A stove can make or break a backpacking trip, especially in winter when the gear needs to work flawlessly. Swedish company Primus has been making outdoor cooking equipment since 1892 and their stoves were used by Roald Amundsen on his successful South Pole expedition in 1911 and again by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on Mount Everest in 1953. In our, admittedly more limited experience, Primus stoves have proved brilliant accompaniments on many an adventure trip.

The latest small stove release from Primus is the Lite+, a compact and very light all-in-one stove perfect for solo trips. We particularly love the fast boil time and low profile. There are two main components to the Lite+, the burner and the pot – and each has fascinating developments that has meant this stove has bubbled to the top of our favourites.

“Their stoves were used by Roald Amundsen at the South Pole and Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on Everest.”

The burner, with its ‘Laminar Flow Burner Technology’, means it can be built lower than similar stoves (gas must travel a certain distance before being lit). This contributes to making it one of the most steady and stable stoves out there. Also unique is Primus’ patent pending triangular locking mechanism that fastens the burner to the heat exchanger at the bottom of the pot with a simple twisting mechanism, making the boil time plummet.

The burner also has an easy-to-twist heat regulator and a Piezo igniter which means you can light the fuel without the need for a match. However, we would always carry a flint and steel just in case it fails (that’s not an indictment of this particular model – in stoves generally, it’s probably the thing that fails most).