Tourist in MSN

In the past few years a newer type of butane stove canister has become available. And I suspect over the next few years bike tourists will see these more often and start to ask if they can use these on camping trips, and if so, how? I will try to answer some of those questions here, as I started asking these questions myself a few years ago when I first saw them.

The vast majority of us with butane stoves have been using canisters that are threaded onto the stove. Common brands of stoves available in North America are MSR, Primus, Snow Peak, Optimus, and others. In this forum post, I refer to these canisters as threaded canisters. There probably are dozens of different brands of canisters but they all look the same.

The photo below shows two threaded type canisters of different sizes and the two canisters in the middle are these new ones I refer to. Maybe some of you are familiar with them already, but I suspect most are not. I removed the valve caps for the photo so you can see the valves, but I always leave the caps on for storage. And it is important to leave the valve caps on the newer type of canister, as pressing on the tip can release fuel, the cap on top of the canister prevents that.




There have been a few times that I have seen these newer canisters sold at camp stores at larger RV parks. Recently one store in my community that caters to hunters and fishermen has started selling these canisters while their stock of the threaded canisters no longer exists, suggesting that the new type has displaced the threaded canisters in that store. In this forum post, I refer to these newer tall and skinny canisters as nozzle type canisters. Maybe they have a more formal name, if there is I am unaware of it.

Because the nozzle type canisters are becoming more available over time, I decided to look further into the practicality of using these nozzle type canisters when on a bike tour, since in the future they may be readily available in some locations where threaded canisters might not be.

Generically, the stoves that use the nozzle canisters are large table top type stoves that would be impractical for bike touring, or other forms of muscle powered camping, like backpacking, canoeing or kayaking. But for an RV, car camping, or for an afternoon picnic where weight is unimportant, they might be great.

TCS on this forum however did point out in a post a few months ago that at least one small compact light weight camp stove is available that fits on nozzle type canisters too. I am repeating this photo below from his earlier post:



That post was at this link if you want to read more:
Bike Packing Camp Stoves

Fortunately there is another option, an adapter that allows you to use a threaded type canister stove on a nozzle type canister. With this option, you could carry a stove for threaded canisters that you might already own and also carry the adapter, allowing you to use both types of canisters (threaded and nozzle) with a single stove. That way you could buy whichever canister is more readily available or convenient when you are shopping for butane.

If you ask about this option at a local retail camp store, they only tell you about what they sell. And they do not sell the adapters. So, I had to do this research on my own. I initially planned to buy two adapters and try them out, one with a hose and one without. But after I bought two, I saw a third adapter that looked like a very high quality machined adapter, I bought that one too for a total of three.

Last month I went on a two week backpacking trip. Typically for backpacking, I use threaded type butane canisters, as I try to pack very light when backpacking. But for this trip I decided to try out these three adapters with nozzle type canisters, as that gave me an opportunity to spend several days using each of the three adapters with a nozzle type canister for my camp cooking.

The three adapters are in the photo below:




In the photo the one on the left is the first one I bought, it is mostly plastic. It was the cheapest one I bought and it looks like it, but it works and appears to be sufficiently solid enough to hold up to camp kitchen use. Weighs in at 95 grams, this is the lightest of the three. In the photo, I forgot to extend the folded legs for the photo, but they are extended in a photo later in this post, when the legs are extended it is quite stable. Bought at Ebay, shipping from Asia can be slow, expect a month or two for delivery:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/353231854406

The middle one in the photo is the second one I bought. It has a hose that allows you to set the canister further from the stove, it has a tripod mounted remote stove support that will work with both thread-on and nozzle type canisters, this allows the stove to sit lower to the ground for better stability. And in my case, I have a short windscreen and the lower stove position works well with that. There is a knurled aluminum disc that is used to connect the hose to a threaded canister or the part with an inverted V with a circular part is instead used for the nozzle type canisters, both of these are shown in front of the adapter in the photo. I carry a short wind screen when backpacking, thus I plan to use this one in the future when backpacking, even if I am using a threaded canister. 190 grams. The purple box in the photo came with it, the parts all fit in the box. I have also seen these types of adapters for sale without the knurled aluminum disc, those will not work with the threaded canisters, will only work with the nozzle type canisters. Bought at Amazon, but it became unavailable from them soon after I bought mine, I do not know if they will get more in stock, the one I bought was at this link:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QX9P485/

This one is the same as the middle one above, but it does not have the part to use a threaded canister on it, only a nozzle type canister will work with it.
https://www.amazon.com/Dilwe-Convert...dp/B07DQMDG68/

Third one I bought was an extravagance, it is on the right. It looked like a much higher quality adapter than the first one I got, but this one functions essentially the same way as the first one. The three legs fold up to make it more compact for storage. I did not need to buy a third adapter, I bought it on a whim because it looked like a much higher quality device, and being a retired engineer I appreciate quality manufacturing. 145 grams. Bought from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/camping-moon-...dp/B08SQ89KY9/

All three worked. All three were made in Asia, documentation ranged from none to poor to not bad. It took some effort to figure out how each one works, but it was not that hard.

