Tired of freeze dried meals in the backcountry and looking for stove that will go a bit further than your JetBoil? Take a look at the EtaPackLite from Primus.

While we usually eat the standard freeze dried backpacking food on our trips, there is the occasional craving for some real food. Unfortunately, the average JetBoil isn’t exactly designed for such an endeavor as it can really only boil water. This is where the Primus EtaPacklite comes in.

Like the JetBoil, the EtaPackLite is a high efficiency stove. The Primus comes in at 80% efficiency instead of the 40% efficiency on a regular white gas stove. The end result is that the EtaPackLite can boil water faster than I will ever need it. We boiled a Nalgene full of water in less than 3 minutes.

Setting up the EtaPackLite is a fairly simple affair of unpacking the stove, lid, windscreen, and pot from its convenient pouch. Thanks to the piezo ignition system, starting the EtaPackLite is as simple as turning on the gas and pressing a button. Since Primus moved the fuel canister out from underneath the stove, the entire package is much more stable than the usual high efficiency canister stove.

Unlike the standard JetBoil, the EtaPackLite has a wider pot and a very adjustable flame that allows a wide range of possibilities for cooking. For breakfast, we managed to cook up sausage, pancakes, and scrambled eggs without a problem. This is certainly a welcome change from the usual energy bar and coffee in the morning. Thanks to the nonstick coating on the pan, cleanup is a snap. Even the usually problematic scrambled eggs came off with a bit of light scrubbing. Once you’re done with the cleanup, the entire stove packs back down into the cooking pot and even has room for a 100g fuel canister.

We didn’t find much that we didn’t like about the EtaPackLite. The only negative we noticed was that the steam that comes out of the strainer in the lid tends to make it a bit hard to take off the lid. However, this really is unavoidable and the strainer is a nice touch that comes in very handy when making pasta.

The Primus EtaPackLite retails for $115 and is available in stores now.