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Petrel Pot 

The pot is over 750ml, and gives a working capacity of 750ml, manufacturers often quote the full capacity of the pot even though you can’t use it to the full. This is a brilliant size for the solo backpacker, you can boil enough water for a freeze dried meal and a cuppa at the same time.

If you were trying to cook things like stews, or warm through tinned meals this would still work though the heat exchanger concentrates so much heat that you would have to continually attend to the pot while cooking to stop food simply burning to the bottom.

The deployment of the handle is a simple tried and tested method and the insulating grip actually works – some don’t! There’s a tiny spout, which allows you to drain the water off the contents while keeping the lid in place – priceless when cooking pasta or draining vegetables. 

The lid is transparent with an excellent insulated knob which again is very easy to use. The useable capacity is marked on the inside of the pot and my only suggested improvement would be to add more capacity graduations.

All round and excellent pot BUT this really comes into its own when paired with the Polaris stove because they are designed to work together. The heat exchanger has three slots in it to accommodate the three pan supports on the stove so the pan sits very close to the burner thus increasing efficiency.

Since the slots in the heat exchanger are equidistant around the circumference you could probably use the pot with other stoves that have a three-pot-support arrangement.

Polaris Stove

The stove has a built in regulator so it will still burn strongly even when the gas in your can is depleted or the temperature drops during winter excursions.

The pot supports deploy and collapse relatively easily and seem robust. The burner head is wide and the burner itself is concave with a raised lip around the circumference to improve its performance when its windy.

There’s no piezo igniter but I don’t trust them anyway – I always have a back up flint and striker which I used to light this stove during my latest backpacking trip.

Using this Polaris stove with the Petrel 750ml Pot was a revelation, it was so fast to boil the water I needed. I didn’t test the combo in windy conditions but by definition it will preform better than a conventional setup because you have the burner so close to the pan and the heat exchanger blocks a lot of wind anyway.

I bought the smallest gas canister currently in circulation – 100g of fuel and there was still a lot left at the end of my 6 day trip. I couldn’t calculate exactly how much I’d used because I had to leave it in Corsica.

Once at home I timed boiling water with a normal pot on the stove versus the heat exchanger pot – the conclusion was it was twice as fast and therefore used about half the gas – that’s a massive improvement which nullifies easily the weight of the heat exchanger. I would normally have bought a 230g canister of gas for a six day trip just to be sure.

In summary the pot and stove combination is one of the best I’ve used. If you want to do a lot of actual cooking a heat exchanger setup may not be the best option because simmering is difficult with such a powerful combo and you may also want non-stick, but for sheer efficiency at boiling water for pasta, freeze dried meals or drinks it’s hard to imagine something better coming along.

Mark Richardson
Mark was the founder of Ultralight Outdoor Gear back in 2006 and has completed long distance backpacking routes in some of the remotest parts of the world. His favourite hikes have been Torres del Paine (full circuit), the John Muir trail and the Markha Valley trail (Ladakh, India). Although semi-retired Mark has not lost any enthusiasm for minimalist backpacking and is tackling Scotland’s Munros choosing multi-day backpacking routes over the more usual guide book excursions. Read more from Mark Richardson