Thread: All about gas stoves.

Part 4 - Multi-fuel stoves.

All that stuff about our canister pressure being dependant on the gas temperature is a hassle isn't it? I wish we could just not worry about the temperature and make our own pressure!



Introducing the OG of cold weather stoves. The multi-fuel stove.
With this type of stove we're going to be using a fuel that will not boil off (very much) at normal temperatures we are likely to encounter. Because it's not going to boil off and it's not going to create it's own pressure inside that container. We are going to have to create the pressure we need using a manual pump located on the end of the bottle. You'll also notice it shares similarities with the last stove we talked about. See that preheater loop? Same deal expect this time we are going to pump the bottle up to pressure then open the valve and let a small amount of liquid fuel through into that bowl on the bottom of the stove. We'll close the valve again and then ignite the fuel. It's going to burn and make a tallish flame which is going to heat up our preheat loop. As the flame starts to fade we slowly open our valve again and now the liquid fuel flows down the hose and vaporises when it goes through the hot preheat loop. The vapour fuel then flows out and is ignited by the flame. We have a functioning stove now.

Multi-fuel stoves are what hard-core polar explorers use for good reason. They'll work in temperatures that will kill a human. They have limitations like any system of course but the most important of these for us hunters is probably the set up hassle of them and also the priming/preheating process is not great because we often use our stoves in our tent vestibules (naughty hunters).



Alright I've touched on the fundamental types/principles of stoves but be aware there is so many stoves out there now that combine aspects of each of these types I can't list them all. It's up to you to properly research any stove you may own or be thinking of purchasing to determine how it works exactly.

I'll do a big loop back to the start next and talk about micro-regulated stoves vs jets.