Teton Tested: Jetboil’s Compact Two-Burner Base Camp Stove

Vegetarians and animal innard lovers can be accommodated with their own cooking temperatures and easily cleaned thanks to Jetboil's non-stick pans. Ryan Dunfee photo.

If you're familiar at all with Jetboil, you know they make some badass stoves. The MicroMo, which we've used extensively, is an extremely compact and efficient camping stove that, thanks to Jetboil's FluxRing, can bring a liter of water to boil so fast you'll barely have had a chance to dig out your coffee grounds.

It can also regulate heat down to a simmer that's largely unachievable with most other camp stoves–while actually staying lit–and once all is said and done, folds into itself to a nice, petite size. It's truly an impressive piece of gear, and one you'll be wishing you had years earlier, particularly at coffee time.

Like any good Jetboil system, the range of heat output is wildly adjustable. It's possible you could even cook stuff Crockpot-style for hours on end with minimal flame. Ryan Dunfee photo.

But while Jetboil has built their reputation of single-pot camp stove, they more recently came out with their two-burner Genesis Base Camp stove system, which, like all JB stoves, folds in on itself and collapses down (minus the propane tank) to the size of a medium-sized pasta pot. Once unraveled, the Base Camp has two separate burners, each with an enormous range of burn options from a simmer so low it'd take eight hours to cook a single egg to a raging inferno. A clicking ignitor mechanism works pretty well if there's little to no wind around, but if the trade winds are up in your camp site, it'd be best to bring a lighter. 

The non-stick pans make for a huge improvement in campground cleanup times. Ryan Dunfee photo.

Outside of the highly portable (although not quite backpacking friendly) size and huge range of heat output, the other highlight of the Base Camp system is the light, non-stick pan and pot that come with the system. Not having to necessarily pack butter or oil to keep your cooking pans stick-free, and not having to deal with a messy cleanup and all the assorted tools, rags, and trashbags to do so in the woods consummates a step up in your camping cook game that cannot be overstated.

Like any outdoor cooking situation, wind is bound to be an issue, and knocks down the Genesis' flame pretty well as it would any old Coleman's. Fortunately, the Genesis comes with an included windscreen that I'd highly recommend using, even if it barely feels like there's a puff of a tradewind about. 

The Bottom Line

At $349.99, the Genesis Base Camp cook system is not cheap. A classic Coleman two-burner can be had for right around $40. But like the MicroMo's revelatory improvements over the standard backpackable camp stove, the Genesis has its standout features worth paying up for, namely its incredible range of heat output, its compact and clean disassembly, its non-stick pans, and the fact that you can actually cook up a pasta dinner, a stew, or a backcountry jumbo in the crazy efficient 5-liter FluxPot quickly enough that you won't want to eat your camping partners out of starvation while the full pot of food barely starts to simmer about 30 minutes on the flame.

Also notable is that for big groups–Grand Canyon float trips and the like–you can link multiple Genesis systems together and even a coffee pot and have them all cooking simultaneously, off the same can of propane. 

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stash member Ryan Dunfee

Former Managing Editor at Teton Gravity Research, current Senior Contributor, current professional hippy at the Sierra Club, and avid weekend recreationalist.