Camping gear review: The 80 percent efficient Primus EtaPackLite camp stove

June 30, 6:29 AMMinneapolis Outdoor Recreation ExaminerMarie Malinowski

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Minneapolis Outdoor Recreation Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

The Primus EtaPackLite camp stove with gas can

In North to the Orient, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s memoir of her and husband Charles Lindbergh’s 1931 flight to the Orient in a 600-horsepower Lockheed Sirius, they packed a Primus stove (p 168-169). 

If the Lindberghs cooked their food with a Primus stove, I'll wager that this infinitely proves that Primus’ brand value has been sustained by their quality products. Incidentally, the Lindbergh's Primus probably looked something like this.

*Flash forward to 2009*

The new-for-Spring-2009 Primus EtaPackLite camp stove is a two-person cooking system with heat exchanger, piezoelectric igniter, windshield, 1.2 liter pot, inner Polypropylene pot with cover/plate, and a lid that doubles as colander. All components nest inside the pot with enough room for a can of fuel.

Neat, compact, and stowable—not to mention efficient. Anne and Charles would have been pleased. Especially since it weighs in at 21 ounces.

The heat exchanger and the windshield is the key to this stove’s efficiency. The heat exchanger is intended to eke out every last smidgen of heat from the burner, and the windshield minimizes heat loss from breezes. The stove is eighty percent more efficient than, and twice as efficient, as comparable stoves. This means that you’ll carry less fuel with a Primus. Carrying less fuel means carrying less weight.

The design is really well done and constructed in the fashion of a Matroyshka doll. Everything stacks neatly inside something else and has multiple uses. You know that I’m big on camping gear with multiple uses.

A plastic Polypropylene pot sits inside the main pot to protect the non-stick coating from the stove during transit. Decant half the contents of the pot into the Polypropylene pot for your companion. The plastic cover that protects the heat exchanger (in transit) pulls double duty as a plate.

The pot’s handle locks to hold the plastic heat exchanger protector in place, and, is a…well, handle for the pot. The lid doubles as a colander. Ingenious, really, because noodles are a backpacking staple for me and I get really tired of scalding myself or dumping half my dinner in the dirt draining water from the pot.

As far as cooking dinner and boiling water for coffee or tea, I was pleased with its performance. I’m also pleased by its size, which is small enough for backpacking and big enough to feed two people. These new stoves with heat exchangers and integrated windscreens really outclass all my older stoves.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give the Primus EtaPackLite a 15.

For more info: Visit Primus stoves.

A few action photos of the EtaPackLite during field testing:

Tuna Helper ala carte: