all you can also pick up the whole stove now um be careful though this does get a little bit warm sometimes and it's also very stable so the chances of you knocking over your alcohol pot are drastically reduced so this stove has worked for me in all different temperatures so when it's really cold below freezing i'll just make a little wick out of tissue paper so i just roll it up really tight like that drop that into the stove and then when you light the wick the stove burns really easily even when you're alcohol it's freezing cold putting the stove out is straightforward too you just take the simmering close it off drop it on top and that extinguishes the flame so next up on the list for me is the storming norman cone this weighs literally nothing so it's just a cone which rolls up and fits inside your pot the stove is just a simple alcohol burner that goes in as well normally with something to stop it rattling around and this probably weighs about 100 grams something like that i don't know i've stopped weighing stuff now i realized that carrying a bit too much timber to be worrying about a few grams on this stove so putting it together you just interlink these leaves your alcohol goes into the stove only put a little tiny bit in light the stove put the cone over the top of it so that gives you full wind protection as well and that just slots inside the cone and it gives you the perfect height from flame to pot i'm gonna put that out as well just smother the flame be careful if these have been burning for a while because they can get very hot this little stove is great if you just want to boil water not brilliant if you want to put something like a frying pan on because it just doesn't work right as i've said the fuel is cheap as chips and i like that it all packs inside a very small pot another worthy contender on the shortlist last one on the shortlist for me the jetboil minimo this is my current go-to stove and i love it everything fits in this pot apart from the gas canister i can actually fit a small one of these canisters in if i remove the frying pan support comes in this little bag as you've probably seen before the stove part just screws onto the canister this again has an igniter built into it so you just turn the valve stove lights really easily i would recommend with all stoves that you take a spare lighter or a ferro rod as well just in case this ignition system was to ever fail you can still light it then with a lighter and then once your stove is lit your pot just fits on top now one of the great features about this kind of stove it has a heat exchanger built into the bottom of the pot so this makes the stoves really efficient boil times rapid it's also got an insulation sleeve around it so this also keeps the heat in lid as well all-round brilliant bit of kit for me um it does come with an additional pan support so you can get away without using this this pot this goes on top here and then your frying pan or saucepan or whatever it is goes on top there and you just cook as normal the simmer control on this stove is really fine and accurate so it's great for cooking omelets those kind of things i did do a video a few weeks ago about a cheaper version of these um comparing the two together and to be fair there's not a huge amount of difference between them so if you're just getting into backpacking and camping and you want something that's not quite as expensive as this then and maybe look at that video and look at the cheaper versions of the jetboil because you might find something that is perfect for your use however i can't recommend this enough even though it is very expensive so let's get this packed away and i'll pick a winner shala so let's narrow this down a little bit shall we the first one of these four that i'm gonna discount is the storming cone although it's a brilliant bit of kit it's a little bit of a one-trick pony for me as in it's just great for boiling water it's very lightweight very compact and if i'm eating dehydrated meals and then this is the perfect stove for that situation however if i want to go cooking steak and asparagus or salmon fillets then this isn't the right stove for that application can't control the temperature can't really put a frying pan on it so for that reason i'm going to discount that particular one next up i'm going to reluctantly discount the pocket rocket 2. again brilliant lightweight stove um i do i do really like this i've used it many many times and it can do pretty much everything that i want it to do it's not quite as efficient as the jetboil but yeah that is it weighs virtually nothing packs a lot smaller however this has got the pot included but this can fit in to tiny little pots if i need it to but it's personal preference and i prefer the jetboil gas stove over the pocket rocket too so this is it world cup i mean pot final um which one of these would i choose if i could only have the one well my favorite stove is the jetboil minimal however it is not the stove that i would choose i would choose the transier with the transier triangle the jetboil is great very expensive there are things on here that could break um the gas that you have to use is also expensive and you can't get it everywhere so if you're out on a sunday evening and you need a gas canister you just can't pick one of these up it's quite bulky and it is meant for this one pot really although the jetboil frying pan that i've also got is a brilliant bit of kit and works with this really well but that makes it quite a large package but the main factor for not choosing this one would be the price that leaves me with the winner the transgear 27 burner so i've had this thing for years um the only thing that i've ever had to replace on it is this little rubber seal that goes inside and these are really expensive about one pound fifty you can also store your fuel inside it but i always take a little bottle of bioethanol with me and if i ever run out you can pick up methylated spirits or ethanol from most filling stations corner shops pretty much anywhere anytime the stove is pretty much indestructible i reckon i could stand on that and it wouldn't break if i drop it it's not going to break i have heard of instances where people have had the solder and start leaking around here so they don't store their fuel in this but i've never had any issues with mine one downside to this stove is that you can't just put your pot directly on top you do need some kind of support with it so you can pick up something like this this is only about four or five pounds from amazon and that allows you to put your pot on top you will probably need some kind of windshield i've just made one out of foil which goes around your pot very easily but you can buy them for under a tenner if you don't want to make one yourself the boil times on these are pretty slow but i'm never in any rush i'm there to enjoy the the views the scenery and if it takes a few minutes longer to pour my water then i'm not really bothered this burner is about 15 pound you can get copies of them which are cheaper but i say for that money buy the original it comes with a simmering as well so you can vary the height of the flame which gives you decent temperature control so you can still get away with cooking more delicate items if you want to definitely recommend you checking out alcohol stoves but be very careful if you've never used one before because this stuff is lethal if you spill it a knocked over alcohol pot a flame and a tent are three things that don't mix i do really like the transgear triangle i do wish that they'd made something to support smaller pots but you can come up with something yourself this one was made for me but you could just put a couple of tent pegs over the over the sides here like that and then rest your your pot on top of the 10 pegs and it works perfectly fine i've done that many times the great thing about this without dropping it is that it folds perfectly flat comes with a little bag but this can go in any little sleeve in your look set could also put that in there if you want but i tend to keep this either in the pot or in a plastic bag just in case it ever leaked that's it for this video my two favorite stoves this one gets used the most at the minute and it's probably my favorite but the transgear so if i could only have one it would have to be this it's great value for money compact reliable brilliant brilliant bit of kit thanks again for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: Paul Messner

Views: 200,004

Rating: 4.9062438 out of 5

Keywords: camp stove, camping stove, jetboil, jetboil minimo, msr, stove, msr pocket rocket, trangia, alcohol stove, msr stove, gas stove

Id: ZUPiIU7hnB8

Length: 24min 41sec (1481 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020