Jetboil Stash Review: A 200g Ultralight Cookset for Backpacking

Gear · Published 6/8/2023 ·

My old gear was just too heavy. So I’ve been slowly hunting down lighter — or even ultralight — replacements, one piece at a time. You might think, what’s the big deal about 100 grams? But here’s the magic: those 100-gram bits pile up and turn into a full kilo before you know it, and it happens every single day. Of course, the most important weight to cut is my own body weight… but anyway, I caved and bought something again. Jetboil’s Stash.

Here’s everything except the gas canister. All of this weighs 200 grams — the pot, the lid, the stove, even the canister stabilizer.

It runs on a 110-gram iso canister. You can use bigger iso canisters too, of course, but then it won’t stack (pack) properly. Between the weight of the canister itself and the gas, it’s just less of a headache to grab a 110-gram iso and pack it all together. The specs say 100 grams of iso will boil 12 liters of water. The stove (burner) is made of titanium.

The pot is aluminum, 800ml capacity. It’s hard-anodized aluminum, with no separate coating on the inside. In other words, things can stick, so you’ve got to be a little careful with it. I’m only planning to use it for heating up some odeng-tang, boiling water, or cooking a single pack of ramen — nothing fancy.

Pack it like in the photo above and everything nests inside. I’m planning to toss in a folding spork and such as well, but the canister hasn’t arrived yet, so I can’t really judge how much room is left.

The pot’s diameter is wider than I expected. With some careful flame control I can easily cook ramen, but I’m not so sure about Hetbahn (instant rice). I eat my rice from another brand without reheating it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter to me.

The handle is sturdy and coated in silicone, so you can lift the pot even when it’s piping hot without burning yourself. This is a really important detail. With most titanium cooksets or aluminum pots, you have to come up with your own workaround for the handle — wearing gloves, or wrapping cord around it, which is honestly such a pain. Having the silicone coating built in from the start is a genuinely nice touch.

On the bottom there’s a stacking (packing) order printed out. It even shows that you can fit a lighter in there. So with a single pack you can carry fuel, burner, and cookset all together. To improve heat transfer, there’s a wavy aluminum coil spot-welded onto the base. The leftover heat escapes out to the sides and warms the area around the pot — the same idea as the Coalman or the Reactor. The point is to soak up as much heat as possible and channel it into the pot for better efficiency, hence this design.

I bought a Dyneema pouch and packed it up. The heat-exchanger part on the bottom of the pot is sharper than you’d expect, so wrapping it once more like this before putting it in your pack cuts down on interference with your other gear and reduces noise too.

I’ve tried all sorts of things over the years, but since I’ve started down the ultralight road I might as well cut as much as I can. That means giving up samgyeopsal and other grilled dishes, and switching over to heating and boiling instead. I mostly prefer no-cook meals, but this is a great option for eating at a campsite after coming down the mountain. And it’d make excellent gear for the cooking areas at shelters, too.

Thank you.

Specs

Weight: 200g

Fuel: 110g iso gas

Photo credits: Jetboil website, my own shots

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