In all cases, the nozzle type canisters are used on their side. And the nozzle type canisters have a square shaped cut out in the flange on top. The cut out part of that flange must be oriented up when the canister is lying on the side, vapor phase fuel is drawn out of the tank when the cut out part of the flange is at the top. Some canisters are also labled - "this side up" - but some are not. If that cut out is not oriented at the top, you could get liquid fuel into your stove and have flareups which should be avoided. And for that reason, it is best to hold the canister either upright or with that cut out side of the canister up when you attach or remove an adapter to reduce fuel loss.

Generically, if you use a nozzle type canister on a bike tour or other camping activity, keep the red plastic cap on top of the nozzle type canisters when not in use. Pushing on the top of the nozzle without that cap will release fuel, and you do not want to accidentally do that inside your pannier or pack. Thus, do not lose the red cap. I plan to carry a spare cap in my spares bag in case I accidently lose one on a trip.


Photos of a threaded type stove in use on these adapters are below. In all cases I am using a Snow Peak brand stove that is a couple decades old on the adapters. That stove has an optional wind screen that I sometimes used and sometimes not, the wind screen is a disc shape below the burner.

The photo below shows the first adapter that I bought, this photo has the legs for the adapter extended, unlike the photo above where the legs were folded up. The sock on the canister was to keep it warm on a very cold morning, more on that topic further below.




The photo below shows the second adapter, this adapter has a hose. The wide low tripod base makes this the most stable of the three options. It is possible to rotate the canister too far to the side in this adapter when you connect the adapter to the canister, thus the cut out part of the flange would not be at the top, but turned to the side which could cause flareups, thus care is needed when using this adapter to keep the flange cutout at the top.




The photo below is the same adapter as the photo above, but I have added the optional Snow Peak windscreen to my stove and the multi-fold wind screen around the stove and pot. This screen would be too low to be effective with the other adapters or with a stove on a taller canister, but is a good height for this adapter. I typically have only been able to use this windscreen with liquid fuel stoves that are lower but now I can also use it with a butane stove.




The third adapter is in the photo below. I think that this one has the highest quality construction of the three. Of the three, I think this one has the best attachment to the nozzle canister, it is harder to get that wrong with this adapter. That said, they all function, thus your food would be cooked just as fast with the other two adapters as this one.




***

Other misc. notes and comments, in no particular order:

1. Some of my photos below show a sock over the canister, as in the morning when it was cold outside and my canister had been in a warmer tent or in a warm sleeping bag, I wanted to help insulate the canister to keep it warmer, thus the sock. That said, as fuel in the canister is used, the fuel in the canister boils on the liquid surface and comes out of the canister in the vapor phase, that cools the remaining liquid fuel in the canister and it will lose pressure. This is the case with all butane canisters, a cooler canister loses pressure and the stove loses some performance. Once a canister is colder than the outside air, you don't want to insulate a canister like I did, as that will further impair stove performance.

2. Do I have a preference for canister type for my own use? When I have a choice, if the weather will be cold I would prefer the threaded canisters. I usually carry a large diameter plastic jar lid that I can put warm water in to keep my canister warmer. More on that here:
https://www.msrgear.com/blog/faq-how...-temperatures/

3. If I am shopping based on price, the nozzle type canisters have always been cheaper when I saw both types in the same store. Thus, in warm weather, I might prefer the cheaper nozzle type canisters.

4. If you are selecting a canister with a goal of minimizing weight, an empty 227 gram threaded canister weighs roughly 45 to 50 grams more than an empty 227 gram nozzle type canister. (Perhaps the nozzle type canisters have a fuel mix that is at a lower pressure than the threaded canisters, thus less steel is needed?) The lightest adapter weighs 95 grams, thus if you are seeking the lightest weight for a trip, the threaded canister without an adapter is the lightest option. And if your trip is short, the smallest threaded canister with 100 grams of fuel would be the lightest, that canister has an empty weight of roughly 100 grams.

