Welcome to the Jetboil MiniMo backpacking stove review!
The Jetboil MiniMo backpacking stove kit offers super efficient fuel usage, that can minimize your fuel canister weight and pack burden. It’s wide mouth cup, and ability to simmer, and – if you’re careful – saute, allow for more cooking versatility than just simple water boiling. The cost is on the premium side, but in the end you’ll save money in fuel and have a reliable American made stove that will last for years.
Jetboil MiniMo Backpacking Stove Kit
Package Includes:
- Anodized aluminum cup with cozy
- Stove assembly with piezo igniter & quick drying bag for the stove
- Soft plastic, heat resistant lid with strainer and pour spout
- fuel canister stabilizer tripod stand
- Hard plastic bowl
- pot support attachment
Pro’s and Con’s
Pros: Extremely efficient stove at boiling water, even when windy. Wide cup and simmer ability allow for cooking/eating simple, and adventurous recipes, in the wilderness. Comes with pot support attachment that lets stove be used with backpacking pans and other cooking vessels. Standard 100g fuel canister can be stored with stove inside cup for easy storage when in your pack. Lots of accessories and replacement parts available, from coffee presses, to spare cups, cozies and handles, to a 1.5L ceramic cook pot for multi-person meals. Stove is the exact same one sold with the MicroMo, and SuMo kits, and thus is interchangeable with those.
Cons: High efficiency jet on burner can easily burn/melt the anodized aluminum coating on the bottom of the cup if not enough food is in it, for the heat to transfer to. Piezo ignition can fail with heavy use, and there are no repair options for its assembly. Replacement stove assemblies are often in short supply on the manufacture’s replacement parts page. The pot support attachment won’t fit in the cup if you store a fuel canister and the stove together in it. The volumetric measurements on the inner wall of the cup are hard to see and largely unmarked, regarding the volumes they correlate with.
Features
- Super efficient system saves fuel, weight, and cook time
- Includes stove, cup & cozy, heat resistant soft plastic lid for pouring and sipping, fuel can stabilizer tripod, pot support attachment to use non-Jetboil pots and pans, stove storage bag that doubles as a towel, and hard plastic bowl
- plenty of accessories and replacement parts
- wide cup allows more more cooking and eating options without the need of a long spork
- 486g (17.1oz.) all-in weight, or 362g (12.8oz.) bare-bones weight
- stove’s plastic frame and cups handles don’t get hot when cooking
- fuel control is smooth and the heat can be turned down for simmering and sauteing
- 100g fuel canister of any manufacture can be stored inside the cup with the stove
- Piezo lighter makes lighting quick and easy
Weight and Pack Size
The weight of the Jetboil MiniMo cook set varies, based on how much of it you plan to take during transport.
| Jetboil MiniMo Storage Configuration (no fuel canister) | Weight |
|---|---|
| Cup, plastic bowl, stove, pot support attachment, lid, canister tripod support, stove protection bag | 486g (17.1 oz.) |
| Cup, plastic bowl, stove, pot support attachment, lid, canister tripod support | 472g (16.6 oz.) |
| Cup, plastic bowl, stove, lid, canister tripod support, stove protection bag | 448g (15.8 oz.) |
| Cup, plastic bowl, stove, lid, canister tripod support | 434g (15.3 oz.) |
| Cup, plastic bowl, stove, lid | 409g (14.4 oz.) |
| Cup, stove, lid | 362g (12.8 oz.) |
If you plan to store a 100g fuel canister inside the cup with the stove, then the storage bag and the pot support attachment won’t also fit in the cup. Thus there are less storage configurations, as shown below:
| Jetboil MiniMo Storage Configuration When Storing 100g Fuel Canister in Cup | Weight |
|---|---|
| Full fuel canister, cup, plastic bowl, stove, lid, canister tripod support | 628g (22.2 oz.) |
| Full fuel canister, cup, plastic bowl, stove, lid | 603g (21.3 oz.) |
| Full fuel canister, cup, stove, lid | 556g (19.6 oz.) |
Pack size
The packed up MiniMo is 5.5 inches high, and owns a 5 inch diameter. Not much different than my 1.1L GSI Outdoors Halulite Boiler.
Ease of Use
The Jetboil MiniMo is credibly easy system to use, especially for just boiling water to reconstitute a backpacking food bag.
Related: Check out my Jetboil MiniMo Basic Operations article, to get a feel for how easy it is to use.
It saves a ton of time on a hiking/camping excursion, as it goes together quick, and boils water quick. It takes about a minute or so to set up, once you get used to it. And it takes around 4 minutes to boil 500mL of water, or about 4 & 1/2 minutes in an area with persistent but intermittent wind hitting the stove laterally.
