Backpacking and Camping Stoves - Backpacking Merit Badge - Scout Eric Adventures
Channel: Scout Eric Adventures
Date: 19/05/2021

Backpacking Merit Badge
Cooking Merit Badge

We explore three different stoves used for backpacking and camping.  Plus these shoves can be used for emergency preparedness as well.

Compressed Gas Stoves
Liquid Gas Stoves
Denatured Alcohol Stoves 

A portable stove is a cooking stove specially designed to be portable and lightweight, used in camping, picnicking, backpacking, or other use in remote locations where an easily transportable means of cooking or heating is needed. Portable stoves can be used in diverse situations, such as for outdoor food service and catering[1] and in field hospitals.[2]

Since the invention of the portable stove in the 19th century, a wide variety of designs and models have seen use in a number of different applications. Portable stoves can be broken down into several broad categories based on the type of fuel used and stove design: unpressurized stoves that use solid or liquid fuel placed in the burner before ignition; stoves that use a volatile liquid fuel in a pressurized burner; bottled gas stoves; and gravity-fed "spirit" stoves.

Compact camping and hiking stoves

Patent drawing of MSR XGK stove

Pre-heats MSR WhisperliteInternational
Smaller, more compact stoves were developed in the early 20th century that used petrol (gasoline),[27] which at that time was similar to so-called white gas and did not have the additives and other constituents contained in modern gasoline. Similar in design to the kerosene-burning Primus-style stove, the smaller white gas stove was also made of brass with the fuel tank at the base and the burner assembly at the top. Unlike the Primus-style stove, however, priming both pressurizes the tank and pre-heats the burner assembly in this type of stove. Once lit, the heat from the burner maintains the pressure in the tank until the flame is extinguished. The Svea 123, introduced in 1955, is among the most popular of these "self pressurizing" stove designs, and is generally considered to be the first compact camping stove. Optimus of Sweden manufactures a line of similarly designed stoves in which the stove's components are entirely enclosed in a folding metal case, the most popular of which were the Optimus 8R and 111 (still in production as the Optimus Hiker). The Coleman Company developed a small white gas stove with integral fuel tank for the US Army in World War II, the "GI pocket stove". Coleman still makes similar stoves, such as the 442, 533 and 550B (the latter of which can also run on kerosene). These stoves have a pump to build up initial pressure in the fuel tank, but are generally self-pressurising when running (occasional re-pumping may be necessary if the stove is run at full output).

In the early 1970s Mountain Safety Research (MSR) designed a pressurized burner stove intended to address performance shortcomings of white gas stoves in cold or adverse conditions, in particular for mountaineering use.[28] First introduced in 1973 and designated the Model 9 (and later as the XGK Expedition), the MSR stove had four main parts: a free-standing burner assembly with integrated pot supports; the fuel bottle, which doubles as the stove's fuel tank; a pump that screws into the bottle; and a flexible tube or pipeline connecting the pump/bottle assembly to the burner assembly.[29] This type of stove design, with the "outboard" fuel tank held away from the burner, is primed in the same manner as other white gas stoves; however, because the tank is not self-pressurizing, the tank must periodically be pumped to maintain pressure to the burner. Most commercial liquid fuel camping stoves on the market today are of this design.

Pressurized burner stoves are now available that can burn several different fuels or volatile liquids, including alcohol, gasoline or other motor fuels, kerosene, and jet propellant. Little or no modification is needed; due to variability of the volatility of different fuels, the jets of multi-fuel stoves may need to be changed for the different fuels,[30] and many others.