Customer Reviews

Snow Peak GigaPower Stainless Steel Stove - Auto

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First off, this is a great stove for backpacking. The stove boils water like a champ. If you keep it on high, it'll boil very fast, but waste a lot of fuel. As far as car camping goes, I'd prefer something like the traditional Coleman double burner one that's around forty or fifty bucks. This snowpeak stove is small, lightweight and reliable. The only things about it that I don't like are the fact that I have had two of the ignition switches fail on me and also the trickiness involved with getting this stove to simmer anything.

The ignition switch can be replaced, but it will cost around ten bucks to buy a new one. Buy this one if you like, but always bring a lighter/matches just in case it decides to fail. If I had to do it all over again, I'd buy the one that you need to use your lighter to light.

Getting the flame down to a nice simmer is very tricky because as soon as you turn it down and take your fingers off the valve handle, it will open up just a little bit and the flame will be higher than you want. My trick is to slowly close the valve until the flame *just* goes out. Take your hands off the valve. Then use the ignition switch or a lighter and light it again without touching the fuel valve.

In my opinion, if you already have a pot/cup that you like to use to boil water in and are trying to go lightweight, then consider the snowpeak. If you're just putting together your backpacking kitchen things, and have a little more money to spend, then consider one of the jetboil packages. If you want lightweight, convenient and have extra cash, get the jetboil titanium setup.

I got this because of its size & price.
Heats very quickly & will hold a 6" pan.
I cooked green chilaquiles with scrambled eggs & they turned out great in less than about 3 minutes.
The built in ignition works great.
I will recommend this to my family & friends.

I bought this stove for the purpose of boiling water in an emergency. It really is limited to boiling water at full blast. I tried to cook eggs in the pan from a Snow Peak Trek 900 cookset and nearly incinerated the eggs on low. The thin walled titanium pan/lid didn't help that at all. It worked great when I cooked eggs in my small expensive 5 layer aluminum core cookware.

It is lightweight and very small. It appears to me to be about 10,000 btu as advertised. It is very dangerous to use it on a utensil much larger than the fuel canister. The heat can build up on the fuel canister very easily. The stove does not have a regulator which causes fluctuation in the heat output when the canister gets below 60% (the heat mass drops which slows boiling of the fuel which lowers pressure in the canister).

I bought the wind screen with it and it is dangerous to use. The windscreen gets red hot and the IR heats the fuel canister. As the direction indicate never use the windscreen with a pot larger than the windscreen. When using the windscreen I keep touching the fuel canister to make sure it doesn't get too hot. If I can't touch it with my hand it is too hot to stay on. This gives enough time to boil in the Trek 900 pot (0.9L) and then you need to let the canister cool.

Overall, I love the compact size and power of this stove. It works best to boil water quickly for drinking, cleaning, or preparing freeze dried food. I would not recommend it for any sustained or complex cooking. The stove requires constant attention.

I consider myself and ultralight or minimalist adventurer. I bought this as a lighter weight substitute for my MSR Whisperlite.

The Gigapower excels at boiling water rather than more complex cooking as another reviewer stated. However I successfully cook eggs all the time by using an 8 inch, teflon coated, layered bottom skillet. It also cooks pancakes and bannock cakes fine.

Most of the time I'm living off of dehydrated meals and hot tea. This stove boils a liter of water in about 3 minutes on full blast. Boils it in about 5 minutes on low. I'm able to prepare a Mountainhouse meal and tea in about 4 minutes with a 1.1 liter pot. Temperature of air, water and altitude will of course affect boil time.

My Piezo ignition has always worked fine but can be a little fussy in temps below 30 degrees. I recommend a backup ignition source. Everyone should have a B1C lighter anyway.

The flame control isn't as fine tuned as a few other stoves but I usually monitor my cooking flame pretty close anyway. I would suggest the same to you if you purchase this stove.

On average, I am able to boil about 6 liters of water a day, for 3 days with the small fuel canister and still have some to spare. One small canister lasted 6 of the 7 days it took me to do the Foothills trail. I was solo and using fuel more sparingly than I normally would. I do however suggest "wasting" at least one canister at home to practice a few meals you plan on having. You don't want any surprises in the woods. All too often people can be quick to blame product quality when it's really user ineptitude.

I've never experienced overheating of the canister with or without windscreens. I purchased the Snowpeak windscreen and used it for a while but I prefer my homemade one. (See my review of the windscreen to find out how I made mine.)

This stove I recommend for avid backpackers rather than car campers or the like. If you are just thinking of buying this stove for "survival/apocalyptic" reasons.. you are better off with a Coleman double burner or a pair of Whisperlites since fuel is much easier to come by.

Thanks for reading!

I am a locomotive engineer for the railroad. I have been using this stove daily for over 5 years! combined with the snow peak titanium single wall 450 cup. the stove and fule canister both fit inside the cup when not in use. I use this stove just to make to hot coffee using folgers singles coffee bags. I can set this stove up while stopped at a redblock (redlight/stoplight)and have a piping hot cup of coffee in less than 2 minutes! and best of all the stove/cup/fule canister weighs less than 1 pound and takes up very little space in my grip (duffel bag)I also have a second stove/cup in my emegency kit. this is hands down the most durable and reliable stove on the market.

My girlfriend and I have brought this stove on our last few canoe trips, and loved it. We got the stove, the windscreen, and the Titanium Trek 1400 Cookset together as a set. The stove, windscreen, and one can of fuel nestle inside the pot and pan, and it all goes in a tidy net bag. Packs small, packs light, and cooks like a champ. Fuel runs about five clams a can right now, which isn't ideal but we can live with it.

Most importantly, it's easy to use. We used to have a single-burner Coleman dual-fuel stove. The Coleman was almost as compact, and could run on gasoline in a pinch if the SHTF and we had to grab the M1 and rough it for a while. Good product. But too complicated for a woman to operate. My loyal helpmeet, try though she might, was unable to master the complexity of the fuel-tank pressurization pump. Lighting the stove became a Man's Job. That's not quite right, is it? Cook fire, yes. Stove, no. In the woods, I had to get out of bed in the morning so she could make me coffee! But with the new stove, ignition is a simple matter of turning a key and pressing a button, a task almost any woman can reliably perform. My coffee arrives as it should, hot and delicious.

And so the natural order is restored. I highly recommend this product.