The Jetboil Sumo is a 1.8L group cooking system with an aluminum pot, cozy pot, stove, stove stand, and measuring cup for making camping and backpacking meals. Like all Jetboil stove systems, it includes a heat exchanger pot that is more wind resistant than a standalone backpacking stove and pot, reducing the fuel required to boil water or cook food. The Sumo is also large enough to pack a large gas canister inside the pot with all its components, making it easy to carry on backpacking trips when you have limited storage space in your backpack.
- Fuel-type: Isobutane canister
- Mfg Claimed Weight: 1 lb
- Actual Weight: 1.18 lbs incl. all components except stove adapter for non-Jetboil pots
- Average boil time: 4 min 15 sec per liter water
- Avg number of boils per 230g canister: 24
- People: 1-4
- Pros: easy to pack, highly efficient, regulated stove system
- Cons: fuel valve handle is easy to lose, wet stove makes other gear wet
The Jetboil Sumo is a group stove system best used on camping and backpacking trips to boil water or prepare meals for more than one person. It has a 1.8L aluminum cook pot covered with an insulating cozy to reduce heat loss. Heat exchange fins welded to the bottom reduce the fuel required to boil water or cook food (by 10-20%) by blocking the wind and retaining heat and radiating it back at the pot.
Out of the box, the Sumo includes:
- aluminum 1.8-liter cook pot with an insulating pot cozy and handle
- pot lid with pour spout and drainer holes
- regulated 6000 BTU stove with piezo igniter
- fuel canister stabilizer
- plastic measuring cup
- stove pot support for use with non-Jetboil pots and frying pans (also sold separately)
The great thing about the Sumo is that all of the components fit together, including a fuel canister, into the pot making it easier to pack and ensuring that you don’t misplace the individual pieces. With 1.8 liters of capacity, the pot is large enough to boil water for several people or actually cook a meal if you prefer real food over freeze-dried or dehydrated food (see Can You Cook in a Jetboil for tips and tricks). The extra capacity over a smaller pot, like the 1L pot included in the Jetboil Flash stove system, gives you more time to prevent a boilover.
The aluminum Sumo pot (and all of Jetboil’s pots) retains heat better than titanium pots reducing fuel consumption. The pot has fluid measurements in ounces and liters embossed inside the post (although they’re hard to see in low light) while the neoprene cozy also helps prevent heat from escaping. The cozy has a sturdy fabric handle that allows you to pick up the pot, even when hot, without requiring a separate pot holder.
The stove included with the Sumo only generates 6,000 BTUS, which is significantly less than the 10,000 BTU output of standalone stoves like the Soto Windmaster or the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe. However, the extra heat output is unnecessary because the stove integrates so tightly with the Sumo’s heat exchange pot. For example, when the Sumo stove is lit, the flames don’t shoot up the sides of the pot wastefully or ignite the pot cozy because of its precise fit with the Sumo’s insulated pot.
The Sumo stove is regulated, which ensures consistent flame height as the pressure in the fuel canister drops with use. It also comes with a piezo igniter, so you don’t have to bring a secondary ignition source like a bic mini lighter or fire steel. However, I’d still advise doing so because piezos do fail periodically.
The Sumo includes a canister stabilizer, which snaps into the pot lid, making it easy to pack. This is a good accessory to prevent tip-overs if you set the stove up on an uneven surface, you use a smaller 100g canister, which is narrower and less stable than a 230g canister, or you need to stir the contents in the pot of lot, making it more prone to tipping.
Jetboil packages the Sumo with add-on stove support if you want to use it with a third-party pot that doesn’t mate tightly to the Sumo stove. This is handy so you don’t have to carry multiple stoves to cook a several-course meal. The support doesn’t mate with the stove perfectly out of the box, but you can bend the mating fins to make it fit better – lightly tap them with a hammer.
Boil Times
The Sumo will boil a liter of water in about four and a half minutes, depending on the starting water temperature. I know this is important for some people as a performance measure, but it’s not for me. I only carry the Sumo on trips I take with other people, where I can focus on them and prepare food we can share in a relaxed outdoor setting. I’m more interested in fuel efficiency than speed, facilitated by the heat exchanger coils at the bottom of the Sumo pot and keeping the flame turned down low.
To that end, I like using the Sumo for cooking soupy foods, where I’m more interested in simmering with a low flame than boiling water for rehydrating freeze-dried or dehydrated meals. The height and 1.8L volume of the Sumo makes it easier to prevent boilovers than when using a smaller pot, as long as I carry a long spoon, and stir frequently to prevent food from burning at the bottom. It’s ironic that I can usually cook a hot and savory meal for two faster than it takes to rehydrate some commercial dehydrated meals, which take 20 minutes to “cook.”
Jetboil Stove Comparison
Recommendation
The Jetboil Sumo Group Cooking system is large enough to boil water or cook meals for 2-4 people on camping and backpacking trips. Like Jetboil’s other stove systems, it includes all the components you need to cook meals except for the food, a fuel canister, and utensils. I like the size of the 1.8L Sumo cook pot, which makes it less likely to have an unexpected boilover because it has a much higher capacity than the cookpots in Jetboil’s other stove systems. I like cooking actual food on my trips rather than rehydrating commercial meals and the Sumo’s large pot size makes this very convenient. Weighing just over 16 ounces, the Sumo is a much more efficient way to cook for two or more people without carrying separate stove systems for each person.
Disclosure: Jetboil donated a stove for review.
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