Stove Roarer Burner

Portable stove A small portable stove and its container

MSR WindPro with skillet, heat reflector, wind shield and isobutane/propane canisterA portable stove is a stove specially designed to be portable and lightweight, as for camping.

The division of portable stoves into several broad categories is based on the type of fuel used in the stove:
Simple single-burner stoves, often without any controls at all, that use solid or liquid fuel that is placed in the burner before ignition. Single-burner stoves that use volatile liquid fuel in a pressurised burner-tank combination.

Single- or multi-burner bottled-gas stoves, which have controls to regulate the heat, similar to the controls on a kitchen stove. Gravity-fed spirit stoves, which have priming pans.

Modern models: Kerosene pressure stove

The pressurising pump knob is protruding from the fuel tank at the lower right.Pressurised-burner stoves are now available to burn almost any volatile flammable liquid, including alcohol; diesel or other motor fuels; kerosene; jet propellant; and many others. Work is proceeding on vegetable-oil burners. Some can burn multiple fuels or even mixtures. Some require special low-residue stove fuel; others are designed to resist clogging or to be easily and regularly cleaned of the residue.

Most pressurised-burner stoves provide some control over the amount of heat produced. Some fuels permit preheating (or priming) with the fuel; others require use of a more volatile fuel, such as methylated spirit or alcohol priming paste, for preheating the burner. Most provide an integrated pump for initial pressurisation; others require the use of a separate pump. A few, such as the later Optimus and Primus designs, need no pump, but pressurise themselves when the burner is preheated.

Although heavier than the simpler designs and more complex to maintain and operate, these stoves can heat food more quickly. Standard issue to many units in the Second World War, they enjoyed a large base of competent users in the years immediately following the war. Another of their advantages is that hydrocarbon fuels have a higher heat content, weight for weight, than alcohol fuels, so that, for extended expeditions, the weight advantage of alcohol-fueled stoves is reduced or even reversed.