These are real questions people post in backpacking and bushcraft forums every season — why a stove died on a cold morning, how much fuel a trip actually burns, whether a half-used canister will last the weekend. We pulled them from the forum harvest behind this page, grouped the ones that belong together, and answered each one short, with the number or rule the answer rests on. Where a question deserved the full working, the short answer links down to its own page.
Cold weather and the fuel math
Why does my canister stove sputter and die in cold weather?
An upright canister stove runs on vapor, and the fuel stops making enough of it as the canister chills. n-Butane quits vaporizing around 31°F and isobutane around 11°F — and burning makes it worse, because the fuel that does vaporize carries heat out of the canister with it, chilling what is left. Warm the canister in a jacket or sleeping bag first, and below freezing use a stove built for it: a regulated burner, or an inverted-canister model with a preheat tube that feeds liquid fuel instead of waiting on vapor.
How much stove fuel do I need per day?
Start with grams per liter boiled. An efficient system like the Jetboil Flash boils about 10 liters per 100 g canister — 10 g of fuel per liter — while a plain upright burner on an open pot lands nearer 14 g per liter. A solo eater boiling about 2 liters a day for drinks and two pouch meals therefore burns roughly 20–30 g a day, and melting snow for water roughly doubles to triples that. Count your liters first; the canister size follows from them, not from the number of days alone.
Do I have enough left in the canister? …the fuller one weighs 12.25 oz. Will that get me through three 2-cup breakfasts and three 1.5-cup dinners?
Yes, with a lot to spare. Weighing is the only honest way to know: 12.25 oz is about 347 g, and an empty canister of that 220–230 g size weighs roughly 125–130 g, so there is about 220 g of fuel inside. The six boils listed add up to only about 2.5 liters of water — roughly 25–35 g of fuel at normal burn rates. Write the weight on the canister with a marker after every trip and the guessing stops.
Does altitude affect stove fuel consumption — and how much white gas do I need per day?
Altitude does: above 10,000 ft, plan on roughly 20–25% more fuel per cook than at sea level, because lower air pressure cuts canister output and food cooks slower at the lower boiling point. White gas runs on a different measure — about 1.3 fl oz per person per day of boil math at MSR’s WhisperLite rating of 1.5 liters boiled per fl oz, or about 1.5 to 2.5 fl oz a day once priming and simmering are counted. Both fuels, plus group size, days, cooking load, and cold, are worked in one place by the Fuel-Per-Day Calculator — it returns fuel per day, the trip total, and the canisters or bottles to carry.
Picking a fuel system for the trip in front of you
Alcohol better then Canister for long section hike? So which stove for two weeks on the AT?
Over two weeks, the canister usually wins on total carried weight. An alcohol burner itself weighs almost nothing, but alcohol carries far less heat per gram than canister fuel and burns slower, so fourteen days of fuel outweighs both a canister stove and its gas. Alcohol still makes sense for short, simple trips where resupply is easy and boiling is all you do. White gas enters the picture in real cold, where it keeps full pressure while canisters fade — that, not alcohol, is the canister’s long-trip rival.
What has anyone thought about trying a wood burning backpacking stove for cooking and boiling water. Thought I could bring that instead of having to haul fuel canisters.
It works where dry twigs are plentiful and open fires are allowed — and the fuel really is free, gathered while you walk. The costs are time and conditions: boiling takes longer than on gas, pots come out black with soot, and the stove is dead weight on wet days, above treeline, and anywhere a fire ban is in force. Most wood-stove owners end up carrying a small backup burner or a few fuel tabs for exactly those mornings.
What size cook pot(s) do you use… how much water will I need for a solo FBC DIY meal?
A freezer-bag meal for one typically takes 1½ to 2 cups of water — about 350–475 ml — to rehydrate. That makes a pot in the 650–750 ml class the solo sweet spot: it boils the meal water with headroom to spare and can stretch to a hot drink right after. Go much smaller and you boil in two batches; go to a liter and you are carrying space you only use when a second person joins.
Lighting it when weather, wind, and altitude fight you
In high winds/very cold & wet weather what is best to carry? …a reliable source for lighting a stove in all weathers?
Carry a ferro rod as the method that cannot run out, freeze, or blow out. Its sparks land around 3,000°C — hot enough to light prepared tinder in rain, snow, and wind — and it has no fuel to evaporate or chill, which is how a party’s four liquid-fuel lighters all failed below zero on the trip behind this question. Keep a plain lighter as the fast everyday option, but let the rod be the one the plan depends on.
I had to go knocking on tent doors for a light, because my electronic ignition lighter wouldn’t light [at altitude]… the lighter on my Jetboil doesn’t work either. If it is the altitude, at what altitude does this occur?
It is the altitude, and it starts lower than most people expect: Jetboil itself notes that piezo igniters can fail to spark above about 7,000 feet. Thin air changes the fuel-and-air mix at the jet, and a piezo spark is a low-energy spark — past a point it no longer has enough to light that mix. A flint-wheel lighter throws a hotter, longer shower of sparks and keeps working, which is why a cheap flint lighter or matches ride as the backup on high trips.
Given limited space and weight what should I carry to get a fire going with damp wood?
A small kit that fits in a sandwich bag: a ferro rod, a few cotton balls worked with petroleum jelly, and a stick of fatwood or a couple of made tinder cubes. The technique matters as much as the kit — split damp wood to reach the dry wood inside and shave feathersticks from that dry core, because no spark source lights wet bark. Ignition, tinder that catches even when damp, and dry shavings: miss any one of the three and the fire fails.
Travel rules and the one safety line
Can I fly with a camp stove and fuel canister?
The stove, yes — the fuel, never. TSA allows a camp stove in carry-on or checked bags only when it is emptied of all fuel and cleaned so no vapors or residue remain; a stove that smells of fuel can be taken at the checkpoint. Fuel canisters are not allowed in either bag, full or empty. Plan on buying a canister at the destination, and if you fly with a liquid-fuel bottle, it travels empty, cleaned, and with the cap off so an inspector can see it is empty.
Is it safe to cook in a tent vestibule if I bring a stove?
No. Stove makers print the warning on the stove itself: outdoor use only, never in a tent, vestibule, or any enclosed space, because a burning stove makes carbon monoxide — an odorless gas that can poison you in your sleep — and a flare-up sits inches from tent fabric. Cook outside the vestibule, sheltered from the wind if you can manage it. On the night the weather truly forbids it, a cold meal is the right answer.
Keep reading
These answers sit inside our Fire & Cooking section, where the stove dataset behind the fuel math lives in Camp Stoves Compared and the pot sizes are worked through in Cook Kits Compared. For the ignition side — rod sizes, strike counts, and how to actually throw a spark that catches — see Ferro Rods Compared.
Talk it over with other readers. The Shelter Tactics Community on Facebook is where readers compare notes on knives, lights, packs, and the rest of the kit — and where your questions help decide what we research next. Join the group →