User Review: Jetboil Personal Cooking System (PCS)

In the months before the Jetboil hit the market, I was kind of discouraged by the preview commentaries--"Jetboil probably won't live up to its hype in real world conditions," I remember reading somewhere. I hope that writer didn't make any wagers on his accuracy, because he would have lost BIG time.

I've been using the Jetboil for almost a month now, and it's FANTASTIC. The Jetboil is a complete cooking system--cook pot attaches directly to the burner, and you can even carry the thing around safely like a coffee mug WHILE it's cooking. Try that with your MSR WhisperLite and Alpine Cook Set, eh? In short, Jetboil blows away most of the multi-component ultralight cooking systems out there.

The only perceived drawback is that it's not self-cleaning. Because the burner will only work with the fitted Jetboil pot, you have to clean out the cooking pot for each use--so, you make tea and then clean out the pot so you can make spaghetti and then clean out the pot so you can make coffee, et cetera, which might be too linear and tedious for you multi-taskers out there.

One answer is to buy another Jetboil cooking system (or two), and have multiple burners cooking at once. Another answer is to buy multiple Jetboil pots, to switch-out and pass around.

My favorite answer is to use a cheap boil-n-bag inside the Jetboil pot... make coffee and drink it, turn the boil-n-bag inside-out, make oatmeal and eat it, rinse and turn the bag inside-out, make cocoa and drink it, for example When you're finished, place your utensils in the boil-n-bag and stow it, and your Jetboil is barely soiled, if at all.

You'll realize the value of this baby immediately--the Jetboil is worth every cent. In fact, by the third time I had used it, I was seriously thinking that they should have charged MORE for this gizmo. It's an invaluable tool, IMHO, and I wish the company all the luck in the world as they develop their product line.