One benefit of a liquid or white gas stove, which is pressurized with a pump, is that it performs better in cold temperatures. On a recent winter camping trip, my uncle’s canister stove shut down pretty quickly, since it relies on the mixture of fuel in the canister called isobutane to evaporate, creating pressure that pushes out the fuel and sustains the flame. As the fuel evaporates in the canister, it cools off, and in cold temps (in my experience around low 30s) very little to no gas is pushed out. You can mitigate this by heating up the canister with hot water (which my uncle did using some hot water I had boiled) or a flame (not recommended…).
How it works:
A liquid gas stove gets around this, because the pressure is created by a small hand pump, built into the fuel bottle. The MSR WhisperLite Universal stove is comprised of a fuel bottle, the pump and valve that screws into the top, a hose that transports the fuel to the burner, and a burner with a few nozzles that accommodate the various different types of fuel (gasoline, kerosene, white gas, isobutane). I chose the Universal version because it’s the most versatile and can run on lots of different types of fuel.
After assembling the stove, pressurize the fuel bottle with 20-30 pumps, and turn on the valve for a few seconds to create a small pool of fuel that is then ignited. This small pool of fuel that’s burning warms up the nozzle, which is important because it helps vaporize the liquid fuel as it exits the nozzle and create an efficient flame. After a couple minutes, turn the valve back on and you are ready to go. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is, and after a few tries becomes second nature.
Benefits of the MSR WhisperLite Universal
So it works in basically any temperature, you can dunk on your camp buddies that have canister stoves when it gets cold, and it works with tons of different types of fuel. You can use white gas, kerosene, a normal isobutane canister (upside down for cold weather) and in a pinch, you can use unleaded gasoline. Finally, I think liquid fuel is easier to get rid of at the end of a trip; rather than burning a canister stove for an hour before puncturing and recycling the canister, you can simply dump any leftover fuel at a gas station or garage before rinsing out the bottle and heading to the airport.