MSR Alpine StowAway Pots

Top non-titanium pot for the hiking, car camping, youth scout! Great two-person pot for backpacking trips and the locking lid is a great feature!

This a 2013 holiday gift, but I've used a friend's on several other occasions. My review is for the 1.1L (1100ml) StowAway pot.  

The pot has a locking lid and the handle can snap down and lock on the side so you can lift up the pot with confidence.  I typically just heat up water and pour it into something else (freeze-dried meal, bowl with oatmeal, etc.).  This way my pot will stay clean and I can put my food containers hanging from a rope away from bears.  I usually keep a shammy to dry the inside off.

I haven't noticed any discoloration from cooking.  I use either my Snow Peak Gigapower and Isobutane/Propane fuel or homemade alcohol stove (soda cans) and denatured alcohol (huge container for $7-8). Often times it is the FUEL that causes the burn marks, not the heat or stove (ie if you use nail polish remover...that can blacken pots).

I cannot speak for the use on open fires, but have heard it's been successful. I've used in the backyard on nice nights and out in the backcountry. One 1.1L is fine for 2 people, a fuel canister or two and some water and you're good to go.  Usually we heat up enough for one freeze-dried meal at a time.  With the Gigapower, this boiling of 16 oz may take 3 minutes given your weather conditions.  The pot cools off quickly too after about 5 minutes of rest.

The downside is naturally the weight as it is much heavier than the lighter Titanium pots.  Titanium pots of this size (1.1L) run around 6 ounces, but this pot is 15.5 ounces according to the manufacturer.  For those counting ounces, this 10 ounces difference is huge.  I also own a Toaks Titanium 750ml pot, but my go-to stainless steel option will always be this StowAway. 

I've included two pictures below. The first includes the inside of the pot with a Gigapower stove inside.  There is still plenty of room for a small shammy, utensils, and even a 110g canister.  I've used a small homemade alcohol stove, two 3 oz. bottles of alcohol, a shammy for cleaning water, and plastic spoon all INSIDE this pot too.

The second photo shows the size of a Gigapower on the bottom so you can gauge depth and width of the bottom plate.

Notice the width of the pot compared to the prongs of the Gigapower. Plenty of room, no stability issues noted.

This is best little pot you can buy. This is for the 1.1 liter size.

After looking through dozens of mess kits and finding them all to be flimsy pieces of junk, I stumbled upon this MSR 1.1 Liter Stowaway pot at Academy. The first thing that struck me was the quality.  I mean the difference in quality from this pot and other compact backpacking pots is night and day. As soon as I held it, I knew my search for a good backpacking pot was over.  

My next problem was how to turn it into a mess kit. I went around Academy trying every bowl and cup in it for size. Lucky for me I found a nice deep SS bowl and an SS coffee cup that would all fit into the pot and allow me to close and lock the lid.  

When I am camping with other people and they see my mess kit compared to the their tin foil kits, they are like, "Hey, where did you buy that?"  I will never tell!..... OOPs! I just did.

It is compact, long-lasting, and folds and locks down just small enough to fit your MSR WhisperLite inside.

I'm on my second one, and I've been using them for 20 years. They are small enough to cook safely with on top of the MSR WhisperLite, which has a 9" pan width maximum. Putting your stove inside this pot before you go packing will ensure that the stove survives unscathed, and you will always know where it is. This 1 qt pot wastes almost no space in your pack.

There is a metal slider on the handle that you can snug up to the rear of the pot rim to make sure you have a tight fit. Or, you can take the handle completely off if you wish. This is a great pot and I am looking for a 2 qt. matching pot.

Mine says MSR Seagull brand made in Thailand on the lid.

This is for the 775ml size, however, they are all pretty much identical. I have found this pot to be the perfect size for solo backpacking. It is also very shiny and someone pointed out to me you can use it as a makeshift mirror.

Pros: Makes no noise while traveling, locking mechanism is reliable and creates a super close seal, bombproof, cheap, nice long (and locking) handle.

Cons: A tad heavy, 775ml might be to small for 2 people depending on what is cooked.