I have used a few small gas canister stoves over the last few years. The previous stove was a MSR Pocket Rocket which was really light, pretty compact but created a very tall and potentially unsteady platform for a hot pan.

I have always liked remote canister stoves and remember having an Epigas version many years ago. Last year I picked up the Primus Spider.

The stove is billed as being deal for all year round use. Many gas stoves suffer in cold conditions as the gas has difficulty vapourising after being in the canister. The Spider gets around this by having pre-heat tube that passes above the burner to warm the fuel before it eventually comes out of the burner. Most liquid fuel stoves use this method to vapourise the fuel, but often need priming before they will work. The Spider as a gas stove doesn’t require any priming. To light the stove the tap is turned on and use can use a lighter, match etc to get it going. The stove doesn’t have a piezo ignition, which I don’t see as a negative as if you really on such a system you will still probably be carry another lighting method just in case. So I believe for reliability and shaving a bit of weight off I can happily live without a built in ignition system. Once lit you do notice that the stove has a very loud roar, much louder than any other gas stove I have used and sounds must more akin to the MSR Whisperlight liquid fuel stove I have used in the past.

The stove comes with a small stuff sack in to which its three legs neatly fold. It feels very well made, with well machined parts and a good metal protect hose. With the bag my stove comes in at a respectable 206g.

The legs fold together for storage to give a good compact size. When folding out each leg as a stop position, so getting easy leg into the correct position is very simple. Once folded out the three legs provide a sturdy platform for my MSR titan kettle. You must ensure that the hose is sat correctly and the canister positioned well, as when unweighted the stove (as it is so light) can be moved by the coil direction of the tube. However getting everything setup correctly so this doesn’t happen is dead easy and takes seconds. It just requires a little bit of thought.

Having a remote canister also means that the canister can be inverted whilst the stove is lit. This is particularly useful when the canister is beginning to run low on fuel. Having used the stove for more than a year out in the real world I have found that boil times under a range of conditions for 500ml of water have all been sub 4 mins. In addition haven’t noticed any significant difference in boil times when using a full or partially full canister.

Pros:

Works in all condition thanks to the preheat system
Stable
Relatively compact
Well built
Gas canister can be inverted
Respectable boil times

Cons:

Not the most compact
Not the lightest gas stove available

I think at £45 (RRP) excluding fuel the stove represents could value for money and after a years worth of use the Spider is still my go to gas stove.