5. I am referring to canisters as containing butane, but many if not most canisters for stove fuel contain a mix of butane, iso-butane and/or small amounts of propane, the mix provides better cold weather performance. Sometimes they specify the mix on the label and sometimes not. If I have a choice in a store, I will pick the one that has a mixture, as pure butane has very poor cold weather performance and I usually camp in locations and times when it can be quite chilly in the morning.

6. Although I usually use a liquid fuel stove on bike tours, if I have to fly somewhere I no longer fly with liquid fuel stoves, I now only use butane stoves for trips where I fly. In the future when I fly with my butane stove, I plan to also carry one of these adapters to make it possible to use both threaded and nozzle type canisters with my stove. If you fly with a stove, there is more information here:
https://www.msrgear.com/blog/flying-...camping-stove/

7. On canister availability, I have seen both threaded and nozzle type canisters available at REI stores. The websites for Ace Hardware and True Value Hardware show the nozzle type canisters, but individual stores may or may not stock them. Other sporting goods stores and possibly some other chains that have car camping gear or gear for hunting and fishing may stock canisters too. The best prices I have seen for the nozzle type canisters are in REI retail stores.

8. There are devices that can be used to transfer fuel from a nozzle type canister to a threaded canister. But threaded canisters are designed to be single use non-refillable canisters. And, if you tried to do that and did not do it right, you might blow yourself up. For those reasons, I am not going to describe fuel transfers any further, attempt that at your own risk.

9. There are adapters that you can put on the top of the nozzle type canister and use the canister standing upright with a stove on top. But that is extraordinarily unstable, do that at your own risk. I chose not to use one of those and do not describe them here.

10. I only mentioned the threaded canisters and the nozzle type canisters here. There are other types of less common stove canisters, such as the pierceable type canister (common half a century ago) and the Gaz Ezy-Clic canister (more common in and near France). Those are quite rare in North American, thus I deemed those to be off topic and did not mention here. The adapters discussed here will not work with those canisters and will not work with the stoves for those canisters. I have also seen campers use stoves on propane canisters, but those canisters are quite heavy due to the amount of steel used.

11. I chose not to use the term Lindal valve here, as that term has been mis-used on some other forums and using that term could be ambiguous.

I occasionally spend some time to write up a lengthy post on info that I think a lot of other bike tourists may be interested in or find useful. That was the purpose of this post. I tried to balance brevity with completeness. I hope you find this information useful.

waddo

These type of canisters are more common in Japan than the usual ones. Also, you can buy them in convenience stores, which are everywhere, whereas the usual ones are sometimes hard to find during a tour: you basically need to find a big "home centre" which is a kind of DIY shop on steroids.

tcs

Outstanding post!

Hmm. Kinda. Not contradicting what you said, but pointing out threaded canisters might actually be installed on a camp stove dozens of times (so in a different way, multiple uses). Nothing happens to the canister or the valve or the thread as the last of the gas runs out to make it non-functional in the future. Threaded canisters should be just as refillable and reusable as a 20 lb. propane tank. I'm disappointed in the threaded canister industry still in 2022 maintaining a throw-away mindset.

This is the Camping Gaz C206 canister standard. These remain widely available in certain quarters of the world - including just across the Rio from me in Mexico. In 1996, the American company Coleman bought Camping Gaz, ended sale of pierceable cartridge stoves and discontinued the distribution of C206 pierceable canisters in the USA. For a while, one could find NOS C206 canisters at backwater retailers in the US, but it's been 26 years now. You can buy stuff from all over the world through the internet, but unsurprisingly not canisters of pressurized flammable gas. Alas, my Bleuet 206 sits canisterless on the shelf, its camping days over.

(The C206 was definitively single-use, but imminently recyclable.)

indyfabz

Winter has clearly set in early somewhere, but not here. Several days of 70+ this week.

cyccommute 

Although interesting, I find this part of your post to be the most concerning. What is the advantage to having a valve that can be pressed outside of the stove? The screw on canisters are self sealing and mostly idiot proof. With a valve that can be pressed to release fuel, you have to have a valve cap or you risk not having fuel when you need it. I just don’t see the advantage.

cyccommute 

You can find various adapters to refill threaded canisters. However, I seldom empty a canister near home and really don’t want to be carrying around empty canisters so that I can refill them. Filling a canister from a 20lb tank has some risks. I would question if the pressure limits on the stove canister are the same as the pressure limits in the larger tank. There’s also some risk in controlling the flow.

I will say that empty canisters really shouldn’t be thrown in the trash as is. They certainly shouldn’t be recycled as is. When I empty a canister, I use a Crunchit to pierce the can so that it is really empty.

