The only thing I love more than shaving a couple of grams off my weight is doing it while actually making my gear better. I love my JetBoil even though serious gram weanies will say that it’s not worth the weight. I find the convenience of having predictable and super fast heating is worth the extra weight. At least at this point in my journey. But two things I don’t like about it:
- The top lid is awful. It never holds the kit together in my backpack and so the fuel and stove are always falling out while I’m rooting around. Sometimes even when I’m just hiking.
- The bottom cup is very fragile. I’ve broken several of them on several JetBoils and inevitably they always end up duct taped. Especially the hard plastic kind. And the softer plastic are really annoying to get off.
I found this hack over at the Backpacking Light forum and played with it a bit until I really liked it.
Basically you replace the top with the lid from a microwave soup cup. I used a Slow Kettled Chicken Soup cup from my local grocery store. The lid magically fits perfectly and holds MUCH better than the JetBoil lid.
You can also try to replace the cup with the bottom of the same soup container, but I didn’t like how it lengthened the body a bit. So you just slide the padding down to give the bottom a little protection and that’s it. Now…if you use the cup you still need to find a replacement. I use it sometimes for measuring water into freeze-dried packs and I also use it for flavored water with meals. So to cover those use cases I went with a Nathan racing cup. It’s exactly 8oz so that’s enough of a guide to let me estimate water for freeze-dried. And it collapses down so I can carry it in my waist pouch. This means that I can fit a Sawyer squeeze filter and cup there for leisurely sipping from streams (rather than needing to squeeze into my mouth or try to refill my hydration bladder).
I know that others will likely have their own solution for the cup thing, but I’m excited to try this out on my next trip.
Total savings: 493 grams -> 460 grams (10 grams for the cup)
(Note that weight is with a mostly full fuel container and stove inside.)