I've been experimenting with stoves and cooksets recently. My experiences are personal (as always) but for what it's worth:

o I have had an MSR Dragonfly since 1998. I thought it was great for years, until I broke the pump and realized that some things probably shouldn't be made of plastic. Also, on my last tour in 2008 I had problems with it going out for no apparent reason while cooking. So my ardor cooled somewhat.

o I've been playing with the Trangia alcohol stoves recently. They are really very nice indeed. Quiet, simple, nothing to go wrong. The only downside is that they are slower to heat, and you have to carry more alcohol for the same heat output. But alcohol is readily available just about everywhere. One small niggle is that the latest Trangia burners I have been using seem to have issues with manufacturing quality control. You'd think there wouldn't be all that much to mess up here, but apparently there is: I noticed that some of the holes were blocked by some kind of white substance. I tried poking it in with a piece of wire but all that happened was that it would move around to a different hole. During burning, it causes the stove to sputter and burn unevenly (comparing the newer units side by side with my older Trangia, which doesn't have this problem). So I contacted Trangia, and they told me that these stoves have (and have always had) a cotton wicking material inside. On my older Trangia this has never been apparent, but on two newer burners I can see the white wick inside, it's obviously very close to the holes and even blocks them... this seems like a manufacturing problem to me, I don't mind there being wick inside, but it almost certainly shouldn't be blocking up the holes on top. Trangia didn't answer any more of my emails after that, so I guess I have cooled off somewhat toward them too now.

o I have tried the Trangia 27 UL/HA cookset, and while I like the overall design, the hard anodized surface is not very non-stick at all (it failed my scrambled eggs test dismally). Also, the windscreen means you pretty much have to use the pots that come with the kit - bigger pots won't fit in, and smaller ones might not rest properly on the three fold-out legs inside. And, you have to reach down inside the windscreen to adjust the simmer ring; and the simmer ring isn't very easy to use, really. So while this cookset seems very good in principle, I find it to be not all that flexible in practice. I want something that can handle different pots and pans, and with easier simmer capability, and real non-stick.

o I have also been trying out the Trangia Westwind stove stand, which is a very simple three-piece thing. Works well, but mysteriously it works much better when used upside down (i.e. with the stove on the ground and the stand inverted on top of it). I got much faster boil times this way, which seems a little weird, but it's simple and versatile.

o I've also tried the Clikstand trangia stove stand. It works well too, pretty much same concept as the Westwind. Either way, you really need a surrounding windscreen. The Clikstand is not quite as flexible as the Westwind, since it has its own little ledges for resting the windscreen on, and if you have a larger pot then you can't really use those.

o Evernew non-stick pots: These are very lightweight, but that's about the only upside as far as I can see. The non-stick surface really doesn't stop stuff from sticking (failed the scrambled eggs test), and the measurement numbers that are stamped into the sides of the pots makes cleaning a bit harder, since food tends to stick there. Also, the handles are not good - they are covered with silicon sleeves to make them handleable when hot, but the problem is that when hot, the silicon becomes very slippery, sliding over the handles and making them squirrely and kind of scary to hold. Nothing like holding a pot of boiling water and feeling the thing squirming around like an alive thing. And finally, the titanium pots are very thin, and Ti doesn't conduct heat very well, so these two factors combine to make for "hot spots" which tend to scald your food if you're not careful. All that being said, if all you want is light weight and to boil water, then these are a great option.

o I've also been trying the Evernew DX stove, version I have which comes with a small 500ml cup (everything fits neatly inside the cup, which is very neat). The DX stove is an interesting concept, very compact, and their Ti burner is like the Trangia, but with two rows of holes. It burns much faster and hotter than Trangia, so if you're looking for fast boil times, then this is your puppy. But unlike Trangia, the burner has no screwtop or simmer ring, so you can't easily simmer or even turn it off (apparently you're supposed to just measure out in advance the amount of fuel you want to use, then burn off any remainder when you're done, which seems rather wasteful and non-flexible to me). Actually you can simmer with this burner simply by putting the pot directly on top of the burner, so that it covers the top row of holes but not the second. This simmers quite well, but you can't do this if you started off with the burner inside the DX stand - it all gets way too hot to handle. So there's a problem with the transition from "heat everything up quickly to boil" to "ok, now simmer" - you can pretty much do either one or the other, unless you bring along a pair of heavy duty hot surface handling gloves (I've tried using these, but even they will scorch - the stove gets red hot). But again, if your focus is mainly light weight and boiling water, then this is a fantastic option. Oh, and the DX stove can also burn wood (very small bits, but it can do it) or those little fuel tablets.

