These are a couple of simple ways to get more efficiency out of your cooking system. The water bath also works very well for using a conventional propane/iso-butane gas stove at extremely low temperatures (below -30). Water bath – The sensible and latent heat in liquid water is used to vapourize the liquid fuel in the gas canister. It’s helpful to tip the bowl enough that air does not get trapped in the concave bottom of the fuel canister. Don’t be alarmed if you hear the fuel boiling inside the canister. As the water starts to show signs of freezing dump it out and add warmer water. The fuel will continue to consistently vapourize as you cook or melt snow. We’ve also set the stove in puddles and streams to achieve the same result. Windscreen – buy a thin flexible cutting sheet from your local shop, punch two holes near the corners of one side, cut and bend a piece of thin wire of a length to bend the cutting sheet. Lean the cutting sheet against the side of your pot to block the wind. This setup also works well with alcohol stoves.
The cutting sheet/windscreen can also be used as a stiffener inside the handlebar roll, and for serving Bikepacker’s Charcuterie. If you want to have a very reliable extreme cold weather stove system have a look at the butane to propane conversion in this blog post of various cold weather bikepacking adaptations.
