I switched to Phil's years ago. A bit pricey, but for touring, worth it.
I rarely laugh for more than a couple seconds after reading something on this forum. Your post was an exception, laughed maybe five or six seconds.
Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
Good points/questions. The best stove solution I've found is the Optimus Nova. It does everything well, and it has a metal pump, which I like. It's easily field-serviced. It comes with a flexible SS windscreen that will go around most any pot. The pump has a nice feature where you turn the bottle over to clear the line and stove of gas before turning the stove off. If you'll use it again in the morning, you don't do that, just turn the valve. It boils water OK, nothing spectacular. It simmers fine, though like all these small stoves it only heats a small circle on simmer, so one has to be careful and stir. We usually wash our cook gear in the morning. The stove'll be cool long before we need to pack it into the pans we just washed. No soot or dirt, etc., either on the stove or pans. We burn Coleman fuel in it. For 10 days, we take a liter bottle 3/4 full plus a full pint bottle. We cook most of our breakfasts and all of our dinners and tend to be a bit elaborate. Others might use less fuel. I can't imagine anyone would use more.
To light it, one turns the fuel on until one sees a bit of fuel appear in the bottom of the stove, then immediately turn the fuel off and light the stove. As it heats, gradually introduce fuel again until you get the nice blue flame. It's a bit of a trick to use the minimal amount of priming fuel, a trick that's quickly perfected.
AFAIK, the stove does not have an altitude limit. It's supposed to be a multi-fuel expedition stove, though I've never tried it with anything but Coleman fuel. It's not banned from high risk burn areas. Some airlines say that they ban all gas stoves which are not new and boxed. However, we have flown with ours several times, both nationally and internationally. The surest thing is to run the stove through a dishwasher if possible. Fill the fuel bottle with a vinegar solution and tape a VINEGAR label on it. Before we had the Optimus, we had our Svea confiscated once. It has a wick in it though, so we couldn't get rid of the smell even though we filled the stove with water.
I never thought of the vinegar idea, that makes some sense. Coming home from Canada, a Canadian inspector wanted to see my butane stove, she saw it on the X ray, said if she could smell anything, she had to confiscate it. Smelled nothing (it is a butane stove, so has no odor), I kept it.
I flew with my Nova once. I decided it was not worth the hassle of cleaning it and the fuel bottles that much, decided not to fly with it again. But sounds like you do not mind the extra effort. I plan to just use butane for future trips that involve flying.
Optimus claims that the Nova works with kerosene. I tried that, did not work so good, but it did work reasonably well with a one third Coleman fuel two thirds kerosene mix. That said, I did a two week kayaking trip, the Nova was my only stove and most campsites had a National Park prohibition on fires. My Nova started acting up and I had to disassemble it to clean out some of the accumulated soot accumulation in the needle valve. Since that trip, I have decided that I will only use Coleman fuel in the Nova.
For those of you that are reading this and are unfamiliar with the issues of flying with a stove, this provides some very good info.
https://www.msrgear.com/blog/flying-...camping-stove/
I have an older Primus Omnifuel that I also like, similar design to the Nova. The Omnifuel requires a jet change for different fuel types, the Nova does not.
My Nova cooking up a pasta meal in Iceland in the photo, from my one and only trip where I flew with a liquid fuel stove. Every couple minutes I would switch pots to try to do a two pot meal on one stove.
