User Review: MSR SimmerLite

For a small, light, liquid fuel stove I am very happy with this piece of camp equipment.

It is

• Most compact of many brands I was considering.
• Near lightest of many brands I was considering.
• Easy to light but of course it needs some technique.  Practice at home before leaving on your trip.
• Easy to clean and somewhat self cleaning.
• Temperature/flame adjustable with care. The first 1/8 turn will control near 75% of flame increase. It is sensitive but with a careful gentle turn it simmers well. Use the wind and base guards as they helps a lot. Max flame is a lot of flame and I never used max even for boiling water with wind guard and large pot.
• Wind guard and base guard work well. The wind guard fits almost perfect (probably Perfect) for my MSR large pot from my MSR Gourmet Cookset.

***** Remember - It is not your gas stove at home. Think about where and how you use it as this can make a large difference on flame output and of course yours and the forests safety.  Fuel spills, with this or any liquid fuel stove can be catastrophic, especially if they light.  So you will understand, test (maybe) lighting one egg cup of fuel spilt on the ground (dirt), it is dangerous and flames up a lot.

Service and delivery comments:

Had a couple of issues,

• The fuel valve (plastic parts) had been damaged before use. Found this before trip.
• The Top Screw fell out while on the first hike, so I whittled a stick as a screw for every use until returning from 5 night MX Adventure trip.

In both cases of needed service both REI and Cascade Designs were exceptional with service and immediate parts replacement.  The fuel valve was a pain in the neck and I found out through MSR Service that they had a bad run, which I would have thought they would have recalled all units for replacement. Nevertheless I checked it before camping and it works great.  Losing the screw was mostly my mistake and somewhat humorous on the trip.

(note - check fasteners and use stove stove and then check screws again, before departure)

Yes, I do recommend and would buy again from REI.

Not 5 of 5 stars as it is not a multi-fuel stove and because of the original difficulties.

Update: February 3, 2012

Does not work well over 10k ft at 0degF. Hardly worked at all and could not boil water on it. Lowered down to 600ft and worked great.  

May have needed a little cleaning but the higher elevation and cold was not a friend to this unit. It seems to be a good below 8000ft and above 32deg stove.