Cold Weather Tips for Gas Stoves

[hikin_jim]

Some of my recent posts have been a little heavy on the theory end of things. This post is nearly purely practical. Have a look at: Cold Weather Tips for Gas Stoves (that's gas as in a canister not gasoline, just to be clear)

HJ

[hikin_jim]

Crud! The link is bad. The correct link is: Cold Weather Tips for Gas Stoves.

HJ

[Tinker]

I think I remember reading all that stuff right here on Whiteblaze. Nice link for newbies. We all started there once upon a time.
Thanks.

[hikin_jim]

Yep, that one is pretty much the basics.

HJ

[Panzer1]

Second, start with a warm canister. Keep the canister in
your bag/quilt at night or in your inside jacket pocket (or something) during
the day.

I don't think that this is practical advice because I tried it many times. The results were:
1) keeping the canister in my sleeping bag at night made my feet cold all night long. Its like sleeping with a large ice cube since the canister is so cold. It will rob your body of heat to make the canister warm.
2) as soon as I get up in the morning, the canister chills up before I have a chance to make breakfast. That's because when I get up in the morning I have other things that I do before I get around to cooking breakfast. By then the canister is already cold.
3) The canister takes a lot of precious body heat to warm up; but chills very quickly.

Here's Panzers fool proof and practical advice:
1) leave the dam canister at home when the weather is cold.
2) don't be a cheap ass, have a seperate cold weather stove.

Panzer

[hikin_jim]

don't be a cheap ass, have a seperate cold weather stove.

lol. Thanks, Panzer.

I'll have to write up a separate post on alternative canister warming techniques.

HJ

[BrianLe]

Panzer1 said:
"don't be a cheap ass, have a seperate cold weather stove"

OR ... go stoveless. It is not, in fact, a given that you'll die in cold weather if you can't heat your food.
Caveat: of course if there's much of a chance that you'll have to melt snow to get water, then do bring a stove. In that case, maybe even go back to the bad old days of heavy white gas stoves (you need to crank out as many efficient btu's as possible if converting snow to water).

Panzer, for some reason whenever I see your posts, I always have the words and music to "Panzer Lied" running through my head ... schlecht, Gadget, sehr schlecht bist du!

On a more serious note, BPL had quite a lot of discussion already about ways to make a cannister work at lower temps. I personally tried out the technique of wrapping wire around the cannister and putting that in the flame; haven't had one explode on me yet, but I think in future I'll lean more towards having a little warming container of water that the cannister sits in. Maybe not as intellectually "cool", but I think it might ultimately be easier, as well as safer of course.

[hikin_jim]

OR ... go stoveless. It is not, in fact, a given that you'll die in cold weather if you can't heat your food.

At least for me, I sure like a hot drink on a cold day, and a hot meal at the end of the day is pure pleasure. But each to his own I suppose.

Caveat: of course if there's much of a chance that you'll have to melt snow to get water, then do bring a stove. In that case, maybe even go back to the bad old days of heavy white gas stoves (you need to crank out as many efficient btu's as possible if converting snow to water).

Honestly, I'm fuel neutral. I have more stoves than sense, so it doesn't make any difference to me which stove I use from a fuel perspective. I just bring what ever stove makes sense for the conditions.

So, having said that, gas and liquid fueled stoves, as a practical matter, are roughly equivalent in terms of heating power. I don't have the numbers at my finger tips, but the potential energy in the various petroleum based fuels are pretty close. Close enough in fact that burner design, jet aperture size, fuel bottle/canister pressure, etc. are what are really going to dictate the power output of various stoves more so than fuel type.

If you want to crank out a lot of BTU's efficiently, either gas or liquid will have rough parity, and gas is generally lighter to carry overall. Now, if you want to crank out a lot of BTU's cheaply then of course liquid fuel is the way to go, and there's no worry about canister temperature.

On a more serious note, BPL had quite a lot of discussion already about ways to make a cannister work at lower temps. I personally tried out the technique of wrapping wire around the cannister and putting that in the flame; haven't had one explode on me yet, but I think in future I'll lean more towards having a little warming container of water that the cannister sits in. Maybe not as intellectually "cool", but I think it might ultimately be easier, as well as safer of course.

Water works great -- so long as you can keep the water liquid. In really cold temps, 0F/-18C and on down, water may not be your best option. I'll probably put together a separate post, but in really cold temps the copper wire trick and the "use a windscreen with the canister inside" trick are going to be more practical although there's always a danger of overheating a canister in which case you're going to get a whole lot of "output" out of your stove -- all at once.

HJ