Don’t ask me why, but I often look at something and wonder whether I could change it or use it for something other than its intended use. It’s not that I think I can do any better, I just have some innate curiosity that I think I got from my father who is a certified tinkerer with a few patents under his name.

Maybe it’s that I’m basically cheap. I’ll look at something and automatically think I could build something for a lot less and have it work better. On those occasions when I’ve followed through it usually means a lot of time spent thinking and drawing and then fabricating something that satisfies my inventor spirit but breaks the bank. (There’s something to be said about the economies of mass production.)

There have been a couple of instances when I’ve seen a need for a particular widget and filled that need, but nothing ever goes beyond the doorstep.

Once in a while, though, something clicks. I’d like to be able to claim credit for the following outdoor cooking tips, but I can’t. I can say, however, that they work. And no, these are not food recipes.

They fall under the category of combined or symbiotic uses for a couple of different products to make meal preparation a bit easier and energy efficient. That means you’ll carry less fuel.

You’re familiar by now with the Jetboil cooking system. The neoprene-insulated one-liter cooking system is slick for boiling water in a short time in warmer weather. Like several other stoves it uses a iso-butane mix for fuel that is most efficient when the fuel tank is above freezing. Boil time for a quart of water is around four minutes, usually longer.

What makes the system cool is its compactness. The burner and canister stow inside the cylindrical cooking pot and takes up just a little more room than your Nalgene water bottles.

While generally a great little system, there is one drawback. That is that the burner and relatively tall cook pot sit atop one of those small, 110-gram canisters making for a precarious perch on uneven terrain, sand or snow.

Outdoors cooks must have clamored for a more squat, wider cook pot because the folks at Jetboil have produced just that. Called the Group Cooking System (GCS) the 1.5-liter cookpot has the same energy-saving “FluxRing” as the original Jetboil pot, and comes with the same type of Neoprene insulating jacket, but it is more sauce-pan shaped. But to use it with the Jetboil burner you need to purchase a pot support that sits atop the burner. And you get a tripod set of legs that help stabilize the canister and burner.

Like the original Jetboil, the GCS is “twice as fuel efficient as traditional camp cooking systems and will bring two cups of water to boil in about two minutes, or a liter in about four minutes,” Jetboil says. Its FluxRing heat exchanger allows the GCS to boil up to 50 cups (12 liters) of water from one micro-canister of fuel.

In colder weather, a hand warmer packet taped to the bottom of the tank, or keeping the tank warm inside your jacket will help with burner efficiency, but for real cold-weather performance consider liquid fuel stoves.

Sometime around mid-summer I was at Epic Sports in Bangor talking with Rod Wiley, who spends a fair share of his time off in the outdoors hiking. I happened to be looking at the new GCS and he lit up (he kind of gets a little twinkle in his eye, I think).

Did I have a MSR WindPro canister stove, he wondered.

(I’m not sure, but I think we had discussed my having one before.)

Yes, I said, and I really like it.

The folks at MSR have been making camping and expedition stoves for years, and they make a whole line of canister and liquid-fuel stoves. They designed the WindPro to perform well in, you guessed it, the wind. Better than all the rest, they claim.

I came to own one because I’ve used the tiny MSR Pocket Rocket canister stove and I also own the liquid fuel MSR Dragonfly, a real work horse. The drawback to many canister stoves is that the canister and burner are “integrated” and you cannot encircle the burner with a windscreen lest the canister overheat and blow up. The WindPro solves that problem by making the burner remote from the canister so you can use a windscreen. It’s also designed to be compact (it’ll fit in a one-liter pot) and light (about 7 ounces). And it has a relatively wide, solid stance that can be made bullet proof with the Trillium Stove Base). Since the burner is removed from the canister you can also use it for camp ovens.

See where we’re going?

Wiley suggested that I try using the WindPro burner with the GSC. He ambled over to the display case and dragged one out and we put the two together on the counter. The three-armed pot support or the WindPro fits nicely into the fins of the FluxRing making for a super stable “locking” fit. This setup, we figured, would boost the output as compared to the JetBoil burner, and at the very minimum heat over a larger area to help reduce scorching.