o In my quest for the perfect cookset, I decided that what I really wanted was aluminum (since it conducts heat very well and avoids hot spots) and a "real" non-stick surface, since I hate having food stick and then having to scrub off the burnt and stubborn gunge. So eventually I settled on the Texsport Black Ice The Scouter Hard Anodized Cook Set (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P9F1EQ/). This has a non-stick surface made of Quantanium, which I had never heard of before but apparently is much harder wearing than ordinary teflon. I don't know about the hard-wearing aspect yet, but so far this cookset is a winner - it passed my scrambled eggs and fried eggs test with flying colors, the food just floated on the surface, and so was dead easy to clean. It's not the lightest cookset out there, but it works. The handles are fold-out, so I don't have to mess with those little fiddly clamp-on grabbers. This is my favorite cookset so far.

o New stove: I have been itching to try out the Primus Omnifuel for a long time, and so I finally got one of these. It's very similar in concept to the MSR Dragonfly, but it has a sturdier pump (mostly metal, though there is plastic in the housing, most of the bits that are stressed when pumping are metal). Also, it can work from either the pump (i.e. liquid gas which you pressurize yourself using the pump, like the MSR stoves), or canisters which have the screwtop. This is a very nice, flexible option, and so far I'm really liking this little stove. Again, not the lightest weight one out there, but so versatile and very rugged.

So currently, while I like the Trangia and Evernew alcohol stoves, I think my current favorite is the combination of the Primus Omnifuel and the Texsport Black Ice The Scouter cookset. If I was going ultralight and just wanted to be able to boil water, then I might just take the Evernew DX stove with 500ml Ti cup - very lightweight and small.

Neil

Thanks for the report on all your testing! I'm curious about the weight of your new fave cookset. Texsport says the set weighs 2.2 lbs. I'd like to know the weight of just the 1.5L pot and lid. Could you oblige? I'm also curious why you chose the Omnifuel over the Optimus Nova, another all metal multi-fuel stove of the same weight. Thanks.

Small thrift store sauce pot with lid,remove handle,stainless sierra cup.$5

Sure, the whole cookset (including a couple of paper towels I put in between the pots to stop rubbing) weighs 773g on my kitchen scale (1 lb 11 1/4 oz). The small pot by itself weighs 243g (8 1/2 oz). The larger pot weighs in at 326g (11 3/8 oz) with lid. The frypan is 181g (6 3/8 oz) by itself.

Yes, this has been a tough choice since they seem very similar, don't they? In the end it was something that probably very transient that helped me choose - Optimus recently issued a recall of some of their multifuel stoves that were manufactured during a specific period of time:

https://www.optimusstoves.com/seen/se...o-fire-hazard/

This apparently caused the O ring to become chewed up and thus leak fuel, which is never good. Like I said, it's just a temporary thing, but when I was looking around I wasn't able to tell which version of the stove I might be getting if I ordered now (the recall was just issued in September). No doubt this will get resolved in a very short timespan, but in the short term I looked at the Primus Omnifuel, and it can use canister gas without any special adaptor (unlike the Optimus Nova, as far as I can tell), which is kind of cool (though I would probably always use liquid fuel, it's always nice to have the option). The Optimus Nova apparently has an even more "all metal" construction, which might make it even stronger in theory. But I decided to jump for the Omnifuel because trawling the online reviews, it seems that people often give it the slight edge (I saw a comment somewhere that said a German outdoor magazine consistently gave the Primus Omnifuel its "best stove" award). Why would anybody say it was "better" than the Nova? Probably because of the canister gas option, so if you don't care about that then it's probably a wash. I'm sure they are both very similar in terms of quality and heat output, but you gotta make a choice eventually, and so it goes. Very happy with what I am seeing so far (just arrived yesterday, so not had much chance to play beyond firing it up with an MSR canister, worked great out of the box, later today I'll try out the pump with some liquid gas). It boiled a pot extremely quickly, in just a couple of minutes, and it is VERY loud, but no surprise to anybody who's used a Dragonfly. Not the best option for extra double secret stealth camping, perhaps, but whatever. I like the flexibility. If I was going on a longer tour I might just take the Omnifuel, and also the Evernew Ti alcohol burner, since it's so tiny and lightweight, and would add that extra bit of flexibility (alcohol is one fuel that won't work in most of the multifuel stoves, I believe).

Neil

Thank you for the thoughtful reply, Neil. Much appreciated. Thinking about a foreign tour, thinking that the ability to burn paint thinner might come in very handy. One pot, one stove, one bottle of paint thinner or whatever. Something like that. Yes, I also noticed the product recall.

Not to change subjects too much, but I worry about non-stick coatings on cookware, particularly in this application where temps can be very high in spots and utensils potentially scratching the coating. It's very nice to have a pot that is easy to clean, but I remember reading about Teflon coated pots that get scratched-up and one ends up ingesting this indestructibly material. Doesn't sound good to me.

