Thank you for your comments, suggestions and support
Hi ya Aaron,
I used the Turbo II on my last hike and have some feedback. I hiked for 5 days with a mate of mine and we used it for:
1 cup of coffee in the morning, 1 rice meal in the evening + frying onions, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes,
1 cup of coffee in the evening
This meal system was used every day. This required 900 ml of fuel. If I was a little more careful pouring in fuel, it could have been less. The simmering capacity of the stove is fantastic – better than anything I’ve seen because with all vents blocked, it simmers at just the right temperature to keep rice boiling. At 50% open, it’s perfect for frying. The simmering response time is not really an issue for me. This excellent simmer control is much better than say the latest MSR Simmerlite which, even though it simmers, emits far too much heat and therefore wastes fuel. With the fuel tank full, we got 30 minutes of total burn time with your stove using the vents in various positions. Also, unlike shellite, the food does not end up sticking to the bottom of the billy because it has been seared on.
The way I see things, your stove is lighter than a shellite stove but uses more fuel. Thus, eventually, over a long trip, the shellite would catch up in total weight of stove + fuel. However, my calculations reveal that it would have to be a ridiculously long trip and in practice, the Turbo II + fuel will always be lighter (assumes the meals I have above, using fuel for lunch would change things a lot). If the simmer control on the MSR Whisperlite was a lot better (i.e. it could emit less heat at lowest possible simmer), it might beat a Turbo II over 5 days. Gas might be more competitive in theory, but I hate those bloody gas cylinders as you can never tell how full they are and they loose pressure when emptying.
The Turbo II is also big enough that you can pour fuel straight into the tank without your special little bottles. This is good because we needed more fuel than the biggest one and plastic can break/wear out I suppose.
I can think of one tiny improvement. With the vents fully open, the stove emits what looks like too much flame as it creeps up the sides of our billy. We never had all vents open for this reason. Thus I assume there might be 1 or 2 too many? Anyway, this is a very minor criticism. I also think that a cooking pot that is a lot wider than what I can buy would be much more efficient – something like a frying pan with deep sides but that’s another story.
In summary, the Turbo II is a winner and we’ll be using it on all our trips from now on except when we take more than 2 people or are in the snow.
Peter S.
Australia