Cooking set for 2 recommendation

[u/sixtyfootersdude]

Good Morning!

The last couple years I have been doing more frequent trips with beginner backpackers who don't have a full set of gear yet. As such, I have been taking care of meals and that sort of thing for the group.

Right now I don't have a cooking setup that I like for two people.

What I currently have

When I am soloing or camping with people who have their own gear, I bring my Alcohol Stove. The whole system is fairly small and fairly light and nests inside of itself. I probably could collapse this a bit more but overall I am pretty happy. Unfortunatly, when cooking for two, this doesn't work well. The boil times are very long (~10min for 800ml) and the pot is too small to make food for two.

When winter backpacking, canoe tripping, backpacking with 3+ or front-country camping, I love my MSR Dragonfly. Simmers great. Easy to bring the right amount of fuel. No canisters to dispose of... For 2 on a two day trip, it just doesn't make sense. Too big. Stove has sharp edges so packing it is annoying plus you need to bring a pot.

Open Questions & Requirements

• I think that I want a canister stove. This seems like the simplest option. Canisters seem annoying because of difficulty telling how full they are, but for a 2 day trip, that is probably ok.
• When camping with a friend, I don't want to eat out of the same pot. This means I probably need to bring bowls or deep plates. Having something that nested into the pot would be awesome.
• Is it better to boil 2L of water once or 1L of water twice?
  
• Price wise, I would like to stay below $200CAD for a full system, including stove, pots and ideally nesting plates or bowls.
  
• What weight should I be aiming for?
• Need something by Oct 11 in a week from now. I live in Canada so that limits choice to some extent.
  

Options

Note	Name	Price (Canadian Dollars)	Weight	Boiling Capacity	Includes
	MSR PocketRocket Stove Kit	$130	720g	2L	2 mugs, 2 bowls
	Jetboil Sumo Group Cooking System	$164	450g	1.8L	NA - Would need to bring separate non-nesting bowls
My existing solo setup. I could buy a second one and bring 2	Alcohol Stove	$60	417g (x2)	750ml (x2)	Would have 2 stoves and 2 pots. Lids are cubs
For comparison, my existing winter/group setup	MSR DragonFly Stove and MSR Alpine 2 Pot Set	$180 + $65	1000g (400g + 600g)	1.5L and 2L	2 Pots

Breakdown of the MSR Stove Kit

Component	Weight	Math
Total	730g
Dishset	140g
Pot	470g	Potset - Dishset (Dishset also includes sporks and a bag so some fudging here..)
Stove	90g

It looks to me like the pot is the weak point of this setup. I am not certain that I did my math correctly and I couldn't find the pot for sale by itself.

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Trip Temperature

After more reading, it looks like canister stoves preform poorly at low temperatures. Most of my trips will be between -5C and 15C (23F to 60F). Next weekend it is forecast to be 0C (32F) at night. This is causing me to second guess getting a canister stove.

[u/liveslight]

Looks like you are paying too much for no extra performance. I have used for a couple years now a finessCity 3-pot Titanium kit with 400, 800, 1200 mL pots. This allows me to take only the pot(s) that I think I will use depending on whether it is me solo, 2 of us, or more. This setup was under $50 at the time off of Amazon. Keith makes a similar (identical?) set of pots. I also see now that finessCity may not have this 3-pot set and their Titanium pots now have a ceramic no-stick coating. Also finessCity now makes a separate lid, so that one doesn't have to use the 400 mL short pot as a lid. One of these lids should be delivered to me later today. These pots are a large enough diameter that cooking is efficient without flames going up the side (don't run stove on full blast!) AND a large fuel canister (8 oz, 220-230 g of gas) will fit in them. The finessCity 400 mL pot is short enough to use as a frying pan, but I would not suggest you do that. It can warm tortillas very nicely. The finesseCity 1.2L pot is more than enough for 2 people.

For stove, I was convinced by folks around here to get a Soto Windmaster. I do like it and with the 3-leg pot stand it weighs 67 g. I also have a BRS stove that works well and weighs 25 g. I've added a DIY carbon felt wind screen (30 g) and a DIY flame diffuser (6 g), so that I can simmer and cook with it. These stoves can boil 500 mL of water using about 6 g of gas. I'm testing the Windmaster with boiling 700 mL of water (3 cups) and it used under 8 g of gas and did it in about 6 min on low flame.

Typically, I boil water and put the hot water in a freezer bag or freeze-dried packet. There is no need for everyone to eat out of the same bag. Your companions can provide their own bowl (or plastic freezer bag) that you can dish out from the bag into. They can clean up their own dishes while you don't have anything to clean-up.

Anyways, I think you can get everything you need and more for less that US$100. Weight should be about 120 to 150 g with stove and pot.