| Tweet |
A good camp stove is worth it’s weight in gold… as long as it’s not too heavy. Oh, and as long as it actually performs as advertised… is fixable in the field… works in adverse conditions… is usable with gloved hands… My previous Jetboil is old enough to predate Jetboil model names. Though I still use it on occasion, I can’t deny that it’s unstable, inadequate for almost everything except boiling water and that, gloveless in cold weather, it’s actually painful to assemble. The Jetboil Helios, on the other hand, is none of those latter things and all of the former. It also manages to retain Jetboil’s trademark reliability and ease of use.
Jetboil Helios Features
The Jetboil Helios has everything you need to cook like a blast furnace… or like Julia Child… or anything in between.
- 2L FluxRing® Pot with neoprene cozy
- Pot-supporting burner base
- Push-button igniter assembly
- Fuel can stabilizer
- Snap-on windscreen
- Lid and bottom covers that double as plates (lid makes a good ‘flying disc’ for added fun around camp)
- Optional 3 liter pot
Jetboil Helios Review
I cooked a few meals with the Helios (including an unburned omelet!) and put it through a boil test in mild winter conditions.
As its name implies, the Helios burns like an angry sun. With a light breeze and 20-degree temps, it boiled snowmelt stream water quickly and consistently, and turned snow into a liter of boiling water in just over 11 and a half minutes. Unlike its predecessor buried in my gear bin, the Helios can simmer with the best of them. What’s more, even with a canister so empty it first made another stove fail to boil water at all, the Helios, with its FluxRing® pot, integrated neoprene cozy and inverted canister injection, did it in just over eight minutes. It’s average boil time over eight successive boils was around seven minutes. That’s not unheard of, but it’s more than adequate. Boil times did gradually lengthen over the life of the canister.
Bottom Line:
The Jetboil Helios is not the hottest stove I’ve ever used. It’s not the most consistent stove, nor the gentlest simmerer either. But it does all of those things well, plus it’s utterly reliable and anybody with opposable thumbs can set it up and light it, even wearing gloves. It’s easy to recommend this little gem.
;)