Doug64

I've not had a problem with MSR fuel in cold weather. However, I usually take my Whisperlite if colder weather is expected. I'm not sure I've used canister gas mixes lower than 15 degrees. Most of the time we just set the stove on a pot lid.

It must not have been too cold, I was using my shovel as a wind break, but the gas canister is just sitting on the snow.

These pictures must be late winter or early spring.
This is our usual setup:

Yan 

Gas canisters contain a mixture of propane (-44 F boiling point), isobutane (11 F boiling point), and n-butane (31 F boiling point). As the temperature falls, the higher boiling point gases stops boiling. Eventually only the propane remains usable. At that point the gas pressure coming out of the canister becomes seriously weak. Since you are now only burning propane and not the other gases, the performance of the canister only gets poorer the longer it runs. To make matters even worse, as liquid evaporates to gas it consumes heat from within the canister, making the canister even colder than the outside environment. The consequence of all of the above is that if you anticipate the weather to be cooler than 20 F (-7 C), you should consider leaving your canister stove at home and taking a liquid fuel stove.

gauvins

For longish tours, it might make sense to refill a small canister (100g) nested in your pot, from a larger one stored in the depth of your pannier. There's also the legend of thru hikers scavenging canisters left at various points along the trail (I sure can recall seeing several canisters in parks having a disposal bin).

WRT the OP -- even though I do not see much of a use case when in North America/Western Europe, as someone noted above, they are dominant in Asia. So a stand and an adapter might be a good idea.

cyccommute 

Why not just use a larger canister to begin with? Or carry a couple of canisters? Finding canisters isn’t all that hard anymore, at least for bicycle touring. HellMart carries them. I’ve found them many years ago in Mena, Arkansas which really isn’t a hot bed of light weight travel.

Norts

The screw type valves are called Lindal valves.
If you google you can find a valve that will allow you to refill the canisters. Not always a safe idea as it is easy to overfill. I use the valve to refill used or to top up canisters. I mark each canister after I have refilled them and only refill about 3 times.
Near where I live is a National Park and at the end of a very popular multi day walk there is a visitors centre where a lot of people drop off there half empty canisters as they will be flying out of Tassie. I go there once a year and ask for used canisters. I havent bought stove fuel here in Tassie for a long time.

gauvins

Certainly possible. Then again, a refill valve is very small, inexpensive and adds options.

Tourist in MSN

I probably should not have said single use, the manufacturers tell you they are not to be re-filled. I am sure some of that is profit motive and some liability concerns.
​​​​

Thanks for the details on recent history. I still have one remaining puncture type canister. Several years ago I decided to use up several of mine on a two week kayak trip, but brought one home. A few years before that, someone had a garage sale and sold them to me for pennies on the dollar, she no longer had the stove.

Tourist in MSN

If you are that concerned, you could contact the manufacturer's trade group. I am only the messenger.

staehpj1

These comments raise the question of canister disposal at the end of tours in my mind. I haven't had a big problem because I have not yet been somewhere that it was an issue with a canister. I tend to ride toward home and if flying home I tend to have a bike shop pack my bike for the flight home. The shops have had an employee that was willing and happy to take a partial canister. In recent times I have been using alcohol instead and bought it in 12 ounce bottles so I usually managed to have only very little left at the end. If all else failed I figure that burning or dumping a few ounces of alcohol wasn't an environmental disaster. Disposing of a partial canister in a strange town in a hurry to catch a flight could be more of a problem. Is there an easy solution that I am missing? I guess mailing it home via USPS Surface Mail labeled “ORM-D, Consumer Commodity, Surface Only” is the only answer that I can come up with that will work in any US city or town with a post office.

Tourist in MSN

Thank you for explaining to Doug64, you did a better job than I could.

But it is a bit worse than you described. The propane in the mix initially will boil off at a greater rate, when a canister is approaching empty almost no propane remains. That is a function of Raoult's Law.

I changed jobs in 2001, have not had to use Raoult's law in my work for over two decades, thus if I tried to explain it in more detail I would probably be in error. If you are curious, more at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoult%27s_law


You cited the MSR canisters. I pasted this from their website:

Improved Performance: 80/20 blend of isobutane and propane delivers superior performance throughout the life of the canister and in colder temperatures.

Thus, they have no butane, thus will work down below freezing, but won't go too much lower than that.