If you do a little wiggling and fitting you can get the 8-ounce canister (twice as much fuel as the 110 gram – 4 ounce canister), the WindPro stove inside the GCS pot. Use a bandana to help eliminate scratching the pot.

Now, Wiley said, you have a larger fuel supply, an efficient burner and a super-efficient cook pot. What a great idea. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

I forked over cash for the Jetboil pan and rushed home to fire it up with my WindPro. If you need hot water fast, this odd couple works. Bubbles appear on the bottom of the pan immediately. I haven’t used a stop watch to time it, but I know boil time is shorter than with the Jetboil burner (two minutes-plus for two cups, four minutes-plus for a liter). But even it were the same, the advantage of having a remote, stable burner makes this “system” more flexible. With the windscreen in place around the WindPro burner you can cook with the lowest of flames.

While I still prefer to use the original Jetboil canister with the French press accessory to make coffee, the addition of the WindPro and GCS pot makes for a great wilderness cooking system.

The folks at MSR say, “In general one canister of MSR IsoPro fuel will be sufficient to boil water for two people over four days in summer. Wind, low temperatures and longer cooking times will increase fuel consumption.” In a typical cook pot, the WindPro will boil a liter of water in 4.25 minutes and 15.8 liters of water per eight-ounce canister of fuel.

When I have nothing to do some day I’ll drag out my “system” and see how much better the GCS and WindPro can do. I’ll bet I can get shorter boil times and much more volume of water boiled. Stay tuned.

One more tip you might like when dealing with small, backpacking-type stoves. I don’t remember where I got it, but it’s useful. To increase the weight bearing surface for a larger, heavier cook pot, use a small, folding grill to span over your stove’s burner. Set the pot on the grill and put the stove under it. You may need to raise the stove burner or lower the grill by pushing the legs into the ground to get the burner in the proper proximity to your pan’s bottom.

Coming next spring

While you’re thinking about stoves, here’s something I learned on the Web site Trailspace.com. The MSR folks have been hard at work creating yet another cooking system. This one is coming out next spring and it’s billed as the “fastest-boiling, most fuel-efficient windproof stove system available.”

In August, at the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show, according to Alicia MacLeay in an article on Trailspace, MSR introduced the Reactor that uses MSR’s Auto-Start ignition, that fires up the stove with the push of a button.

The stove system’s burner uses both convective and radiant heat, for greater heat output. The integrated heat exchanger is fused right into the 1.7-liter pot and completely encloses and locks in the radiant burner to provide total wind protection, MacLeay wrote.

“An internal regulator equalizes fuel pressure for consistent flame output in all temperatures, meaning you’ll be boiling that last liter of water nearly as fast as the first. The Reactor boils its first liter of water off a full canister in less than three minutes and its last liter from the end of a canister at 31/2 minutes, a marginal performance difference. And since it burns 22 liters of water per eight-ounce canister, you’ll be carrying less fuel overall. “For performance-to-weight ratio it wins hands down,” a MSR spokesman said.

The whole stove system fits inside the pot with its locking Lexan lid and handle for easy packing and no rattling in your pack.

It weighs in at 21.6 ounces packed and uses MSR IsoPro canister fuel. You’ve got until March 2007 to pony up for this $149.95 powerhouse.

Maine Mountain Conference

Hiking aficionado and sometimes contributor to these pages, Brad Viles, checked in the other day. “Yo! Here’s the skinny on the Maine Mountain Conference. Location: Saddleback Base Lodge. Date: Oct. 21. The day starts at 8 a.m. with registration. The fee is $35. What’s is all about? To discuss pressures facing the Western Maine Mountains. The speakers include Neil Rolde and Lance Tapley. Contact Richard Fecteau at 207-778-0870 for more information.”

That Viles guy sure likes to economize when it comes to words, doesn’t he?

Jeff Strout’s column on outdoor recreation is published each Saturday. He can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.