Related: Check out my Jetboil MiniMo versus GSI Outdoors Glacier stove boil time study, where I test these stoves in both windless and windy conditions, under my Field Operation article.
Depending on the directions on your food bag, you could be eating hot food in 12 to 20 minutes, once you pull out your stove from your pack.
Recent Usage
I brought it along this summer to do some hiking and camping at Lake Arrowhead, CA. I was able to drive to Lake Arrowhead, and do a few big hikes before needing to set up camp, and make dinner. Knowing all I had to do was boil some water with the MiniMo, for my main dinner course, gave me extra time on the hiking trails.
I also brought it to Yosemite, CA, and used it to make quick breakfasts on the front porch of my hotel room, so I could get to the trailheads faster, and be done hiking before the typical afternoon thunderstorms rolled through the Valley. It reliably did the trick, well into its second camping/hiking season.
Handles don’t get hot
I know backpacking technology has progressed nicely over the last 10 or 15 years, but I’ll just reemphasize that the handles on the Jetboil MiniMo don’t get hot enough to be concerning, when cooking. You don’t need a buff or towel to deal with hot handles.
Black plastic frame of the stove doesn’t get hot
When you put your cup on the stove’s ring-holder and twist-lock it into place, you might notice when twisting it the other direction, to unlock it and pour your hot water, that the entire stove assembly wants to twist off the fuel canister. To prevent this I carefully grab the lower sections of black plastic stove frame with one hand, to keep the stove from twisting, while I’m unlocking the cup from the stove.
This black plastic section, at least near the stove’s bottom, doesn’t get hot.
Simmering
The ability to turn the heat down low enough to simmer food, or briefly saute veggies in oil, makes the MiniMo a fairly versatile backpacking stove. I’ve made simple soups with it multiple times, and it can simmer well enough to cook pasta for several minutes in a liquid medium.
Related: How to make a simple, gluten free soup with the MiniMo, if you don’t have any backpacking food bags at the ready.
As long as you keep an eye on everything when cooking, such that no burning is occurring, you can also pull off more elaborate meals with the low heat function on the stove: Here’s a Chorizo & Wild Mushroom Sicily Risotto recipe from the Jetboil website. Be sure to check out the cooking video that goes along with the recipe on that page.
Reheating Dry Food
I don’t recommend trying to reheat previously cooked dry food, like cubes of chicken in tinfoil, like I did with my GSI Outdoors Glacier stove at Los Padres, CA in this Youtube video.
The jet burner on the Jetboil MiniMo stove directs so much heat upward and onto the bottom of the cup, that if there isn’t something, like cooking oil with high water content veggies, or plain water there, to absorb that massive energy gain, it will melt the anodized aluminum coating off its bottom. I know from experience, unfortunately. And yes I did look it up to confirm my predicament: it does get hot enough to vaporize the aluminum coating off the bottom! Jetboil sent me a replacement cup for free though!
Accessories
What’s pretty awesome about this stove is there are lots of accessories and replacement parts available through the Johnson Outdoors website and on Amazon.
Replacement cozies, handles, pot support attachments, fuel canister tripods, and lids are available for purchase. And the cozy replacements offer different graphic prints for the MiniMo, so you can distinguish your cup from a backpacking partner’s.
Further there are different cookware options for the stove: a 1L tall spare cup, a 1.5L ceramic cooking pot for multi-person means, and even a small Jetboil backpacker’s ceramic coated skillet!
Accessories include a ‘Grande Coffee Press’ that works with both the MiniMo and SuMo, a hanging kit to keep your cook set off the ground, and a fuel canister weighing device, that tells you how much fuel is left in a Jetfuel brand canister.
Related: Check out all the accessory and replacement options for the Jetboil MiniMo by clicking here to go to my article on the subject. It has links to websites where you can buy such.
Water Measurement
There are 3 sets of graduated markings on the inside of the cup for the measurement of water. The middle set signifies 500mL of water, and 480mL = 16oz. respectively. The left marking on this set does have a “0.5” next to it, so that users know where 1/2 a liter is. However the other two sets are not marked, leaving a new user scratching their head as to what volume they measure.
Through the use of a kitchen measuring cup, I found the bottom left marking signifies 210mL of water. This is a bit odd in that this measurement is not a standard reconstitution volume for popular freeze dried meals. I have some meals in my current stock that ask for 240mL or 8oz. But don’t recall any that have required 210mL.
