Thread: Camp stove recommendations

I too had a crack at the beercan stove...got one to work ok but not great...lack of hole width and positional consistency meant a lop-sided flame. Amusing but impractical and also had no windbreak.

I've had a Dragonfly for years which I rate highly. It's a noisy bugger but it's ruthlessly efficient but it's weakness for me is that it doesn't pack down well enough for walk-in, walk-out camping....or for packing in the Defender's 'cooking stuff' storage box!

So, when I got a nice stove-top espresso coffee maker to keep in Monty for camping, I got one of these (from eBay) to go with it



Ti Stove

It runs on the same principle as the beercan stove but it's machine built and comes with a stand and a sort of windbreak. Packs down VERY small, weighs nothing, goes really well when burning metho; perhaps not so good with sticks and twigs but they can be used as a back-up fuel.

Cools down within seconds for packing up.

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

I'm currently using a $14 K Mart gas stove with the throw away butane cans. You know, the ones that apparently like to blow up and kill people.

I'm wondering if there is a better option out there?

Can anyone recommend a camp stove setup?

Like you for semi light weight vehicle based camping, I have been using something like the Kmart butane stove.

Interesting you raise this at this time as my searching for an alternative in just this past week had me stumble on the age old "rocket stove" concept.

These are biomass burning stoves (twigs and kindling) that due to the (really simple) design of airflow and fuel positioning are extremely efficient and effective. There are some interesting commercially made units coming out now and one in particular has caught my attention.

Attached is an image showing how simple the design can be (make it out of a few baked bean tins and a a milo tin!)

The Minuteman rocket stove is the commercially made rocket stove that has caught my eye for its practicality:
- it is built into a metal ammo box form factor that locks all the dirty bits inside when packed for travel
- rugged and reasonably compact
- seems to handle reasonably big jobs (refer the YouTube link below where the maker boils up 5lb of spuds in a large cast iron Dutch oven with a bunch of small twigs as fuel)
- and it actually looks like Man's stove! Not a prissy Barbie toy.

Pic is attached.

Here is the YouTube link:
[ame]http://youtu.be/rQkWCl3yjsA[/ame]

I have been using a Jetboil for the past 8 years, & it has done the Cape to Cape, & large parts of the Bibbulmun track on multi day hikes. Can cook for two with boil in the bag stuff, has a coffee press weighs very little & packs away small with the burner & gas canister stored in the titanium cup. It also works in gale force winds & sub zero temps, although a little slower.

I also take it on the Series 1 trips along with the exploding single burner stove we have had for 12 years & purchased in South Korea, where every BBQ restaurant has dozens of the things.

I'm also liking the sound of the BioLite energy camp stove, which sounds similar to the concept Tact mentioned, but this can also charge USB devices whilst you cook, and uses twigs as fuel.

I have used small gas bottles with screw or simply clip on tops when hiking, bit like the dragonfly but using gas, very efficient, not exploding. Check out most fishing camping stores, they are inexpensive but you might want to find a tin can to put it in as a wind break.

Mike

Have a look at this thread on camp stoves (another forum I Mod): Stromtrooper Forum : Suzuki V-Strom Motorcycle Forums

Thanks for all the suggestions!
The rocket stove is a good idea, but for my needs, something that runs on an easily accessible liquid fuel is a winner.

Visited the local camping joints today and picked up a coleman dual fuel 533 stove, running on shellite (camp stove fuel).
First test was some billy tea this afternoon. I boiled 1000ml of water in a billy can on the verandah, took about 7.5 minutes to boil on a 19 degree day with about 5knots wind. Timing started when the stove was choochin' at operating temp.

So its maiden voyage was a success, if I ever find I might need something more compact or with more heat in the future, I might look at one of the backpacking options out there, but pretty pleased.

For the nerdy ones amongst us, I did some calculations... Tune out now if you are not a geek like me.

1L of water raised by 81 celsius needs approx 338580 Joules of energy (using 4.18 J/g.K specific heat of water, and a Delta T of 81 Kelvin (ie degrees celsius) )
The blurb on the box of the coleman stove claims 10,500 BTU burner (ie 10,500 BTU/h).

So if we divide the 10500 BTU/h by 60minutes x 7.5minutes burn time of my experiment, we get 1312.5 BTU imparted from the burner into my billy over that time, which assumes we got 100% heat transfer from flame to water with no other losses.
Knowing that 1BTU = 1055 Joules...
1312.5BTU x 1055J = 1384687.5 J used to heat my water

The more astute would ask: "if I theoretically only need 338,580 Joules to raise my litre of water by 81 degrees, but the burner used 1,384,687 Joules given the BTU rating on the pack, that sounds like a pretty bad deal to me! Where'd my other 1,046,107.5 Joules go?!"

As Bob Dylan would say, 'The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind'... most of my heat was being blown away, much of it was just licking out the side of the burner. There is always the possibility that the 10500BTU rating has some fudge factor in it (Marketing departments love doing that), but in this case, most of the error was introduced by my own scientific method.

In short... there is more efficient designs out there, but I'm happy with what it's capable of given my basic needs of heat to food in a relatively compact package.

19 deg ambient. What was water temp? Usually it's much colder.

I have a Coleman Peak 1