There’s few things more welcome than a hearty meal after a long day of walking, or a morning coffee before you hit the trail. I really enjoy cooking outdoors. I gained my Advanced Camper and Outdoor Cook badges as a Guide, preparing meals over an open fire, and have an excellent repertoire as a BBQ cook. Food just tastes better with a side serving of the great outdoors.
While sitting by a roaring campfire with a steaming mug of cocoa has a certain romanticism, it’s never the practical option for cooking and very rarely a responsible choice, especially in remote areas. Even when staying on a campsite, a lightweight backpacking stove is far more safe and efficient, especially when you’re on the move again every day.
What am I looking for in a cooking system for backpacking? Something simple to use, that will get the job done quickly at the end of a long day, especially when the weather is rubbish. It should be lightweight and dependable, easy to pack away after use and clean at the end of a trip.
How I tested the Jetboil Flash 2.0
I took the Jetboil Flash with me on the TGO Challenge, a self-sufficient coast to coast crossing of Scotland in May 2019. I took 11 days to make the crossing, with one scheduled rest and resupply day around the halfway point, walking between 25 and 30km a day and carrying all my gear.
For the most part of the trip I wild camped overnight, usually in locations remote from a local shop, café or pub, so had to be able to make food to ensure I could recover from the day and was properly fuelled for the following day. I took a selection of dehydrated and boil in the bag meals, a homemade mixture of instant porridge, muesli and trail mix for breakfasts, tea bags and ground coffee.
It was pretty important to me to get a coffee in the morning, to help me prepare for walking, to spend a few moments going over my route for the day, and just appreciate the place I’d stopped in for the night before packing up my gear to get on the way.
Though May is the springtime and days are long, there’s still potential for cold nights, and I woke to frost on the outside of the tent on a couple of occasions. Then after a week of fine weather, conditions changed to days of relentless rain and a cold that seeped into my bones. The ability to make hot food and drinks was as much about keeping up morale as fuelling my body.
Product Description
The Jetboil Flash 2.0 is an integrated canister stove system that gives a super fast boiling time, claiming to boil 500ml of water in 100 seconds, thanks to the FluxRing heat exchanger on the base of the pot.
It is claimed that the heat exchanger, and the secure connection between the stove and the cooking pot, keeps it fuel efficient in all but the worst weather conditions, with half the fuel consumption of a traditional stove.
It has a 1 litre cooking pot, a convenient push-button piezo-electric ignition, and an insulated neoprene cozy with a colour-changing water temperature indicator. The system weighs in at a shade under 400g without the gas
Field Results
The claim for taking 100 seconds to boil exactly 500ml of water stood up in the sheltered conditions of my garden, and though it takes a little longer to boil a full pot of water in wet and windy conditions, it’s still no time at all compared to other camping stoves I’ve used.
You can’t quite make use of the full 1 litre capacity of the pot without risking it boiling over and splashing hot water around, but limiting the fill to something between 500-750ml still provides enough hot water for a dehydrated meal and a mug of tea, or an instant porridge and large coffee, with enough left over to have a quick body and face wash.
The Jetboil is really simple to set up. Everything, including a small (100g) gas cannister, fits into the pot, making it easy to pack and just as easy to find when you need it. The cooking pot clicks securely into the burner, which screws into the gas cannister, which in turn fits onto a folding stand to keep the whole set up stable.
The piezo-electric ignition means you don’t have to fumble around looking for matches or a lighter. The large flame logo on the insulated neoprene cosy is a colour-changing water temperature indicator, turning orange as the water approaches boiling. I really liked this feature as it means you can prevent the pot from boiling over, and think it helped conserve my fuel supply.
The handy cosy means you can pick up the pot once it’s boiled, keeping your hands protected, so it can be used as a mug for a brew, and there’s a hole in the in the lid that forms a pouring spout to safely add hot water to food pouches. Over time I think the cosy will start to sag, but should be inexpensive to replace.
It’s worth noting that while the boiling time is lightning fast, that’s all the Flash will really do well. This isn’t a system that gives plenty of options for cooking. While it includes a pot support that attaches securely to the burner to use with other pots and pans, the adjustable intensity of the flame isn’t enough to allow you to simmer gently. I tested it out by frying bacon and an egg while sitting out in my garden, and found that it worked fine, but I think re-heating tinned food or trying to cook rice or pasta would end up with it burning in the bottom of the pot.
Worth the money?
The Jetboil Flash 2.0 costs around £90 – £100, depending on the outlet where you find it. It’s not the only option out there, and if you’re on a tighter budget the Alpkit Brukit has the same built-in heat exchanger system for around half of the price. The higher price of the Flash buys you less weight, around 150g less than the Brukit, which is a significant if you’re a lightweight camper.
Other Jetboil systems, like the MiniMo or MicroMo, include a simmer control for more cooking options, but boil slower and are more pricy.
Otherwise a you can find lightweight stoves that screw into a gas canister, like the MSR Pocket Rocket or Alpkit Kraku, for somewhere between £30 and £60. While the Flash takes up more room in your pack, and isn’t ultralight by backpacking standards, most other stoves require you carrying a separate pot or mug, which adds a few more grams to the overall weight even for the thinnest titanium models.
Conclusion
I’m completely convinced that the Jetboil Flash is exactly the right cooking system for me. It’s an excellent bit of kit for backpacking trips, as long as you’re prepared to subsist mainly on dehydrated food pouches, instant porridge, and supernoodles. It’s simple to use, compact and lightweight, and boils water so quickly that there’s almost no waiting to have a hot drink to warm up on a cold day.
It’s very easy to underestimate the volume of tea that a ranger needs to drink to fulfil their working day satisfactorily, so currently I keep my Jetboil stowed away in the back of my vehicle with a bottle of water and a brew kit to make myself a cuppa in between patrols. It beats the alternative of tea from a flask hands down.
With a few more long-distance backpacking trips planned, I know I’m going to get plenty of use from it for years to come, making it well worth the initial investment.
Disclaimer: I bought the Jetboil Flash 2.0 with the money I had left over after all my bills were paid. This is my honest review after several months of use.
If you’ve got any questions about finding the right camping stove system, leave a message in the comments below.
Why not pin this to your hiking and camping boards for later?
These Vagabond Shoes. 
I’ve had mine for five years or so now, and very pleased with it, though in all that time it’s never occurred to me to use the end cap as a breakfast bowl / measuring bowl. Now that I look at it more closely , I see it’s got cup measurement lines and everything.
As you say, it’s great for boiling stuff quickly and easily. It sounds like you’ve had a bit more success than I have in using it for frying, too. Any tips there? Do you use a flame spreader? Any particular type of pan?
No real tips for frying, just keeping an eagle eye on the pan for signs of burning, and managing the heat by lifting the pan off/on the burner or moving the contents around. I have a very basic set of Vango cooking pots, with a pot lid that doubles as a small frying pan. It just takes a bit more of my attention than using the Jetboil to boil water.