The left top line correlates with 750mL of volume. This provides enough water for two Mountain House branded backpacking meals that ask for 325mL a piece (MH Chicken and Dumplings for instance).
However all the markings on the inside of the cup are rather hard to see, especially in low light, as they’ve been molded into the wall of the cup.
For comparison, my GSI Outdoors Halulite 1.1L Boiler cup has these similar indented volume markings rising above the inner walls of the cup, making them much more conspicuous. The GSI cup further provides volumetric measures (250mL, 8oz., 500mL, 16oz., 750mL, 24oz., and 1000mL, 32oz.) next to their graduated lines.
Cleaning and Storing
Vessel (Cup) Cleaning
I’ve made soups multiple times, hot cocoa, and even attempted a chocolate mug cake. I’ve never had much trouble cleaning it.
The soup residue in the cup can be tackled with minimal water usage, some scraping with a plastic spoon, and also agitating the residue with your finger, in the presence of a little water. I wouldn’t use titanium implements to scrape the anodized aluminum finish, unless you’re very gentle. Nor would I use river sand.
Some folks say to just boil more water in the cup, to assist in the clean up. Johnson Outdoors says boil a mix of 75% water and 25% vinegar, and use a non-metallic scrub pad to take care of residue. Or use baking soda and water. I guess you could do that when car camping.
Cleaning the cozy and storing the cook system after it is wet
It doesn’t hurt to clean the cozy with water either. It just makes the cup take a lot longer to dry, so keep that in mind when backpacking. You may have to take the cozy off the cup, and place it in a mesh outer pocket on your pack for it to dry, if you’re not keen on throwing a wet cook set inside of it. Just make sure it’s as clean as possible to avoid transferring food smells to your pack.
Stove Burner Cleaning
Having had hot cocoa boil over the cup and onto the burner, I can say clean up of the burner usually isn’t a big deal, as long as you tackle before any residue has had time to dry on the stove. I was able to just rinse mine with some water, rub my finger on the burner, and cup-holding ring, and that was that.
You can however go through a more rigorous cleaning of the burner, by taking it apart, and soaking dried or caked-on residue, by submersing the unit in a pan or bowl, to loosen it.
Related: I explain a detailed, multi-step system for cleaning the Jetboil burner in this article.
Internal Fuel Canister Storage
The smaller, 100g isobutane/propane backpacking fuel canisters, that Jetboil, MSR, GSI Outdoors, and other modern backpacking stoves universally use, do fit in the Jetboil MiniMo cup. You do have to take the stove out of its storage bag, and leave it, and the pot support attachment, behind, for there to be enough space inside to accommodate the stove and the canister. And you have to take the protection lid off the fuel canister, and place the canister’s bottom into the cup ring of the stove to make it fit. You will also need to set this combo in the cup sideways, such that you can see both the canister and stove’s profile when looking down, into the cup, in order for these two items to fit.
Efficiency
The most valuable feature of the Jetboil MiniMo is its fuel efficiency. I’ve run a few experimental physics experiments on my stove, and have found that it can transfer 50% of its fuel’s inherent energy into heating the cup’s water. That may not sound like much, but it’s pretty stellar for one of these backpacking stoves.
Basically, I just calculated an energy density of the fuel, based on prorating the values of the propane and isobutane’s densities, relative to their mixture. Then I measured how much gas it took to heat a known amount of water to a certain temperature difference. That way I could find how much energy was used to heat the water, and how much energy was in the gas used to do so.
Related: If you want to read about the details of my energy efficiency studies, check out the math equations I wrote, and data collected, check out my article on such.
Jetboil MiniMo stove’s efficiency saves you weight, piece of mind, and time
Because the MiniMo is so efficient, that can mean the difference between just packing a 100g fuel canister for a few days, and having to pack a 230g canister, that often has to be stored elsewhere in your pack, outside your cook pot, taking up extra room.
That’s because, based on my real world usage, you can get up to 13 cooking evens (i.e. making soup or hot cocoa), or up to 17 water boiling events (500mL of water) with just one of those small, 100g canisters. Basically enough for a weekend camping trip, plus fuel left over for emergencies, where you get stuck in the field longer than expected.
Related: See my ‘real world use’ section in my article on Jetboil Fuel.
Boil Time
It takes about 4 minutes to boil water with the Jetboil MiniMo, and about 4 and 1/2 minutes if you’re in a mild to moderately windy spot. That’s based on my testing of the stove against my GSI Outdoors Glacier stove.
Indeed the MiniMo is more than 5 times more efficient in boiling water when it’s windy out than is my Glacier. And that translates into being able to get away with smaller, less heavy canisters when backpacking.
