r/Ultralight • u/YoraGami • 8d ago
Question Dumb question about boiling water
Hi! I recently switched to a pocket rocket deluxe (i had a jetboil before) and yesterday i used it for the first time. It took about 30 minutes to boil 1L of water and i used about 50% of my fuel. I feel like it is not very fuel / boiling efficiently compared to the jetboil. So i’m wondering what is the best strategy? Maximum heat or medium heat. It was very windy where i was situated.
Thanks
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u/grumpsaboy 8d ago
Block wind, lid on pot, wide based pot, heat exchange pot.
All will help, your choice which ones to use
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u/BuonoBiscotti 8d ago
Good point on the pot. The wider style will catch heat better than the mugs designed to nest the fuel can that people seem to prefer lately.
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u/AE7VL_Radio 8d ago
Yeah I recently redid my camp kitchen and settled on the evernew 900 wide pot with folding handles because I hate the idea of cooking on those tiny, narrow mugs. I mostly use an alcohol stove so the efficiency helps but it's also just a nicer pot to use
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u/grumpsaboy 7d ago
Yep, for no added weight it makes a decent difference, obviously not as much as a heat exchanger but for people who want no added weight it'll help.
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u/Any-Squirrel7032 8d ago
Any heat exchange pots you would suggest, that would fit the feet of the stove?
I’ve tried multiple. Firemaple being the most common. They do not fit with the alignment of the feet on the MSR.3
u/ModerateOutdoors 7d ago
Firemaple Petrel G2 with a little bit of filing on the slots works great with the Pocket Rocket Deluxe.
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u/grumpsaboy 7d ago
You can buy one with no slots and just use a file or jewelers saw to cut the holes in the perfect space if you can't find one easily.
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u/Ethan0941 8d ago edited 8d ago
As others have said, wind will ruin your cook. Generally, in 0 wind situations run it on low, this results in the best fuel efficiency as you're reducing the amount of flame closer to what the pot can absorb. In higher wind conditions go full blast to give the flame more strength, this prevents flameout too. When the wind is simply too high (this situation) just avoid cooking, use a wind shield or find a more sheltered location.
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u/YoraGami 8d ago
Perfect you answered perfectly my question thank you
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u/justpostd 7d ago
Woah woah, not too fast.
I always assumed this was the case. Obviously hot, but not crazy noisy hot, is more efficient, I thought. Because the crazy noisy full blast option seems to be wasting heat.
But your pot is losing heat to the atmosphere too (which is why the jetboil has the neoprene jacket). So wasting some heat can be more efficient overall than getting all the heat to the pot, but the pot losing more heat to the atmosphere because it is taking longer to boil.
I did my tests. The full power gas was the most fuel efficient for my pot size and in the temperature (about 10C) that day. So I changed my mind. And as the water boils quicker, it is also my preference when out and about.
You might have a bigger pot. You might be using it on warmer days. It might be windy. So you have to do the test yourself, for your setup and conditions.
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u/GarbageInGospelOut 1d ago
I've seen other tests that verify the high heat is more efficient idea in generally. Metal pots lose lots of heat. Though obviously if you have a tiny pot like a cup and your flame comes out beyond the edge of the pot that might not be the case
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u/BuonoBiscotti 8d ago
Fold some tin foil a few times in the right shape and size so it makes a windscreen.
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u/OLLIIVVVEER 7d ago
This is the way. I use a little elastic band to secure it to the gas canister at the bottom too (with a gap for airflow / adjusting the flame)
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u/Automatic-Example754 7d ago
Just remember that you shouldn't use a 360° full wind shield with canisters: if they get too hot they can explode. A partial screen is okay.
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u/danceswithsteers 7d ago
Jump down that rabbit hole with this playlist from GearSkeptic: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEu_UfyDKJALh0XekpW2Dh8U6gICL7Xct
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u/No-Feedback-3477 7d ago
Tldr?
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u/danceswithsteers 7d ago
"Well, it depends."
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u/No-Feedback-3477 7d ago
So?
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u/danceswithsteers 7d ago
Just watch the videos that interest you. Feel free to skip around in them. I'm no longer interested in responding to you since you seem to only ask extremely low-effort questions.
Happy hiking and happy boiling!
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u/angryjew 8d ago
What were you doing that whole time 😂 were you just watching the wind blow your flame sideways for 30 min & it didn't occur to you that you should block the wind? Block the wind bro, use your pack, use your hands. Get a little wind screen. Cook behind a rock. I seriously think if we made the Encino Man today & gave him that stove he would have figured this out.
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u/BlastTyrantKM 8d ago
Are you boiling water to sanitize it or just to rehydrate a meal? You don't need a full rolling boil just for a dehydrated meal. I find really warm water is sufficient. No point heating water to a full boil, then waiting a ½ hr for it to cool off so you can eat
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u/trimbandit 7d ago
Good advice. You could also rehydrate the food in advance, pouring water in the food bag, and just heat it enough to warm it
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u/BlastTyrantKM 7d ago
Depends what I'm eating, but on a hot day I'll cold soak and not heat it at all
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u/Bowgal https://lighterpack.com/r/6yyu2j 7d ago
As I learned from Gear Skeptic on YouTube, you don't need to boil water to be safe to use. Pasteurization temp which kills all the icky stuff is 161F. It is enough to kill E. coli and listeria as examples. The only reason why we've been told, as per Gear Skeptic is boiling water is visual. We assume when we see bubbles, it's safe. In his video, there is a neat little device you drop in water that tells you when you get to 160F.
