I had not actually ever personally thought much of these! But with so many people saying, on forums and in the outdoors press/store catalogues generally, that this is a very ecologically sound choice for a basic stove for shorter trips useage, I suppose I should really consider it! I see a lot of the Greenheat products about, even now in shops like Millets on the high street even! I have previously used the sachets,but agree with all of the critics that it is basically essentially rather disgusting stuff to handle and have to smell! I did choose the bigger of those stoves though as an emergency use stove for back-up use or small jaunts out last year. The smaller of their current range of jelly stove too I have, which is just the old basic design of a type that I originally used to buy from the old original Survival Aids company in the eighties. I used to use that on TA weekends because I hated the smell of the hexamine blocks in the issue fold-flat metal caricook type of stove that came with the army ration packs!

Now surfing the web today I see that there are much more technical looking jelly fuel stoves around from Antigravity Gear AGG manufacturer, which do look most interesting I have to say. I found these at Windwood Outdoor.co.uk here http://www.winwood-outdoor.co.uk/acatalog/AntigravityGear.html#a442 Anyone out here on the forum community ever used these bits of kit please? Hopefully some kind soul could maybe clue me in to their value of worth as good outdoors kit?

I especially like the look of the Caldera unit as a whole. This I think likely includes the AGG tiny £9.99 11g ultra-lightweight stove unit, but not the nifty looking aluminium cook pot nor the very interesting COOKING COZY. I was reading on a rather wacky USA website of a similar food warming/residual heat cooking cozy device on the innovatively strange, and a little funny, website of the Half Assed Expeditions or HAE club! Going through their site late last night-yes, I know I do live alone, just me and the cat- I noticed with some interest that they claim to have pioneered the original thought of such a stove fuel saving cooking device, using residual or latent heat for final cooking of pre-heated trail food! found at http://www.haeadventure.com/menubag.htm While I do not believe these chaps at this HAE site take themelves at all too seriously, it is obvious they are very dedicated winter camping and wilderness winter travelling enthusiasts, of many years experience. So there are a few good winter camping tips I felt, to be found there at their club site, which I enjoyed reading through immensely!

Trevor,  to see more details of the principles behind the Haeadventure bakebag, see http://www.freezerbagcooking.com/ .  This will give you lots of menu ideas as well as the technique.

The main emphasis for these alcohol stoves - usually called meths stoves in the UK - came from the move towards extreme lightweight backpacking gear.  There is no doubt that such an outfit can be lighter than those using other types of fuel for trips of up to four or five days between re-supplies.  After that the weight of meths carried tips the balance against them. The other advantage is that the stoves are fun to make and fiddle with, and with very little effort you can become a complete bore on the subject.

Yes, cheers there Frum, the meths stoves I know myself of old, much better than the newer alcohol-jelly ones. In the next stove I am looking to buy though, in the early part of 2008 I hope, I most probably won't go for a meths one. Just not with this purchase. It is the more newer jelly ones using fuel like the Greenheat stuff that I was more meaning in the question; and not necessarily just the AGG stove mentioned either. Would you reckon I go for a meths one over a jelly one then? I am still hunting for ideas and suggestions really, as am still mostly completely undecided.

Also these days, would anyone agree that it may be better/more prudent to source a stove for an America trip actually over in the USA maybe? I only thought to ask as I have seen some nice stoves available on US outdoors retail sites like Campmor and Altrec, plus Backcountry.com, that I just do not seem to see for sale anywhere here! I figured that it was maybe like buying cameras has been the last few years-where the latest models take a time to filter over here from the US for sale in our bigger outdoors chains like Cotswold/Field and Trek etc.

Hope not to become too much of a stove bore myself, although that is somehow I think maybe a possibility in anything like this, where one is trying to make such a decision, from scratch, seeking advice over something as important a bit of outdoors kit as the essential stove!

Coming from a bushcraft/wilderness survival skills background I love to cook over a nice roaring fire a good bit really! However I do these days realise that my preference for such wild camping luxury is not perceived to be so ecologically sound, in flying-in-the-face of these modern days of backcountry "Leave no Trace" types of philosophy/outdoors education. Many thanks for the tip on the recipies there, as that is exactly what I was looking to find!

I let my DOE Gold group try out the Greenheat jelly tins   in their Trangias as an alternative to meths.  They then had  the choice  of which to use for their exped. The decision was unananimous - greenheat. 

