An inverted canister stove (also called a remote inverted canister stove) is a canister stove that can burn canister gas (an isobutane/propane mix) in lower temperatures than a regular canister stove. It’s good for winter camping when the nighttime temperature drops below 15 degrees (F). That’s the temperature at which point regular (upright) canister stoves like a Jetboil Flash and MSR Windburner begin to fail because the gas inside their fuel canisters can’t vaporize.
But an inverted canister stove can burn gas down to about 0 degrees Fahrenheit because it burns canister gas in its liquid form rather than as a gas. This is done by turning the canister on its side or upside down so that the fuel comes out of the canister in a liquid form rather than a gaseous one. Inverted canister stoves are specially made so that they can burn the liquid fuel feed.
Remote Inverted Canister Stove Benefits
Being able to position the fuel canister separate from the burner head has several benefits:
- The first is that you can surround the burner head with a high windscreen to make it more efficient, something you can’t do with a burner head that sits on top of a canister because the canister will overheat and explode.
- The second is that the stove is much more stable and can be used with much larger cook pots because it’s lower to the ground and less prone to toppling over. Efficiency and stability are very important if you’re melting snow for drinking water in winter, which you need to bring to a boil to purify.
Just be aware that most remote canister stoves are designed for group cooking and larger pots, but do not support inverted operation. That requires a specially designed stove.
Better Fuel Efficiency
If fuel efficiency is of paramount importance, and it frequently is in winter, a remote inverted canister stove will burn more efficiently if it’s surrounded by a windscreen, something you can’t do with most upright canister stoves, lest they overheat and explode. The one exception to that is a completely enclosed burned head, like the radiant burner used on the MSR Windburner stove, the Olicamp RBS Infrared Stove System, or the MSR Reactor Stove (currently under a safety recall). However, both of those stoves have the same temperature limitation of regular upright canister stoves (like a Jetboil Flash or MSR Pocket Rocket 2) because they can only burn canister fuel in its gaseous form.
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