Soto Amicus - Review 2023

Features:

• Stealth Igniter installed inside the burner post improves ignition
• Raised ledge at burner crown provides excellent wind resistance
• Concave-shaped burner creates a more stable flame
• Spring-loaded 4-prong pot supports provide excellent stability
• Reliable triple O-ring valve system
• Compatible with all standard isobutane canisters

Soto’s first high tech compact stove

Soto is a Japanese company that’s been dedicated to producing high-quality, innovative flaming devices since 1978. Soto’s products include stoves, cookware, pocket torches, and lanterns, which explains why they’re so well known for creating top-quality and high-performance backpacking stoves. It’s their bread and butter!

The Amicus is Soto’s first low-cost, high-performance stove. The beauty of the Amicus is its lightweight and packable design and its performance in all types of weather conditions.

Fuel Source & Efficiency

The Soto Amicus has been designed with a threaded Lindal valve, which fits most brands of canisters designed for lightweight backpacking. The Amicus will work with any combination of butane, isobutane and/or propane gas mixtures, despite the safety instructions on its tag.

The advantage of using a canister stove like the Amicus is that these types of backpacking canisters are sold in all good outdoor stores, hardware stores, and gas stations, so you can shop around for the brand with the best price.

Canister stoves typically don’t work best in very cold conditions or at high altitudes. But because the Amicus has a strong output of 10,210 BTUs (British Thermal Units used to measure energy output), it performs better than its counterparts. Comparatively, the MSR Pocket Rocket 2 has an output of 8,200, which is why the Amicus performs better in colder and windier conditions.

The output of the Amicus makes the stove more efficient, as well as its uniquely designed ledge on the crown of the burner and concave shape of the burner itself. This design protects the burner from the wind, unlike the BRS-3000T, which has very little protection and takes more than twice as long to boil water in adverse weather conditions.

Weight & Portability

When the Amicus was released in 2015, it became Soto’s first ever high-tech compact stove to rival the likes of the MSR Pocket Rocket and the Snow Peak Giga Power Stove. At 2.9 OZ, the Amicus is only 0.3 OZ heavier than its two main rivals, which is due to its built-in stealth igniter.

Size-wise, the Amicus is marginally bigger than the MSR Pocket Rocket, even though it has four pot stabilizers compared to the Pocket Rocket, which only has three. It weighs more than the BRS-3000T, which is the lightest stove we’ve tested at only 0.8 OZ. But the quality and performance of the BRS-3000T in windy conditions doesn’t come close to that of the Amicus.

The Soto Amicus comes stored in a robust drawstring bag, while the MSR Pocket Rocket 2 and Snow Peak Giga Power Stove both have a compact hard case for travel. The hard cases weigh a little more, which ultralight hikers would argue are unnecessary. But some owners of the Amicus have complained about the cone shape of the storage bag, arguing it’s an odd shape to pack and that the bag doesn’t protect the stove as much as a hard case.

Boil Time

Compared to an integrated canister stove like the Jetboil Flash, which can boil 1L of water in less than two minutes, the boil time of the Amicus is almost twice as slow. Compared to other canister stoves like the MSR Pocket Rocket 2 and Snow Peak Giga Power Stove, however, the Amicus is on the faster side.

The MSR Pocket Rocket 2 is known to be the fastest boiling canister stove on the market. And although this may be true in standard conditions, the superior output of the Amicus and custom wind protection make it more efficient at boiling water in colder and windier conditions.

Although boil time can be affected by a multitude of factors like altitude, temperature, the mix of isobutane and propane, as well as how much gas is left in the canister, the Soto Amicus was one of the fastest canister stoves to boil water in a variety of conditions.

Ease of use

What we love most about the Soto Amicus is the shock-resistant, built-in stealth lighter in the stove’s burner post. This makes lighting the stove in windy conditions a breeze as opposed to using a lighter or a match.

The spring-loaded pot supports are easy to lift and latch into position and are as easy to detach and fold back down to stow away. We find this design marginally easier than the MSR Pocket Rocket 2 to pack down because the pot supports of the MSR actually wrap around themselves and sometimes require a little more brain power to store correctly.

The Amicus requires very little instruction. The fuel controller simply flicks out from the stem, the four pot supports latch into position, the stove is screwed to the top of a canister, and once you turn the fuel lever to open, you simply press the red igniter button to light the stove.

If the igniter happens to fail, Soto even has a video on their website to show you how to fix it yourself.

Versatility

The great thing about canister stoves is being able to use whatever brand of cookware you have on top of the burner. The Soto Amicus is so robust and stable you can even use your regular kitchen pots and pans comfortably on top.

Although the card attached to the Amicus says the appliance should only be used with a 70% butane / 30% propane canister mix, the Soto website confirms you can use the stove with all major gas canisters on the market.

If you’re planning to travel and cook in colder temperatures with little protection from the wind, the Soto Amicus is an excellent choice. Compared to the BRS-3000T, which is affected by the smallest lick of wind, the Amicus performs comfortably and efficiently in more challenging conditions.

Stability

Thanks to its four-pronged pot stabilizers, the Soto Amicus has excellent stability when holding cookware of all shapes and sizes. The serrated supports are designed to prevent pots or pans from sliding, which could shift the stove off balance.

The compact design of the Soto Amicus makes it more stable than a stove like the Jetboil Flash, which is very long and narrow and sits high off the ground.

The positioning of the canister is also vitally important in ensuring the stove is stable. Any stove will become unstable if the foundation of the stove isn’t balanced.

Safety

The Soto Amicus is a safe and effective stove for use in the backcountry. The stealth igniter prevents you from having to light the stove with a lighter or match, which avoids holding your hand close to the burner when lighting it.

The high output and wind-resistant features also ensure the flame doesn’t waver or burn unevenly in windy conditions like the BRS-3000T.

One thing to be mindful of is to let the stove cool down before you attempt to pack it down. You should only attempt to unscrew and pack down the stove once the pot supports have completely cooled off.

Price/Quality Ratio

Depending on what site you purchase it from, the Soto Amicus is around the same price as the MSR Pocket Rocket 2, sitting at the mid to high price bracket for canister stoves. Having said this, the extra $20-30 dollars you’ll spend on a high-quality Japanese branded stove compared to the BRS-3000T, is well worth the money.

When it comes down to efficiency, you’ll be saving money on gas canisters, and the quality design and materials used to make the Amicus are bound to outlast the cheaper brands.

Soto stands proudly behind all their products and offers a warranty on all of their stoves. If something like the igniter is malfunctioning from the moment you open the box, Soto will send you a replacement with no questions asked.

When it comes to making a purchase as critical as a stove, which not only feeds you in the backcountry but can also act as a lifesaving device in cold weather, we believe it’s worth spending a little more on a brand you can trust like Soto.