Brunton Vapor All-Fuel Stove

I purchased this stove to update/replace my still functional Coleman 440 (1994) with a lighter more compact unit. I'm not an avid hiker/camper but now that my kids are getting old enough to comfortably introduce them to the outdoors I want to get back into it. After reading many reviews I settled on this model. It arrived and I immediately set it up. I'm 35 and "gadgets" still make me feel like a kid. :) The stove is solidly built and extremely easy to set up and very stable. I set the stove to gas and hooked up a canisters I ordered along with it. Cracked the valves and lit it. Yep! It's loud, although I'm not looking for silent cooking so it wasn't a concern. I mainly wanted a stove I could burn nearly anything I could find in it. First water boil trial....1L water in a 2L heavy bottom stainless steel kitchen pot (don't tell the wife), sounds impressive...4 minutes later, fully expecting this thing to outperform my 15 year old stove, I'm only seeing small bubbles form. This thing should have been just about boiling given the published 1L boil in 3½ minutes. Well, it finally boiled...total time 15:38!!!! I was sadly disappointed, figured it was because I was using a very heavy 2L kitchen quality pot so I broke out my trusty Coleman and repeated the test. The Coleman brought the water to full rolling boil in just under 7 minutes (6:58). Fully disheartened at that point I grabbed my normal 1.5L light aluminum pot and repeated the tests checking the temp. this time and recording when the water reached 100°C to be accurate. Results: Vapor AF using white gas, 9:59, using kerosene, 9:04, using Brunton canister fuel, 14:50. I attempted to use denatured alcohol, after an email from the company saying it should work, but it vaporizes the fuel to fast and won't run for more than a few seconds. Using my old Coleman stove and the thin wall pot I was able to boil the water in 4:54 and its about 1/5 as loud. So far I'm not at all impressed with the Vapor AF. Simmer ability is fabulous and the Vapor AF can be adjusted from a mere flicker of a flame to a full out blast. My old Coleman 440 simmers well but tends to have 'stages' of flame height adjustment when set low. I wasn't able to test a SVEA 123 that I have because of pot stability. That test will follow once I have a pot to use on it, I'm curious since the Vapor AF operates on the same principle.

Well...wanted to post since made alot of my purchase decisions on other posts...purchased this stove from Backcountry.com....was told it was the best and "I could depend my life on it". I was originally looking at the MSR WhisperLite Internatonal Multi-Fuel Stove per have used it before..coincendentally my buddy had this stove this weekend...I tried mine out first, read through the directions to a "T" and could not get the prime to light...pumped it a gazillion times and finally after about 5 tries it lit.....after went out waited a few minutes to start gain and had to completely re-prime it...again pumping it more than was directed and my fuel bottle was full....mind you we were using coleman fuel but it was 88 degrees and perfect weather conditions...of course his MSR started right up....shut it down and relit it about 7 minutes later and started right up without having to prime again...of course his flame was quite higher and reckless, also didnt like the fact that the MSR you had to change out pin's to use different fuels and the Brunton you just turn the knob...overall very dissapointed because liked everything about it but functionality is a priority...again dont feel could depend my life on it. Of course backcountry.com is willing to take care of me...they have been good so far so still looking for a better alternative and will exchange

I've been looking for a stove with three features: 1: liquid fuel, 2: good flame control, and 3: quiet. This did not exist last year so I bought this stove knowing it would not be quite.

I used it on several trips, including 2 weeks of kayaking, always with white gas. Performs about as expected I expected: loud, very good flame control, and reasonably efficient.

I'm not a fan of multi-fuel stoves. I have a light canister stove for when I want that. I don't know if any efficiency is lost to accommodate multi-fuel. I do know that attaching the stove to the pump is fussy.

The jet did clog and required cleaning. The tool was somewhat fussy to use. Recently the fine cleaning wire broke, leaving me with no cleaning tool. Replacements are not readily available.

Finally, a swivel joint in the fuel line started leaking. The included tool did not have a socket to fit the joint's nut. I did not investigate further: average performer, somewhat fussy, unreliable fuel line. I returned it to REI.

Has any one tested this product with rapeseed oil or veg oil - i have an optimus nova (previous model) and it doesn't work properly with anything other than coleman fuel and petrol! and of all the f*c* wit revues i read about this product, no one has tested to see if it truely is "all fuel"

Brunton has wonderful customer service. After posing my issue to them, it was RA'd without question. The new stove performs the same as the old one, getting about 12-13 minute 1L boil times using 70°F water in a 60°F room with a 1L REI aluminum pot. Quite dissatisfying! As stated in my below post, my old SVEA 123 performed better at 11:31 for 1L and the old Coleman 440 kicks serious butt at under 5 minutes all the time. As far as all fuel is concerned, this thing seems to burn just about all volatile fuels, except alcohol. Burns diesel, kerosene, white gas, and gasoline (I've tried all) as well as canister fuels which makes this stove very versatile unless you want FAST boil times. Simmering is great and flame control is good. I would not call this stove an "all fuel" as I don't think it will burn veg oil, rapeseed oil, or bunker C. ;) I do believe however that it would burn just about any other high to med VOC fuels....it just won't perform anywhere near the 3.5 minute boil time.