Tourist in MSN

I picked up a lot of partially full canisters on my bike tour in Iceland at Hostel and campground free shelves where people left stuff that they did not want to carry any more, but still had some life left in it. Since almost all visiting (foreign) campers in Iceland had to fly to leave the country, there probably was at least one half full canister left by each camping party.

If I had known how cheap and available threaded type canisters were in Iceland, I would not have brought my liquid fuel stove. I brought a butane stove as a backup in case TSA took my liquid fuel stove, ended up using my butane stove a lot on that trip. Including the meal in the photo below, I picked up this canister from a free shelf. I brought some food from home, including the chili mix, that was not sold in Iceland, but the tomato puree can was bought in Iceland.



You can read on that canister that it is 80 percent butane, 20 percent propane.

Photo below is from a grocery store shelf in Iceland, they even sold these canisters in grocery stores.

Tourist in MSN

I was not sure how to dispose of a canister when I left a hostel in DC after the GAP and C&O trail, I ended up sitting in the outside area burning it off from my stove until empty. It was one of the vintage GAZ puncture type canisters, then put it in the recycle bin. It was punctured.

Some communities allow you to dispose of them in recycle bins if you first puncture them so no fuel remains. At home I puncture them, leave them sit outside for a week so no odor remains before I put them in the recycle bin. I use a prospector's pick (geologist's rock hammer) to puncture them, that has a pointy end on it. (I am a retired geological engineer, have several such hammers.)

If you are not allowed to dispose of them in your community recycle bin, I have no idea where. I think every community has a place where residents can bring small amounts of chemicals, etc. In my county they call it clean sweep. I do not know if they would take them or not. My county website says they will take part empty propane cylinders that are less than 1 pound size but will not take empty ones, I think they want the empty ones recycled. But they only mention propane.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks for passing on that information.

I have not been to Asia, do not have the first hand experience to cite.

staehpj1

Yeah, not so problematic at home, but possibly more so at the end of a tour in some cases. So far it hasn't been a problem for me though.

At home I wouldn't be shy about recycling it as "scrap metal" if I flattened it even if they didn't officially take them. At that point I'd say it was no longer a canister.

Tourist in MSN

My foreign trips, I stayed at a hostel before I left the country and they either had a free shelf to leave it on or were happy to give it to a future guest that is looking for a canister.

I have nothing to add to what MSR said here:
https://www.msrgear.com/blog/recycli...pro-canisters/

gauvins

Probably: (1) if there is a formal disposal area (as in many parks), leave it there; (2) otherwise burn the remaining fuel and use some tool to puncture the canister (ex: Jetboil crunchit tool)

autonomy

This a very-well written, educational post, thanks! I've seen these types of canisters in pictures of single-burner camp stoves, e.g. https://www.rei.com/product/187621/e...prk-camp-stove, so it seems they're catching on there as well
One observation I can add about these new canisters and hose adapters is that it might make it easier/possible to use a windscreen. I read that a windscreen is not supposed to be used around a canister due to the risk of the canister overheating in the enclosed space.

Just a side note, but the ones I've seen at my local Walmarts, Coleman-branded and made in France, are not 'all-weather' mixes. I was just out in low 40s-high 30s and I learned I would've had a lot of trouble with one of those if I didn't have a back up MSR canister. I hope these new ones come with some propane in them.

Tourist in MSN

Some do, some do not. And the ones that I have seen that cite being a mixture often do not state what that mixture is.

I mentioned in my initial post that in cold weather I would prefer the threaded canisters because it is easy to set them in warm water. And I said: I usually carry a large diameter plastic jar lid that I can put warm water in to keep my canister warmer. But, I did not have a photo, so did not elaborate further.

I just took a photo of the large jar lid that I use for this, below, just a hair under 5 inches in diameter.



Three eighths or a half inch of warm (not hot) water will help make the stove work as well as it would if it was a warm day outside. The first trip I tried this was Iceland. I did not have an ideal way to do this, ended up using the lid from a cooking pot to set the canister in, that lid only held at most a quarter inch of water but it helped a lot.

But, that is nearly impossible to do with the nozzle type canisters that sit on their side. So, that would not be my choice for cold weather.

And that is why on my backpacking trip I often warmed up the canisters in my sleeping bag and used a sock to insulate it on cold mornings. I anticipated this while still at home, I brought a worn out sock that did not matter if it did not come home.

tcs

Yeah, the old C206 puncture canisters were really just a steel can with no valve, and the act of using one punctured it. Any place that recycles soup or bean cans would recycle a used-up C206.

Here's what MSR sez about recycling threaded ("Lindal valve") canisters:

https://www.msrgear.com/blog/recycli...pro-canisters/