Solo Stove Pot 900

A nicely-featured 900 ml stainless steel pot that is designed to nestle around and be used with the Solo Stove Lite. While it can be used with many backpacking stoves—solid fuel, alcohol, canister, or liquid gas—it is recommended for use with the Solo Stove Lite, as the perfect fit of this stove within the pot helps to partially justify the high-end price for this piece of stainless cookware. One drawback: short handles tend to get hot when used over a twig stove.

The Solo Stove Pot 900 is a pot made of 304 stainless steel that features a 30 oz/900 ml capacity, embossed ounce and milliliter markings, handles, and a lid that includes a silicone-wrapped lift ring. The 900 is intended to be used with the Solo Lite Stove (pictured above), which perfectly nestles inside the 900 pot, but it can be used with almost any type of backpacking stove that can handle its weight and diameter. 

Weighing 7.8 oz/ 221 g, the pot's sturdy stainless steel ensures long-term durability and rust- and corrosion-free use. It is worth noting that stainless steel, in general, does not heat as evenly as aluminum pots, and it is 45% heavier than titanium, so usually low cost and great durability are its selling points. 

The pot and lid come in a nice nylon stuff sack with bottom seams reinforced with grosgrain ribbon and other seams rolled and sewn to prevent any unraveling of the material.  A drawstring and cord lock secure the sack.

The 900 is generally well-designed and durably made. A rolled rim at the top provides a smooth edge should one ever wish to drink from it. The rolled rim also gives the pot a more rigid form. The pot’s handles are attached to the pot opposite a beaked pouring spout in the rim, ensuring ease of pouring when emptying the pot. These handles are also slightly curved, allowing them to fold flat against the pot’s sides for storage.

The embossed oz/ml markings are sufficiently deep that one can easily read the markings when filling the pot.

The lid features a flat dome, the edge of which sits recessed within the rim of the pot for a secure fit. A lift ring mounted atop the lid can be slid into a notch in the mountain bracket during use, allowing the ring to remain vertical to avoid the risk of burns from touching a hot lid. A nice touch is the black silicone coating on this ring, too, which further mitigates the risk of burns when picking up the lid.

Use

I used the 900 pot almost exclusively with the Solo Lite stove, but it will work with nearly any stove as well as on coals from a fire.

A notable advantage of using this pot with the Solo Lite stove is that that stove fits snugly within the 900, the stove’s stuff sack offering a cushion and barrier to prevent any debris adhering to the stove from getting inside the pot. I carried the stove nestled in the pot, so the only pack space occupied was that of the pot. With the stove in place in the pot, there is still plenty of room for a lighter or some firestarters.  

I mostly used the 900 to heat water, but I also heated soup in it and used it to make pasta dishes as well. The stainless steel allows for relatively easy clean-up inside the pot, and the pot’s sturdiness is such that I didn’t hesitate to use steel wool on its exterior to clean off some of the soot.

It performed as one would expect any stainless-steel pot to perform: competently. I found the handles and the beaked pouring spout were great for pouring, although I was careful to use a piece of folded fabric when picking up the pot by the handles to remove it from the stove: one drawback of the compact handles is that they don’t extend far enough away from the pot to escape the random flames that lick up the side of the pot from the stove. If one isn’t careful, one can easily suffer a burn from grabbing handles that have been heated in the stove’s flames. This seems like a curious design choice given the pot’s intended use with the Solo Stove Lite.

Being stainless, though, the handles will cool fairly quickly once the pot is removed from the stove, so later pouring can be accomplished without the use of the folded cloth.

Conclusions

The 900 pot is a solidly made, durable pot that performs well. It is a great pot for the Solo Stove Lite or, indeed, many other twig, solid fuel, canister, or liquid gas stoves. Not as light as titanium nor as evenly heating as aluminum, its stainless steel instead offers sturdy construction for good durability that can be subjected to hard use. It is reliable, and it has useful features that check a lot of boxes in terms of desirable pot features—handles, close-fitting lid, protected lid lift ring, pouring spout, and oz/ml markings. The 900 pot is especially useful as the storage vessel for the Solo Lite stove, which nestles neatly within the pot. 

As I noted before, my only gripe about the pot’s design is the short handles, which can get very hot from a twig stove’s flames. Longer handles tipped with heat-resistant silicone would be ideal for such a pot.

My second overall gripe is the cost. The Solo name seems to impose a premium on this pot’s cost. 

I mentioned previously that two selling points for stainless cookware are durability and low cost. The 900 is durable, but it is expensive, too. I am writing this on July 4th weekend in the U.S., and current $34.99 MSRP on Solo’s site–seemingly a reduction from Solo’s actual MSRP of $49.99–still makes the 900 pot on the high end of such pots. The MSR Alpine Stowaway pot, also in stainless steel, offers a 1.1 L option for $15 less than the 900, while Stansport offers a 1L pot for fully half of the 900’s price. I'm comparing these to the 900's $34.99 price.

So at $34.99, I recommend the 900 for someone who plans to use it with the Solo Lite stove and who doesn’t mind paying a bit of a premium to get the perfect fit for the stove in the pot. The 900, after all, serves as a protective case for the stove when used in this fashion, and this use can help to justify the purchase of a quality product at an admittedly higher price. That cost, too, will likely ultimately be spread over years of use, and of course, nothing would prevent one from using the pot with many other stoves or in a bed of coals, too, as shown above.

However, the $49.99 price would give me pause. For instance, for just $38.99, one could purchase a lighter, larger Lixada 1.1L pot with lid, handles, and a bail—made out of strong, ultralight titanium! Buying the Solo Stove Pot 900 for $49.99, then, seems to me to be extravagant.

I’ll leave it at this: if you own or plan to own the Solo Stove Lite, I’d certainly recommend that you take a look at the 900 pot, too. If you can get it for a good price, it is a quality piece of gear that works beautifully with the stove. If you are simply shopping for a stainless pot, determine which features you want in a pot and compare pots to find the best one for you. It might well be the Solo Stove Pot 900; just attend carefully to the price as you ponder your decision.

Background

For three weeks this spring, I used the Solo Stove Pot 900 daily over camping stoves to heat my morning coffee water. I also took it on several overnight backpacking trips, the longest of which was a three-nighter. On these trips, I used the pot (as my only pot) to cook pasta sides, boil water, and heat soup. While testing the pot, I used it with the Solo Stove Lite, over a bed of coals, and on various isobutane canister stoves such as the MSR PocketRocket Deluxe and the Kovea Spider. I used it in fair and foul weather, often in conjunction with the Solo Stove Lite.

The Solo Stove Pot 900 was the latest piece of backcountry cooking equipment I've used during my four decades of backcountry cooking. I have experience with a wide range of cooking gear, including cookware made of aluminum, titanium, and stainless steel, and gear in various sizes intended for solo use and group use.