Anyone use one of these? Seems if you are cooking just with boiling water, (and there are quite a few basic menus that lend themselves to this approach) that these would allow you to slash the amount of fuel pots, and dishes you take in ... I'm thinking for solo trips when I eat simple, light and easy to fix foods.. like granola bars and coffee!

For one person summer camping how long will a small fuel canister last?

If all you wanna use is a JetBoil, you better really like noodles and freeze drieds. It will severly limit the kind of foods you can cook. Other than that, I have gone through three canisters in a week, using it for two meals a day, and coffee in the mornings. Again, you better really really like noodles and rice. If you haven't already bought a JetBoil, I would get a MSR canister stove instead. I had a JetBoil as a field testing thing, and I didn't care to keep it after my week with it.

Kevin oh yeah, I scorched everything i tried to cook in it, but it will boil water faster than anything i've seen

My (former) outfitter gave us itty bitty canister stoves a few years ago (2000). I told them that I would never use such a stove again, and I don't mean maybe!!! We were assured 3 canisters would last 2 people a week... however, the first canister cooked part of one dinner (the steaks were cooked on the fire grate) and then ran out of fuel heating dishwater. The only thing that saved our trip was some open fire cooking, and the Coleman single burner and bottle of fuel I brought as back up (I try to "be prepared"). The only way a stove like that could be of any use in the "real" Boundary Waters is if all you ever have to do is boil water, and don't even think about heating dish water (and I was only boiling a small amount to mix with cold). To make matters worse, they heat red hot in a little 2 inch ring; it's like cooking with a blow torch! If I ever climb Mt. Everest I might want such a stove... in the BWCAW, not this camper!

By the way... the people on Moose Lake aren't my "former" outfitters because of those stoves. I forgave them for that, that "outfitting manager" was only there one summer. I decided to "fire" them when they forgot to pick us up after our trip in 2005 (despite all the federal reserve notes I've left there from 1991 - 2005).

Thanks for the feedback - might be useful for solo trips, where noodles, soups and simple fare seem to work well for me.

That's for sure. I plan to "go solo" before I die, they might work then. But when I travel with the Scouts or my wife, and I want to provide enjoyable meals for everybody they're virtually useless. I could maybe see, if you don't mind the extra weight, carrying one and a canister as a backup (I ALWAYS carry a backup in case of equipment failure, I make mine white gas).

With respect to my paddling colleagues,

I could not disagree more with their Jet Boil assessment, first of all there are countless menus that you can use it on, Enertia foods,the amount of fuel you use is greatly reduced because of the time it takes to heat water because of the brilliantly constructed heat transfer device. I used mine on a 8 day trip and used 2 large canisters of fuel and the second one still had alot of life in it. I fried fish with it a couple of days too.
It is a cleaver design that packs well and with accessories is very adaptable, I will not take a trip without one.

I have no financial interest in the company.

Jay

All I know is what I've seen and done... didn't work at all for us. We like to eat real food the first 3 days; steaks, chicken, pork chops, bacon and eggs, pancakes, you name it. We do it on the fire grate when we can, but that's not always possible. Like I said earlier, maybe on a mainly boil water trip they're fine.

I'm not familiar with the specific "Jet Boil" equipment you mention (I'll go look it up now, though) The stoves they rented us were just little fold up things that screw on the canisters... another problem was the burner was so small, the pan kept wanting to fall off (and did twice).