Non spill lightweight backpacking stove.

My stove of choice for backpacking is the Trail Designs 12-10 stove. I paid for mine at Ultralight Outdoor gear. Just click on the link if you are new to the 12-10 stove. It weighs 14 grams. I have posted about it a number of times here on the blog.

Earlier this year whilst doing the TGO Challenge i got talking to a fellow walker (my apologies for not being able to recal your name) and although he was using the same Caldera cone as i was, he was using a SS Starlyte Ultralyte from Zelph or it may have been a copy, i’m not certain.

However i was impressed with the fact that it was tiny, ultralight, a bit more robust than the 12-10 and most of all that the meths content was not spillable. This meant that measuring the meths content quite accurately could be a thing of the past.

As the contents don’t leak or seep out it means that the stove doesn’t need to be allowed to burn dry like the 12-10 and can be easily extinguished with a dowser. You don’t need to pour the excess back into the bottle and as long as you seal the cooled stove in a sandwich bag the residue fuel will keep until next time.
The Starlyte stove is made in the USA and so if you want one then you have all the hassle of importing it and paying customs etc.

Then i checked out ebay to see if anyone was selling one and lo and behold someone has started making/selling a very similar stove right here in Durham UK. I ordered one.
It arrived quickly and with postage it was just under £6.

Weight. 12 grams

As is my usual thing, i tried it at home first to see if it is worth taking on a trip. I put 20ml of meths in the stove and it boiled 450ml of cold tap water in 6 minutes 20 seconds. I allowed the stove to burn out just to see how long 20ml of fuel would last and it burned for 12 minutes. The stove holds 40ml max.
It’s impressive.

 It will be joining me on my next trip.