Related: My boil time study, and comparison between my two stoves (picture below) can be found on my MiniMo Field operation article.
Quality and Durability
All the components of the cook set are high quality, machined well, and have no obvious stress points, or points of future failure. The fuel control knob and wire handle feel smooth, with just the right amount of resistance when turning. The lid and the plastic bowl fit perfectly onto the cup, with no sizing errors that you might find, from time to time, in low cost foreign manufactured items. The weight of the stove assembly in your hand invokes a feeling of sturdiness.
Season Two’s Findings
The handles have the same level of spring tension in their swinging direction, that they did out of the box, after my second seasons’ of use.
The fuel control knob has the same level of resistance that it did at that point too.
The twist-lock, notch and groove system that binds the cup to the stove, while in use, still offers the same amount of frictional resistance as well, allowing the cup to continue to be held tightly in place when boiling water or cooking.
I have not had to replace the O-ring that allows for some frictional resistance between the stove and its fuel canister, when in use. And the airtight seal between those two items this O-ring provides is still intact.
There has been no fuel line clogging, even when I’ve gotten the burner dirty, as explained above in the cleaning section.
Aside from post-usage clean up, I’ve not had to do any maintenance work to the cook set.
Bottom of cup burned by my own user error
The only quality problem I’ve had was from my own user error, as explained in the ‘Rehydrating Dry Food’ section above. This was where I tried to cook a chocolate mug cake in the cup, using a piece of aluminum foil as an inner bowl that, by my design, did not reach the bottom of the cup, in an effort to have hot air around the cake, to simulate an oven.
I learned that the heat transfer between the burner and bottom of the cup are so efficient that if you do not have a medium in the bottom of it, that can absorb much of that energy, the burner will burn the anodized aluminum coating off the bottom of the cup. In the end Johnson Outdoors sent me a new spare cup, and I’ve not run any more experiments, such that to this day the cup is in perfect condition!
Neoprene Cozy Smell
I’ve seen a few comments, on backpacking and product websites, where a Jetboil cook set user doesn’t like the smell of the Neoprene cozy on their cup.
I think when I first got my MiniMo, I did smell that Neoprene smell, when the cup was boiling hot. Maybe even when I was washing the cozy. But it wasn’t an overwhelming smell; just a minor annoyance. I haven’t really noticed it during this current season’s camping and hiking, so likely it fades with usage.
However, if you have a personality where you become fixated on a chemical smell, such that it becomes amplified in your perception of it, then you might want to just take the cozy off the cup.
To do that just temporarily remove the handles, by pulling one of their ends down past the metal buckling they’re tunneled into, and that releases their spring tension, such that you can easily pull their opposite ends out of the opposite buckles. After the handles are off just pull the cozy off, and then put the handles back on.
Piezo lighter can fail after heavy use
I’ve seen a few product reviews of the MiniMo where users say that their piezo lighter ends up failing. I would suggest always having a backup lighting method, just in case these stories are representative of the quality of this lighting mechanism.
But so far, into season two of my stove’s usage, my piezo lighter still works.
Value
The value in the Jetboil MiniMo is in its fuel efficiency.
Sure you can buy a GSI Halulite 1.1L Boiler, a Jetboil Fuel Can Stabilizer, and a MSR PocketRocket 2 for fifty bucks less than a MiniMo. But you’ll eventually make that difference up in fuel savings and matches by buying the MiniMo.
Plus the storage and weight savings in your pack also are compelling reasons for going for the MiniMo, when considering you need less fuel and smaller canisters of it.
The value also comes when considering all the accessories you can get to customize your cook set, and the ease of setup and quick cooking times, which can keep you doing the things you love in the outdoors longer.
You may however consider investing in a more expensive MSR Windburner system, as an alternative to the MiniMo if you know you’re going to be in heavier, constant wind conditions, while cooking.
Comparable Canister Stove Systems
Jetboil kits with exact same stove assembly:
- Jetboil MicroMo
- Jetboil SuMo
Jetboil kit for boiling water fast, even in wind:
- Jetboil Flash
Jetboil kit for minimizing weight:
- Jetboil Stash
Jetboil kit that’s similar but cheaper than MiniMo:
- Jeboil Zip
Stove kit for handling higher winds:
- MSR Windburner Personal System
Budget systems on Amazon:
- Fire-Maple X series stoves
Further Reading
Thanks for checking out my Jetboil MiniMo backpacking stove review. If you want to know more about the MiniMo, from basics, to fuel efficiency studies, check out my dedicated Jetboil page for this stove.