I’ve been doing some research into stoves for alpine climbing and general mountaineering. I want a stove that I can take on expeditions and overnights. For expeditions liquid fuel stoves like the MSR Whisperlite or XKG EX are nice because you bring a jug of fuel and not a whole lot of little gas canisters. For overnights a gas canister stove would be much more convenient and easier to use. Today I did some research into gas canister stoves and so far this is what I have learned.
100% propane would be the best bang for the buck but it has to be compressed significantly in order to liquefy. This requires a heavy duty steel canister which I may let my partner lug up but there is no way I am going to. Butane, which is what is in lighters, doesn’t require nearly as much pressure but has a fairly high boiling point. Isobutene is somewhere in the middle.
I mentioned the boiling point of butane earlier. Why is this important?
The boiling point of a liquid is when it turns from liquid to gas and if you can’t get the gas to the burner because it is still a liquid you’re kind of in trouble. In temperatures below the boiling point of the fuel, the ‘gas’ will stay a liquid and your stove won’t light. So in short, the lower the boiling point the better because you can use your stove in chilly places.
Butane 32F/0C
Isobutene -11F/-12C
Propane -44F/-42C
FYI -- MSR & Jetboil are Isobutene/Propane canisters.
There are some canister stoves out there that try to get around this by inverting the canister so the liquid flows out and doesn’t have to vaporize in order to burn. I haven’t tried it out yet but if Steve House says it works then I am going to believe him. House took the MSR Windpro on Nanga Parbat and talks about it around minute 14 in this video.
The only problem I see with this method is starting the stove since the vaporizer tube isn’t hot yet. I should mention that Steve House has the added advantage of being at altitude when he uses his canister stove. The advantage arises because the pressure difference between the inside of the canister and the air at altitude is greater, and the greater the pressure difference the better the gas will flow.
There is also another effect that all canister stoves have working against them. It is called latent heat of vaporization. All that we need to know about it is that the more liquid that is turned into gas, the colder the canister will get. A great example is how cold a can of compressed air gets as you use it.
Here is a few links that I used in gathering some info.