This DIY Hack Improves Your Canister Fuel Performance In COLD Weather
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I don’t think we should confuse “better” in one way as being synonymous with “best.” This is definitely the case with fuel types and stoves that use various fuel types.
I’ve often heard the declarative statement, “don’t use canister stoves in the cold.” That’s it. Full stop. Don’t do it. The implication is that canister stoves will perform so poorly that you’d be stupid to try to do so. There is no room in this statement for nuance.
Well, as you probably know by now, I love nuance. ;)
There is little debate that liquid fuel (typically white gas in the West) will outperform isobutane mixtures in the cold. Isobutane fuel types have too high of a boiling point, temperature wise, to efficiently vaporize in the cold. Additionally, any vaporization takes energy and that energy is drawn from the heat of the fuel, itself. So, as you vaporize, the canister actually gets colder, demanding more energy to vaporize and further dipping below boiling point temperatures. So, it becomes a vicious cycle of every reducing stove performance.
Liquid fuels like white gas are used by stoves that can use the fuel in liquid form, vaporizing in a tube that is very near the flame, and hence where it is hot.
There are inverted canister stoves that accomplish the same thing, keeping the fuel liquid until hitting a vaporizing tube. The catch is that with a liquid fuel stove, you have a pump on the fuel container that allows you to increase the pressure in the fuel container (by pumping) to ensure the liquid fuel continues to flow to the stove. Inverted canister fuel stoves rely on the pressure already in the canister, with no way to adjust it other than by temperature, as cold reduces pressure.
Inverted canister stoves are also not optimized to keep the liquid fuel delivery clean. The various valves and connection points can clog up more easily than a liquid fuel-specific stove.
So, when things get deeply, bone-chillingly cold, liquid fuel stoves consistently outperform the other alternatives.
There is a far-too-short summary, but let’s get real. Big climbs in tall, cold places use canister fuel. As I point out in the video, even in the coldest environments - Everest, polar exploration, winter ascents of 8000-meter peaks - we find canister fuel. Why?
Well, when things get truly gnarly with extreme cold and big wind and all of that, we are often needing the convenience and comparative safety that a standard canister stove can bring. There is no open flame. There is no fuel to spill. That matters if we have to cook very near or even inside (gasp!!!) our tents. (There is a learning curve to this, to be sure. Don’t just start cooking in your tent without amble knowledge of setup, venting, and all the ways this can go wrong.)
You can’t sit outside your tent and cook in -35F (-37C).
But all of that need doesn’t simply wave away the performance issues canisters have in the cold. So, we need ways to keep our canisters warmer and functioning better that don’t dramatically disrupt the convenience and safety factors that canisters bring. While there are many ways to do that, making a warm-water bath is one way, and is the subject of this video.
If you do want to mimic our setup, here is a list of all of the materials you will need to construct this DIY solution:
-a grommet press with 3/8 inch (that’s 9.5mm) inner-diameter grommets and eyelets
- 1/8 inch (3mm) diameter elastic cord with cord locks
So, it’s a pretty simple setup. But it is kind of a case in point: no gear is the “best.” Yes, liquid fuel stoves work better in the cold… until things get so cold that the temperature becomes a secondary rather than primary (e.g. don’t burn down your tent) concern.