Non stick chemicals are well known to kill birds. Parrot owners avoid it like the plague. It has never been proven to kill humans, but why risk it?

https://www.naturalnews.com/022645.html

I was almost ready to buy some lightweight cooking pots and pans when the heat issue was brought up... I'm back to trying to figure out how to get my CI dutch oven in my kit again... ARRGGHH...

Hard anodized alu is much more resistant than any coating and I believe much safer too.

Your link concerns the chemical perflurooctanoic Acid (PFOA). It says that this chemical is not found in non-stick coatings. I also doubt that the short-snouted spinner dolphin uses pans with non-stick coating in the preparation of its meals. OTOH, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) does outgas when heated to high temperatures, and birds are very sensitive to these fumes. OTOH, "a 1959 study (conducted before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the material for use in food processing equipment) showed that the toxicity of fumes given off by the coated pan on dry heating was less than that of fumes given off by ordinary cooking oils." https://www.enotalone.com/article/7805.html

However all that may be, the cookware being recommended by Neil Gunton is non-stick by virtue of being hard anodized, not coated with PTFE. Not to worry.

I use regular metal pans to avoid the whole issue of coatings.

To avoid things sticking to your pot, take a small piece of paper towel, put 3 or 4 drops of oil on it, then rub on the inside of the cold pan before use. Peanut or Grape Seed oil are good as they resist high temps better than olive oil. Carry the oil in a small bottle inside a zip loc bag inside another zip loc to avoid potential spills..

It's true that the Texsport pots are hard anodized, but there is an additional coating of this Quantanium material on the inside, which is what makes the non-stick quality. I read that hard anodized cookware was very non-stick, due to its being non-permeable. The hard anodized surface is also very durable - apparently harder than stainless steel. This was the basis on which I purchased the Trangia 27 UL/HA set. But I found that in practice, those pots were not very non-stick at all. Scrambled eggs stuck to them like glue, in fact, and it took some scrubbing to get the residue off. They may be tough, but they are not non-stick.

Quantanium apparently contains PTFE, same as all non-stick coatings out there. And it can emit harmful gases if heated up to high temperatures ("high" in this case being far beyond what you'd generally be working with when cooking in camp). There's an interesting reply from the company that makes Quantanium in the first post in this thread:

https://www.tailfeathersnetwork.com/c...safe-for-birds.

Apparently Quantanium is safe up to 500F, which is pretty hot. I don't think you really want your food at that temperature usually, so it seems that as long as you take care not to leave the pot unattended at high heat (or let it boil dry) then it's probably not going to be an issue.

On the other hand, the multifuel stoves like the Primus Omnifuel do burn pretty hot. When you look underneath, the stove legs are glowing red hot. I have no idea what temperature that translates into on the inside surface of the pot, though, especially when you have water in there. It's not the same temperature as the red hot stove legs, obviously, otherwise the water would be spitting and jumping out of the pot. Water is a very good conductor of heat, so it must be keeping the non-stick surface at a reasonable temperature, probably way below 500F (at least you'd hope so). Does anybody know anything about this? It seems pretty difficult to measure without special equipment.

Stoves can be dangerous if used incorrectly (carbon monoxide, fire risk). Many things can be dangerous if used incorrectly. As long as you know the normal operating parameters of the things you use, then you can take appropriate steps to ensure that you don't go outside of those safe conditions. I think it should be pretty straightforward to make sure you don't heat up your pots beyond 500F, that's pretty hot. One obvious one is to not let your pans boil dry.

I have also read that the non-stick surface is not harmful in its inert, cold form - if you scrape off pieces of the non-stick and ingest them, they are very non-reactive and simply pass through your system without being absorbed. Apparently it's only the heating up that releases the harmful gases (and, according to the quote from the thread above, other harmful gases start to get released from burning food before the PTFE starts off-gassing, though people often blame the non-stick anyway).

There seems to be a lot of fear talk out there on this topic; while I don't claim to have all the answers, it's probably a good idea to try to look past the rumors and see what the facts are. On the other hand, you have to do a balancing act between not believing the scare stories, and also not just taking the PR of the companies that make the stuff at face value.

Neil

I just stick to straight titanium. Snow Peak stuff. if something sticks, I don't care, I eat it anyways. Often I don't cary soap or a sponge to clean up with. Just use some sand and scour away. If soaking it, and scrubbing it with sand/dirt wont clean it, I burn it off.

use heat. its clean.

Who's ever made a billy out of a coffee can and a coathanger?

Back when I was a little tougher I never carried a stove or a pot. I could make a nice cook fire out of the match-sized wood litter that carpets the area around campsites, and find a large enough can to cook in either left there or in a nearby garbage can. Just need a can opener to clean up the can. Those days are gone. Everyone is all so conscious about cleaning up and garbage is increasingly hard to get at. Stove and pot now. Besides, uncertainty sort of wears on one after a while.