 A word of warning though.  In our kit store we have some cheap chinese imitation trangias.  The jelly tins  don't fit in them !

"Would you reckon I go for a meths one over a jelly one then? I am still hunting for ideas and suggestions really, as am still mostly completely undecided. "

 Just a suggestion, if you have not considered one, would be a Brasslite Turbo II stove. These are very robust, effective, hot (natch) and easily available from Brasslite.com (Aaron at Brasslite is very good to deal with). No mess or bother, no worries about crushing the thing if you stand on it, and I can verify from experience this week that they work very effectively in temperatures at least as low as -2 and probably lower.

 I have used one for some time, but you never see them reviewed over here, so I mention them as otherwise you may not come across them. They are heavier than coke-can stoves, but only by grammes, but they are really effective and you can get the fuel relatively easily, which may not be the case with alcohol gel, which I am guessing will be no more efficient than meths, and probably less so, which equals more weight to carry.

Now surfing the web today I see that there are much more technical looking jelly fuel stoves around from Antigravity Gear AGG manufacturer, which do look most interesting I have to say.

Hi Trevor,

Am I right in reading this - is the AGG stove you refer to designed for alcohol gel, or just normal meths?

I thought the only gel specific stove was the Greenheat one?

Maybe I missed the whole alcohol jelly revolution  

No, you are quite right there RobM, and Frum too there as well for that matter! Yes, the Greenheat apparently is the only new generation of jelly stoves to be had! I read the AGG bits I saw wrongly, or maybe I just got caught up in some wishful thinking here for a good moment! I just made that in-faith jump there in my mind, from alcohol to alcohol jelly, in one of my more regular moments of pure madness!

As for the fab suggestion from our own great Manchester Rambler, that definitely does sound like a really very interesting idea indeed! I shall most certainly try to check that particular type of stove out as a selection possibility, quite soon! I still wish to buy myself something fairly cheap and cheerful (under the sixty quid mark would be better) you see, for more generalised backpacking usage overall here in the UK. I am not really at the moment looking for another multi-fuel type stove for overseas use just now, so perhaps I should give more kind consideration to an alcohol meths stove, over a new canister type of a one, than I thus far have allowed for!

Thank you everybody for the kind suggestions, which are very much appreciated here! Especially so all the more, as this is the first stove purchase I have made for quite some time; and I see the market has changed a good bit more than I had really expected choice wise, over the last ten years since gone by from buying my last main stove unit!

Trevor,

Brasslite stoves can be obtained directly from www.brasslite.com. I would recommend the Turbo II-D, rather than the F, as this is the model I have. I have recommended to at least one major lightweight backpacking retailer that they stock these, but there were various insurmountable issues, apparently.

They don't cost much. You need a windscreen, and a reflective disc as a base to put it on (I use several layers of tinfoil for the base - windscreens can be bought from various places: I bought one a bit smaller than an MSR one, although one of these would do).

One feature that the Turbo II-D has is the ability to simmer. It has vents which you can partially close to facilitate this. I leave mine partially closed all of the time and it performs really well. Aaron at Brasslite sells meths-measuring bottles in various sizes to go with the stove but you don't need one of these these. Either half fill it (does about two 1 litre boils) or fill it (I have heated a Wayfarer and cooked rice successfully on one of these stoves on one fill - although now I generally eat Blue Dragon chilli instant-cook noodles when wild camping. I just carry a standard plastic 500ml meths bottle in which hardware stores sell the stuff. You get used to how much meths to put in.

These tiny stoves work really well - from solid ice, left in the pan overnight, to coffee, in less than 10 mins, using an MSR kettle, in -2 conditions in Langdale last Saturday morning, for example. (This was in the porch of my Nallo 2 - these stoves are very safe in use).

I like the simplicity, silence, and utter reliability of these stoves. I have a good multi-fuel (an Optimus Nova) but find I am reaching for the Brasslite, even in cold conditions.

I prefer the Brasslite to a gas canister stove, as especially on short trips, the weight starts low and gets lower as I use up the fuel. Also, you can see exactly how much fuel you have left.

Hope this helps - there are others on the market - White Box stoves and Caldera Cones look good, but I'm unsure about durability and they look a bit fiddly to set up, to me, whereas the Brasslite is solid enough to stand on, is very well made, and very simple in operation.