Reviews > Cook and Food Storage Gear > Stoves > GSI Pinnacle 4 Season Stove > Test Report by joe schaffer

The stove seems to be mostly stainless steel, with brass fittings and the copper tube. Instructions note that handling the brass fittings which contain lead known to cause cancer in California may kill me eventually if ignoring other numerous operational admonishments fail to do so more immediately. I don't see aluminum or titanium. There is no piezo.


Impressions:
    I was shocked upon opening the delivery package to find such a small box inside. It is a bit of Rubik Cube experience to unfold the supports, and I would quibble over the floppy-loose deployed pot arms held in place only by gravity. I will practice the moves before putting myself in a cold-stupid circumstance lest impatience lead to excessive stress. I regard this a remarkably small complaint for a full-size appliance that travels micro-size. The unit also seems to anticipate Type-A behavior with its industrial-strength choice of metals.
   
    The company website doesn't have a lot of information to wade through, but does offer a one-minute video demonstrating the above. I don't follow the graphic in the owner manual; and of course I prepared the stove without first bothering to locate any instruction as to how. I can't remember instructions. If I read them it is only to serve comment as a tester.
  
     The stove extends for generous support which easily accommodates any of my pots.

I don't know what is the integrated wind screen referenced on the website. Since the canister is remote and the stove parts are not aluminum, I think I can safely deploy a regular windscreen.
   
    In the context of ultra-light backpacking (company's segment claim) the unit is perhaps as much as half-again as heavy as the UL leaders. I crave light, but I forgive the stove's heft for its remote canister advantages and that it has no potentially meltable metals; and of course because it firmly supports a large boiling pot and yet folds up amazingly small. It isn't really light, but I feel it has to be given that relative description for those four reasons.
   
    I routinely suffer fright in lighting liquid fuel stoves and avoid their use when possible. But snow camping or even just fall camping I've experienced performance diminishment to the extent of failure on canister stoves. I've heard that inverting the canister substantially improves performance and I hope to get cold enough to test that feature. Of course I won't know how much of performance is related to that feature and how much to the heating tube, but I also won't care so long as the stove actually turns snow into boiling water at mild altitudes and temperatures below freezing.
   
    My experience with piezo suggests that a unit without one is far from fatally disadvantaged.
   
    I might well lose it, but I think some kind of protective plug/cover for the canister connection would be a good idea. I might prefer the pot stabilizer arms work against just enough resistance that they don't flop when I handle the stove. I would rather they flop than poke holes in my fingers if the rivet gets too tight from heating and cooling, so I'm not sure about this.
   
    An elite test of nestworthiness for me is if the stove and a 7.76 oz (220 g) canister will fit into my pot, which is about 4 3/4 in (12 cm) in diameter by 5 in (12.7 cm) high. I have only one that will. The Pinnacle also passes this test, which I find particularly remarkable given its unpacked stature.
  
    *I eyeballed what for me would be a typical hot chocolate mug charge, which measured 20 5/8 oz (0.61 L) of water. I heated it in a 40 oz (1.2 L) blackened aluminum, covered coffee pot 4 3/4 in (12 cm) in diameter with no heat exchanger. Room temperature was windless 65F (18 C); and water was from the cold tap, probably around 55 F (13 C). Fuel canister was probably about 60 F (16 C). I'm thinking these are close to laboratory test conditions that manufacturer's use to develop performance statistics, though certainly I disclaim any notion that my procedures would meet laboratory precision. Stove lit instantly on maiden firing and the adjustment was set to about 1/8th turn, which seemed to be the point at which more did not increase the flame and less lowered it. The water was at full boil in 5:35 and required 3/8 oz (10 g) of fuel. My impression is that the stove heats about as fast as the most efficient stove/pot system I have, but requires more fuel. I remind myself this was a kitchen test and my other canister stoves have suffered or failed in cold. If this stove maintains its performance in cold--or for that matter will even work well enough to boil--then the nits of weight and fuel consumption (should the latter be accurate) will dissipate into the vapor.
  
     So naturally that thought led me to put the unit connected to the fuel canister into the freezer for 12 hours in probably 10 F (-12 C), as I might expect to encounter in a 4-season camping experience; and the coffee pot with 20 5/8 oz (.061 L) of water into the fridge, probably around 35 F (2 C). I've not done that with any other stove. I already know my liquid fuel stoves would test OK and that my canister models would not. The testing temperature was 55 F (28 C) warmer

I note that fuel consumption was only 10% more--a single gram (1/28th oz)--while heating time was 28% longer. I would expect increased fuel consumption and I don't know if the result otherwise accrues to a testing anomaly. Two tests aren't a mass of evidence on which to base conclusive interpretations, but I am satisfied the stove will work cold and that benefit of the inversion feature is proven.
   
    I also note that in removing the frozen canister more fuel--though measurably less than a gram (1/28th oz)--escapes compared to the tiny little spit sometimes heard on warm canisters. Cold O-rings evidently need a bit more time to resettle.
   
    On a perfectly smooth, flat and level surface like a kitchen table, the canister will balance on the valve body. However, there is some interference when trying to turn the flame adjuster. Some ingenuity may be required to support the inverted canister out in the field, and I will definintely fuss over the possibility of getting dirt in the proximity of the connection.
   
    The stove's main benefits seem to be size and operating range. I've not yet seen a stove that would challenge the Pinnacle's combination of these two metrics.

FIELD REPORT

Field conditions:
        1. 4/20-23/17: Gooseberry, Stanislaus National Forest, California. Snow (heavy slush) camping at 7,200 ft (2,200 m). One camp.

Reviews > Cook and Food Storage Gear > Stoves > GSI Pinnacle 4 Season Stove > Test Report by joe schaffer