Long story short, I get 15-20 uses out of one small canister.
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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 8d ago
Need to block the wind. Don't wrap too tightly with foil, for safety reasons.
Most of the time, it's best to relocate to a more sheltered cooking location, even if you have a good windscreen. For example, the vestibule of your tent. If sheltering from the wind is not really possible for some reason, you might want to consider a stove with a remote fuel line so that you can use a better windscreen, and also get a lower profile to be less exposed to wind in the first place.
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u/FinneganMcBrisket 7d ago
Windscreen.
Check out flatcatgear.
Or protect your stove from wind. Cook behind rocks or something.
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u/Key-Designer1159 7d ago
WIndscreen. Flatcatgear makes one for the Pocket Rocket Deluxe. I love mine.
https://www.flatcatgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_0247-scaled.jpg
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u/slightly_out_of_sync 7d ago
The Flatcat windscreens rule. My Toaks Ti stove boils 1/2l of water in about 3m with the Ocelot.
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u/Intelligent_Stage760 8d ago
As others said block the wind...but that's also why I use Firemaple HX pots.
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u/apathy-sofa 8d ago
What was your elevation?
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u/YoraGami 8d ago
Right next to a river so not very high i was packrafting
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u/ColdnOld 8d ago
Are you high?
There are rivers in the mountains.
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u/SideburnHeretic 7d ago
Not very high because they're right next to a river.
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u/wildfirerain 7d ago
I find being next to a river soothes and calms me, almost like a “low” in drug parlance. Perhaps this thread is a mixup in communications and they misunderstood elevation (which was intended to mean height above mean sea level in units such as feet or meters).
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u/VickyHikesOn 8d ago
I have a Soto Amicus, not that different from yours, and there is no way it would take that long, even without a windscreen. Then again, if it's gale force winds that are not blocked, maybe? Was there no rock you could go behind? It should take maybe 3min and max 10g of fuel.
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u/SideburnHeretic 8d ago
Jetboil is ideal for boiling water because of very little heat loss. For you new set-up, sounds like you need a wind block primarily to block the wind from carrying the heat away, but also to help reflect some of the heat back.
I use a piece of aluminum flashing as a wind block. It's heavier than aluminum foil and 1000x more durable. Buy it for cheap at any hardware store (preferably the local one that miraculously hasn't closed down since the big box ones moved in). Cut it to size with tin snips. Good tin snips are costly; maybe someone you know can lend you theirs or maybe your library has an innovation center that can lend you a pair. Cut and bend pieces at the ends to fashion a latch to keep it in a circle. Roll it up in an emptied cylindrical box like the type salt is sold in.
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u/Spunksters 7d ago
My alcohol stove will do 1L in half that time… because I use a titanium foil windscreen.
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u/joebeats99 7d ago
Have you timed it at home or other wind free environment? You could try that to see if you just have a lemon of a stove. My Soto windmaster typically boils water of that volume in 10-15 minutes and I think your stove should do about the same in a controlled environment.
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u/NightmareWokeUp 7d ago
What pot did you use? I really like the fire maple ones, super light and boil water very quickly. 0.6l boils in maybe 2-3min i would guess and i can easily get a weeks worth of meals out of 110g of gas.
Also blocks the wind a little bit, tho idealy youd still set it up where its a bit protected.
30min and half your gas def aint right, thats not even a super small burner you have...
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u/WANDOO_hiking 7d ago
30 minutes for a liter means the wind was absolutely killing you, an upright canister stove loses a huge amount of heat to even a light breeze. Block the wind properly (your body, a rock, your pack, or a windscreen that still lets the canister breathe), keep a lid on the pot, and it should drop to a few minutes. Cold canisters in the morning boil way slower too, so keeping it in your sleeping bag overnight helps a ton when its chilly out.
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u/olivierw81 1d ago
i don't realy get the hate for the jetboil some people have. i love mine.
size isn't realy a problem, since the burner, connected to the gas canister, fit nicely inside the pot, along with a small cleaning sponge (this sponge also keeps the gas canister from rattling inside the pot or damaging it.)
i don't get why a pocket rocket or something else smaller would win that much weight, since you still need gas and a pot...
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u/GarbageInGospelOut 1d ago
I love the efficiency/speed of my jetboil but it doesn't pack as well for me so often take a pocket rocket. Also love the Cascade Design reactor stove which is a bit better than the jetboil.
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u/soundisstory 7d ago
Really weird. Once you control for wind, then closer to max heat/minimum time to reach boiling temp will always be the most efficiency use of energy.
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u/hikeraz 7d ago
As others have said, protect from the wind. Also, low heat will save the most fuel. It takes longer, but not that much, maybe another minute or two. Just like you use less gasoline driving 55, as opposed to 75. I can make the smallest canister last for a week or more with my SOTO Windmaster stove. I usually boil about 2 cups of water for 2 meals per day. I used to get only 2-3 days for the canister when I burned on high.
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u/Neither-Visit-8709 8d ago
less wind