Philip J. Smith's Blog: Jetboil Flash Lite Personal Cooking System Review

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Jetboil Flash Lite Personal Cooking System Review

Jetboil Flash Lite PCS Stove (gas canister not included)

The Jetboil FlashLite Personal Cook System is the lightest weight Jetboil cook system available today, weighing 12.3 ounces (10 oz. minimum). It's basically the same as the 1.0 Jetboil Flash Personal Cook System but with a smaller volume and lighter weight 0.8L pot. Designed for non-winter use, it's ideal for rapidly boiling water to make things like coffee, soup, pasta, or rehydrating freeze-dried backpacking meals. You can further reduce the weight of the system to 10 ounces by leaving the included pot stabilizer and plastic cup home and just eating and drinking out of the pot. If all you need to do is to boil water, the Flash Lite will work admirably for your needs.

Specs at a Glance

Boil time: 2 min 30 sec for 500 ml (2 cups) of water
Max Number of boils per 100g canister: 24
Total weight: 12.3 oz
Minimum weight: 10 oz without folding stabilizer stand and plastic cup
- Pot and cozy: 5.5 ounces
- Stove with integrated pot stand: 3.9 ounces
- Lid: 0.6 ounces
- Plastic cup/fin protector: 1.3 ounces
- Folding stabilizer stand 1.0

When you buy a Jetboil you're paying for the convenience of an integrated unit

The Jetboil Personal Cooking System

The Jetboil Flash Lite isn't just a backpacking stove, but a complete cooking system, an important distinction when comparing backpacking stoves to one another. It consists of the following components:

self-igniting stove mounted in a plastic bracket
0.8 liter cook pot with embossed liquid measurements
insulating pot sleeve and flexible cloth handle
fold out stand (that most people leave at home – but is actually quite useful)
plastic lid with sipper and strainer
plastic cup which fits over bottom of pot

When you buy a Jetboil, you're paying for the convenience of an integrated unit that's easy to pack and fairly idiot-proof to use, which can be a good thing. The components themselves work well together and well enough for their intended purpose, but I wouldn't call them best of breed. While you can assemble your own cook system from scratch using better or lighter weight components, it's hard to beat the convenience and degree of integration provided by Jetboil's stove systems.

The Jetboil pot has heat retention coils that help boost the stove's efficiency when the two are coupled together — The bottom of the Jetboil pot has heat retention coils that help boost the stove's efficiency when the two are coupled together

The stove provided with the Jetboil Flash Lite is fairly unremarkable as backpacking stoves go. It has a push button piezo igniter which eliminates the need for matches or a lighter to light the stove. While these do break and stop functioning eventually, they can be replaced and are quite convenient when they work. The pot is small but has heat retention coils on the bottom which help improve the overall efficiency of the system and provide the stove with some wind protection. A small 110g gas canister will fit inside the pot with the stove, and the lid holds all of the components inside for easy transport.

If there's a limitation with the stove, it's that it is nearly impossible to simmer with, which is a common fault of cooking systems like this which are mainly intended to boil water and not intended for heating anything up except hot drinks or thin soups. Part of the problem is that you simply can't see the flame when the pot is locked into the pot stand that surrounds the stove and the other is that it goes out if you turn the stove down too low. If you want to cook pasta, like ramen noodles, your best bet is to boil your water and then let the noodles soak in the pot (see Forget Boiling: How to Cook Dried Pasta and Stretch Your Stove Fuel).

While you can lock the pot to the stove, it can be difficult to disengaged when it's finished cooking. — While you can lock the pot to the stove, it can be difficult to disengage it when your water has finished boiling and you want to separate the two.

Eating from the Pot

If minimizing gear weight is a priority, you can discard the plastic cup and eat and drink from the cook pot itself. In my experience, the plastic cup is easy to crack, so you'll end up eating and drinking from the pot sooner or later anyway. It's also one less thing to wash and keep clean.

The insulated cozy surrounding the pot has a fabric handle which is strong enough to hold the pot when contains hot liquid or food. However, it can also be a little tricky to disengage the hot pot from the stove/pot stand if you use the twist lock mechanism provided to lock the two together while cooking. I usually leave the pot deliberately unlocked, if a bit titled, so I can lift it off the combo stove/pot stand when my water has finished boiling.

Likes

Complete cook system including stove, pot, lid and optional cup
Heats water really fast
Fuel efficient
Packs up small in your backpack together with a small canister
Very lightweight at 10 ounces, without fuel and optional components

Dislikes

Difficult to use for cooking more substantive meals than soups
Limited liquid capacity

Recommendation

The Jetboil Flash Lite Personal Cook System (PCS) boils water quickly and efficiently for making hot drinks or rehydrating pre-packaged backpacking meals. It's very compact, ultralight, and self-contained when packed with a small fuel canister, ideal for multi-day or weeklong backpacking trips. If you need to boil water for multiple people or want to be able to simmer more complex 1-pot meals, you'd be better off getting the 1.8L JetBoil Sumo or the 1.0L Jetboil Minimo.

Disclosure: The author purchased this product with his own funds.
Written 2017.

Philip J. Smith's Blog