The Jetboil Stash Cooking System is a lightweight and compact integrated cook system featuring a titanium canister stove and an aluminum cooking pot with a heat exchanger to increase speed and efficiency. I’ve been using it as my primary bikepacking stove for almost 2 years.
The Stash is Jetboil’s most compact and lightest system yet. Compared to a similar capacity Jetboil Zip, it is 40% lighter and 15% smaller in its packed form. It consists of 4 pieces: a lightweight titanium canister stove, an aluminum cooking pot, a plastic lid for the pot, and a folding plastic stabilizer for the base of the fuel canister. A small stuff sack is included for the stove to prevent it from rattling and scratching the inside of the pot. The system is designed so that a small lighter and a 100 gram isobutane/propane fuel canister can also fit inside the pot (snapping inside the lid) to create one compact package. You might also manage to fit a small folding utensil in there, but I normally carry a long handle spoon that I store separately.
The primary function of the system is rapidly boiling around 0.5 liter of water and the Stash excels at this task. The burner has good power output and the heat exchanger style (Jetboil refers to this as a FluxRing) pot contributes to faster boil times and reduced fuel consumption. This system is great for backpacking style dehydrated meals and hot beverages, which are the primary reasons I usually bring a stove. The burner does have output adjustability and the design of the pot support allows it to be used with other cooking vessels if needed.
Both the pot and stove are of excellent build quality. The stove feels remarkably solid despite its light weight. Given my experience in the past two years, I expect to get many years of use out of these. The one component that will likely need to be replaced eventually is the plastic lid. I would expect this with any plastic lid that is exposed repeatedly to the heat of a boiling pot. Jetboil sells the lids for their other cook systems via their website but does not have the Stash listed. I contacted the manufacturer proactively about whether they sell a replacement lid and they immediately sent me a replacement lid by mail free of charge. I’m still using the original lid and will have a spare for whenever that may be needed.
While the Stash clearly excels in many ways, there are two minor negative attributes which I will address below: lack of performance in windy conditions and the price.
The Stash does not include any kind of wind screen and the design of the stove does not offer any protection from the wind. Using the stove unprotected in the wind should be avoided as it will result in lengthy boil times and increased fuel consumption. In practice this may present a minor inconvenience of where you can position the stove during usage. If you require a more protected stove system, you may want to look at the MSR WindBurner system which has one of the best wind protection systems. The downside is that it is almost double the weight of the Stash, bulkier, and even more expensive.
The Stash is a well thought out and designed product, but I feel the MSRP on this product is well above what is reasonable for an aluminum cook pot and a titanium canister stove. The current MSRP ($144.95) has been increased about $15 since when I purchased near the initial release date, and I also received a discount from the retailer at the time dropping the price closer to $100. If you decide to purchase, you can save a few bucks by using 20% off discounts that are regularly offered at retailers like REI or Backcountry.
It is a top tier product from a company with good customer support, and I look forward to using it for many years, but it does come with a premium price.
Specifications
- Weight: 236 grams (measured)
- Dimensions (packed): 4.4 in x 5.1 in (11.2 cm x 13 cm)
- Cooking Pot Volume: 0.8 liter
- Stove Power (max): 4500 BTU/h / 1.32 kW
- MSRP: $144.95
- Price Paid: $103.96
I am curious why you specifically chose this stove over the other “mug style” jetboil models. It seems that if all you want is a simple quick and easy way to boil water they are a better option. Thanks!
I chose the Stash because it is the lightest and most compact of all the Jetboil models. Compared to a similar sized Jetboil Zip, it’s ~40% lighter and takes up ~15% less volume. That’s a 5 oz difference, which isn’t enough that I would “upgrade” if I already owned another Jetboil model.
Ahhh. Gotcha. I didn’t research the specs and from the pics I could not tell it was smaller. Thanks for the info.
Thanks for asking, I should have included that context in the article originally!