Giga Power Auto

I borrowed a Giga Power for a John Muir Trail trip last summer and was very impressed. That was my first experience using a canister stove and most of my fears proved unfounded:

- Cold weather performance: On the coldest morning (15 deg. F) I boiled about 12 oz of water in under 3 minutes.
- High altitude performance: Used on Muir Pass (11,955 ft) without problems.
- Fuel Consumption: In 16 days cooking 1 to 2 hot meals/day, I used a single 13 oz fuel cannister.

Compared to my MSR Wisperlite, the Giga power was amazing. It lights instantly, only weighs a few ounces and no priming mess!

I purchased my own Giga Power this spring. I also looked at the MSR Pocket Rocket and the Primus Titanium. On paper, all of these stove compare pretty well. I bought the Giga Power because of my previous good experience with the borrowed stove.

There is still a place for liquid fuel stoves. In some parts of the world, fuel cannisters could be hard to find. Also for winter camping and mountaineering where the temperature will be below 15 deg F, liquid fuel is a better choice.

UPDATE: The piezo lighter on my new gigapower has failed after only 6 meals cooked. I knocked a star off of the rating for that. I'll let you know how the customer service is after I get it fixed.

I have had my Snow Peak Giga Power Auto for several years. I primarily use it in 3-season use, but am going to experiment with it this winter. It lights easily, is quite stable if you pay attention, has excellent simmer adjustments i.e. red beans & rice.



For use in cold weather, one can always slip the fuel cannister inside the bivy sack or sleeping bag if needed.



My piezo lighter has never failed and is very simple. The heat shield accessory is helpful and keeps the heat off of the cannister. Be very careful (or don't use) wind screens that surround the entire stove and cannister. I witnessed a Backpackers Oven incident with a Giga Power. No injuries, but brownies flew every where.



Fuel consumption is very modest and no priming fuss and mess is nice. A standard backpacking trip of 3 days uses 220 grams of fuel. And that is cooking good food and not just dehy's.

I used this stove for 4 days recently at 10k' to nearly 12k' and it performed ok but worse than expected. The auto ignition would work about 50% of the time, requiring me to use a ligher the rest of the time. It seemed to cook in relatively good time but when trying to simmer, the flame seems to be very central and will scorch and burn food to the pans even on the lowest setting. This could be partially due to using their very thin titanium cookwear. I could never get the stove to simmer unless I physically lift and hold the pans an inch or so above the flame regardless of altitude. This gets tiring when having to simmer something for several minutes. The stove is very light and packable. I may see the retailer where I purchased it and see if their demo works better than mine. Maybe I am expecting too much.

I recently was able to do a comparison between the Giga stove and the MSR Pocket Rocket in 25 - 30 deg. at 14,000 ft. and was suprised at the difference.

The Snow Peak Giga stove performed good with a full cannister. Same for a friends Pocket Rocket.

However, once the cannister was down to a little less than 25% fuel, the Snow Peak stove was not burning very strong at all and could barely heat a liter of water in well over 10 minutes.

As a test, we unscrewed the Giga from that cannister and put on a Pocket Rocket instead and it roared, bringing a liter of water to a boil in the normal amount of time : less than 4 minutes. It remained consistantly strong until the cannister was completely empty.

So, needless to say, I'm returning the Giga stove to REI and buying a Pocket Rocket instead.

I have had the GigaPower for about 2 years, and it has performed flawlessly for me. I've used it as high as 13,800' without a hiccup, and I haven't noticed a significant decrease in performance until the absolute end of a canister, which is actually a good reminder to change bottles. I do use the stove in cold weather, and I've found (probably no big discovery here, but maybe this helps someone) that when I put the canister in a shallow pan of water rather than directly on the snow, performance is enhanced and the bottle doesn't freeze to the surface it's resting on. I plan to pick up the windscreen accessory this season and will provide a report on that item.
I also have a partner who uses a PocketRocket...his stove may be slightly more efficient, but the difference is so small as to be negligible. Plus, I don't have to use a lighter/match to fire up my stove, which is the primary reason I bought it. All in all I would recommend this product, and I hope the other reviewers who had difficulty receive good customer support from Snow Peak.

Taking the GigaPower to the mountains and putting it through the paces has been an enjoyable experience. It has performed without a hitch. It seems super fuel efficient and so easy to use. Previously I have used the Whisperlite exclusively. Now the GigaPower is my stove of choice for going quick and fast. I have not tested it in super cold conditions yet so that is unproven. The auto light feature has worked flawlessly so far.

I have the non Ti version of this and it is my three season go to stove. I have even used it in winter time with a canister cozy to keep the vapor pressure up in the canister. Forget the igniter. Just use a lighter, and save that micro-ounce. Great little alternative to the Whisperlite I carried around for years.

I've used numerous gas stoves over the years including the Svea 123, Coleman, a couple of WhisperLites and now the Snow Peak canister stove. Of all the stoves I used this is the hottest burning (think propane torch) and most compact of them all. I first tried a Pocket Rocket but took it back when I realized that the sharp pot holders would not fold up and that I needed some kind of padded case to keep it from poking holes in my gear. We recently used this stove on a 5 day trip to the Winds and to our surprise we only used a single medium sized canister for our entire trip although we only used it for boiling water and not real cooking. As with any mountain stove, I would recommend a windscreen to save wasted heat and for real cold weather or high altitude I'd go back to white gas which has always worked for me. All in all, this is an excellent 3 season stove that is super compact, stable and perhaps a bit safer than white gas stoves that basically need to be lit on fire to pre-heat. I skipped the igniter and went with the manual model which has been no problem at all.