How low will a cannister go!

[Venchka]

Silicone measuring cups. Take a canister to a place like Bed, Bath & Beyond or Walmart and find a cup that the canister fits. Cut off what you need from the cup. Based on the cups I own, I'm guessing that a one or two cup size should be about the right inside diameter.
Hobby stores might have copper sheets. Find an appropriate thickness & cut to fit.
Velcro straps. Good for use on your pack too.
http://www.velcro.com/products/ties-...ize=27in x 1in
Good luck!

Wayne

[Sarcasm the elf]

I routinely use my first generation jetboil down into the single digits using the 4 season fuel. It takes a little monkeying with it sometimes and I keep the canister inside my jacket while I set up camp to let it warm up. Usually when it's that cold it takes an extra couple of minutes to boil water, but it still does it reasonably fast.

[misterfloyd]

Thanks guys for the intel. I was really surprised H. Depot, or Lowe's did not have it.

I'm in hot pursuit as we speak!!
Floyd

[sliverstorm]

@cmoulder did you ever come up with a trick for the Reactor? What altitude were you running at, and how cold was it, when it started to crap out on you?

[cmoulder]

No, not really feasible to employ the heat shunt idea because of the burner design. I'm sure there's somebody out there smart enough to do it, but it's not a hack I'd want to undertake.

The initial disappointment was around 5°F at fairly low elevation, perhaps 1000 ft at the most. Fortunately it was a simple overnighter with a buddy of mine and we managed to melt enough snow for breakfast water needs, but it wasn't easy.

[Kaptainkriz]

Finally tried this, left my canister outside all night and temps were around 15F this morning. I'm using the small canister refilled with butane, and it is mostly empty. Without doing anything I opened the valve and no gas came out at all. I warmed it in my hands for a few seconds and it lit, but was weak. In under a minute with the copper strip in place it came to full power. For a small canister, one of those silicone wristbands works great to hold the strip in place:
image.jpeg

[cmoulder]

Finally tried this, left my canister outside all night and temps were around 15F this morning. I'm using the small canister refilled with butane, and it is mostly empty. Without doing anything I opened the valve and no gas came out at all. I warmed it in my hands for a few seconds and it lit, but was weak. In under a minute with the copper strip in place it came to full power. For a small canister, one of those silicone wristbands works great to hold the strip in place:
image.jpeg

Very nice! Good idea with the silicone band, and a good job matching the curve of the strip to the canister. If it gets much colder a cozy will help, especially when using a larger canister. In that case, a larger piece of silicone is needed to cover the copper strip.

The first time I tested with straight-up n-butane I was astonished. Here was a stove operating at full power near 0°F with no propane or isobutane in the mix.butane test start room temp.jpg

[Another Kevin]

I personally find that there's no temperature range for me that's right for a canister. When I use a priming pan with my alcohol stove and start it with a wisp of toilet tissue, it burns reliably down at least to about -5°F. That's already in the range where I start worrying about having to melt drinking water, and neither alcohol nor propane/isobutane/n-butane is efficient enough for that. That's when the Whisperlite starts to shine.

Then again, I'm a patient man. I was out once with Elf when he boiled the water for my morning coffee because he didn't want to wait for my alky stove to do it.

[cmoulder]

Hmm. I've melted snow for water with canister stoves quite a few times. In the past I did a whole bunch of snow melting with Whisperlites and XGKs, but I now prefer canister.

Denatured alcohol has about 1/2 the BTUs of butane, and butane has roughly 10% more BTUs than naphtha.

It would indeed take a whole lot of patience to make a quart of boiling water from snow using alcohol.

Photo: Turning snow into boiling water at 4°F with a Jetboil — no problem.
sumo melting snow on slide_edited-2.jpg

[zelph]

I personally find that there's no temperature range for me that's right for a canister. When I use a priming pan with my alcohol stove and start it with a wisp of toilet tissue, it burns reliably down at least to about -5°F. That's already in the range where I start worrying about having to melt drinking water, and neither alcohol nor propane/isobutane/n-butane is efficient enough for that. That's when the Whisperlite starts to shine.

Then again, I'm a patient man. I was out once with Elf when he boiled the water for my morning coffee because he didn't want to wait for my alky stove to do it.

Ahhhh yes, patience :-) it's a virtue ;-)

There are alcohol burners out there that have good capacity and flame size to melt snow when necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiPp2ZvL3h8

[Sarcasm the elf]

Then again, I'm a patient man. I was out once with Elf when he boiled the water for my morning coffee because he didn't want to wait for my alky stove to do it.

All this time I thought I was just being helpful and now I find myself accused of being impatient.

[zelph]

All this time I thought I was just being helpful and now I find myself accused of being impatient.

If you can let a coon lick your face.....you've got patience LOL