Stoves 101: How to Get the Most Out of Your Fuel Canisters
Tricks for keeping your stove burning stronger and longer on each can of fuel.
BTUs, Boil Time and Water Boiled: Understanding Stove Performance
Learn which test numbers are important and what they really mean for real-world performance.
7 Best Ways to Make Coffee in the Backcountry
Whether you prefer the pour-over or the French press, these are our favorite tools of the trade.
The Ultimate Guide to MSR Fuel
You’re psyched. You just bought an MSR® camp stove—the undisputed gold standard for everything from expeditions and extended road trips to casual backpacks and a weekend of family camping. In that process, you likely considered what type of fuel you wanted your new stove to use: liquid fuel or canister fuel. Now that you’ve made that primary choice, you may find yourself wondering a host of questions, from finding compatible fuel away from home to basic use tips to make the most of your stove or stove system. So, here’s a soup-to-nuts compendium of the most common questions we receive about MSR fuel to keep you going no matter where you want to be. What is MSR IsoPro™ Fuel? MSR IsoPro fuel is the magic sauce inside our fuel canisters….
A Guide to MSR Backpacking Stoves
For every adventurer and need out there, there’s an MSR stove to match.
Backpacking Food Ideas: Get Your Ingredients at the Grocery Store
You can plan your entire backpacking menu with grocery store items. Here’s how.
How to Clean Your Backpacking Stove
We’ve all been there: the moment of horror when you realize your oatmeal (of course it’s oatmeal) is boiling over onto your stove. (We’ll blame it on not having finished that first cup of coffee yet.) And even though you snatched the pot away as quickly as you could, some of that nice, thick oaty sludge managed to splat right onto the burner head. Now what? Whether you have an ultralight canister stove, an uber-efficient system stove or a burly liquid-fuel stove, we’ve pulled together the do’s and don’ts of cleaning your cook setup, courtesy of our expert MSR repairs team. They’ve seen it all, and now they’re passing their knowledge to you. Read on to learn how to clean your backpacking stove. How to Clean Canister Stoves These popular…
Thru-Hiking Stoves: DIY or Buy?
The hole punch sank its teeth into the aluminum side of a cat food can, chewing a hole through the wall. My ventilation system was complete. I’d just created a “cat stove”–a do-it-yourself backpacking stove–while sitting in a dank motel room along the Appalachian Trail. With a little bit of denatured alcohol, I had a new way to cook my food, and it only weighed a few ounces. After hiking for several weeks with a wood-fueled stove, I made the discovery that some environments are incompatible with wood-burning stove systems, and that in a well-trafficked corridor like the Appalachian Trail, it isn’t always ethical to collect wood anyway. These findings prompted me to observe other backpacking stoves when hikers gathered at the shelter for dinner. Some hopeful thru-hikers lugged around…
MSR Employees’ Favorite Camp Recipes
Camp meals vary wildly from person to person. Some are ultralight backpackers who eat cold instant refried beans every night without complaint (not joking). Others, whether car camping or out in the backcountry, want the whole shebang, from a starter salad to a glass of wine and dessert. These five recipes from MSR employees lie mostly in the middle (though some definitely lean toward the backcountry feast side of the scale). We’re a pretty outdoorsy bunch here at MSR, and we’ve perfected our camp recipes over years of adventures. MSR also makes pretty spectacular backpacking and camp stoves, if we do say so ourselves, and each employee has a favorite for cooking up their camp recipes. Check out this deep dive into our stoves, from Polar explorer Eric Larsen. A…