Reviews > Cook Gear > Stoves > Jetboil Group Cooking System > Steve Nelson > Long Term Report

Long-Term Report: Jetboil Group Cooking System
October 13, 2006

Reviewer's Information

Name: Steve Nelson
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Email address: nazdarovye at y..oo dot com
City, State, Country: San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.

Backpacking Background:

I've been backpacking since I was a kid, starting in the Adirondacks of upstate New York and in nearby Quebec. I now live in California, backpacking in all four seasons there, with occasional trips back to the east coast and elsewhere. I like hiking fast, and transitioned to lightweight backpacking over the past few years. I also enjoy skiing, snowshoeing, canoeing, and aviation in addition to backpacking, so my gear gets exposed to a wide variety of uses and conditions. As a design and usability consultant, I love analyzing and improving products; backpacking provides a rich arena for that.

Product information

Overview

The Jetboil Group Cooking System (hereafter referred to as "GCS") is a matched system of stove, supports, pot with "FluxRing™" heat fins, plastic lids, and neoprene pot cozy. This system uses the same burner and FluxRing technology as the original Jetboil (identified as the "Personal Cooking System" on the Jetboil web site), and also is compatible with that system's components. The burner unit has a built-in piezo lighter and a flame that is supposed to adjust from simmer to full power. In addition to supporting the custom pot with the FluxRing, the GCS stand also supports use of any pot not exceeding "23 cm (9 in) diameter" or total weight of "3 kg (6.5 lb)".

I provide more details on the stove, pot and other elements in my initial report, and experiences from my first two months of use in my field report, both which you may wish to reference. This Long-Term Report focuses on my second two months of use of the GCS in the field.

Long-Term Conditions

I've used the Jetboil GCS now to prepare over a dozen batches of boiling water for meals; cooked dishes including beans, steak and eggs for dinner and breakfast; produced boiling water from snow; and done four test boils at home with three different canisters and two different pots. Locations have been in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tahoe National Forest, John Muir Wilderness, Kings Canyon National Park, Carson Pass Special Management Area, Sugar Pine Point State Park, and Emigrant Wilderness. Elevations have ranged from sea level to 9,200 ft (2,800 m), temperatures from 37-80 F (2-27 C), and winds from calm to about 10 mph (16 kph). Weather has been clear and sunny on all trips.

Field Observations

General Usage

The GCS is easy to assemble, light, and cook with. As noted in a previous report, it takes a little eyeballing to seat the flux ring of the pot properly over the wings on the pot stand, but other than that, I've found using the GCS to be a snap.

The system has continued to perform well in the field, generally boiling a couple of cups (half a liter) of water in about two minutes, regardless of location and conditions. Interestingly, I've found that if I boil more water than that, the boil times go up quite a bit more than I would expect; in other words, the stove seems most efficient for boiling 2 c (.5 L) batches of water.

In addition to boiling water for rehydrating various foods and beverages (as well as for cleanup), I also used the stove to cook a can of beans for one meal, and to make scrambled eggs with leftover steak for another. I found that there is very little travel in the flame adjustment, meaning that it goes very quickly from no flame to full blast. Still, I was able to set a flame level that worked for both of those meals. (As an aside, in the latter test I ended up with eggs so tenaciously stuck to the pot that only a pass through a dishwasher completely removed them!)

I also tried the stove with another manufacturer's pot, a .9 L ( .95 qt) titanium pot with a base diameter of approximately 4.25 in (11 cm). There was a marked difference in boil time compared to the GCS flux ring pot. With the plain titanium pot it took the stove 3 minutes and 45 seconds to bring 2 c (.5 L) of tap water to a full, rolling boil in a 68° F (20° C) room (though large bubbles were forming after 2 minutes), and it consumed .25 oz (7 g) of Jetpower fuel in the process. Obviously the included pot is a big factor in the stove's efficiency.

The pot, sleeve and lids work fine in combination as a cozy for keeping food hot, though it helps to wrap them in insulating layers (such as a hat) in cooler weather.

As noted previously, the GCS is easy to assemble and break down, though over time it's become more and more difficult to get the plastic lid to seat properly for storage and transport (it seems to have shrunk—perhaps from exposure to heat).

Durability

The stove burner has held up well—the only change over time has been a tiny bit of discoloration on the burner and piezo wire. The pot has been reasonably durable, though it does show some wear inside, and it picked up a small side dent somewhere along the way. As already noted, the plastic lid that covers the pot for storage has become more difficult to seat, and both it and the similarly-made base cover are scratched and worn. The neoprene pot sleeve has also picked up some stains.

Issues of Note

The only thing that I continue not to like about the GCS is that its pot stand is fairly loose; it's easy to dislodge in the field when I remove the flux-ring pot from the stove (the fins of the flux ring are easy to catch on the wings of the pot stand). I'd love to see this design changed so that the pot stand locks into place.

I also would appreciate a lip for pouring liquids, though that's a minor quibble.

Summary

The Jetboil Group Cooking System is a modular cooking system including pot, stove with pot support, canister tripod stand, pot cozy, lid and base cover. Its standout feature is its efficiency: in my direct experience it consistently achieves boil times of 2 minutes for 2 cups (.5 L) of water while consuming a small amount of fuel.

The system is a bit on the heavy side compared to a similar-capacity system based on separate components, and of average durability, but for me it's well worth the tradeoff for its efficiency. I will continue to bring this stove along on most of my three-season trips, and probably on many of my winter trips as well.

Things I like:

• Amazing boil times with good efficiency, even in the field and at altitude
• Collapses down into a neat kit

Things I don't like:

• Somewhat heavy
• Pot Stand a bit loose; challenging to replace when hot
• Piezo lighter and sharp edges of pot ring exposed to jostling in packed state

Thanks to BackpackGearTest and Jetboil for giving me the opportunity to participate in this test.

Reviews > Cook Gear > Stoves > Jetboil Group Cooking System > Steve Nelson > Long Term Report