What's the best camping stove?

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Cowsham
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by Cowsham »

Tinnishill wrote: 27 Sep 2022, 8:13am I worked in Outdoor Education for 15 years. When alcohol gel was first sold it was heavily marketed as "safer" than meths. An office based halfwit at our local authority insisted on us using it. The calorific value of the gel is a lot lower than meths, many kids never had a hot meal. The "gel burner" is just a thin metal cup, you can achieve the same thing by taking a sharp knife and cutting off the bottom of a Coke can.

After a year of whining from the kids about the stoves not working some of The Youth started setting fire to spoon fulls of the stuff and flicking it at things. Gel use swiftly banned. We used the leftovers as firelighters.


It'll go in the shed then. I'll use for lighting the bar-b-Q on the rare occasions the weather is calm enough.
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Cowsham
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

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Well -- back from holiday and hard anodised pan tested -- verdict it's OK -- not as non stick as the non stick pan but easy enough to clean. Looks hard wearing.

As for cooking burgers with the spirit burner -- with neat Methylated spirits -- the pan still gets too hot in the middle causing the meat to stick but there's a solution. I found that cutting the fuel with 10 percent water ( a wee *squirt from my water bottle. ) helps to keep the flame cool enough and burgers cook real nice.

*Note if you're intending to squirt water into the burner please extinguish the flame and let it cool for a few min first.
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Bmblbzzz
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Wouldn't it be easier (not to mention probably safer!) to mix the water into the fuel beforehand, in bulk? Also easier to measure. There might be a good reason not to do this – perhaps the water and alcohol will separate out? I don't know, I've never felt the need to do it.
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

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I’ve always added water to the bottle. Thought it was to stop blackening of pan.
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by Jdsk »

It's very widely suggested that adding 10% water reduces blackening of the pan. I recommend testing this with your own fuel and gear, blinded of course.

I don't add water.

Water and meths or any other ethanol-based fuel won't separate under typical conditions.

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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

What really does blacken pots is match flames.
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Cowsham
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

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Bmblbzzz wrote: 18 Jun 2023, 3:22pm Wouldn't it be easier (not to mention probably safer!) to mix the water into the fuel beforehand, in bulk? Also easier to measure. There might be a good reason not to do this – perhaps the water and alcohol will separate out? I don't know, I've never felt the need to do it.
There is a good reason -- with the cooler flame water takes a lot longer to boil in the kettle so to keep packing to a minimum I just carry meths neat and add the water to the burner after boiling the kettle and making my flask of tea ( which keeps the tea/water hot while cooking the meal ) another advantage to doing it this way is that with the fuel used boiling the kettle there's less in the burner making room for the water.
The other way would be to carry two bottles of fuel one cut with 10% water and the other neat but it means more luggage.

I'm not too worried about blackening the kettle or pans -- a quick wipe with a damp cloth or wetwipe does the job. Put the trangia kit in a bag to prevent clothes or panniers getting dirty.
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Makes sense. Though I think if I were cooking burgers or similar and had this problem, I'd probably look to a pan of more conductive material. I understand, even from the gram splitters, that titanium is not favoured for this as it's not as conductive as most metals and so you end up with this type of hot spot. I'm not sure how aluminium compares with steel.
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by Jdsk »

In the compositions usually chosen for this purpose aluminium is a better conductor of heat than stainless steel.

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Re: What's the best camping stove?

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Cooking in the frying pan is where the gas burner was much better than the spirit burner but if I could get the flame from the outer holes only of the spirit burner that would solve the problem to some extent. Might try to make some kind of baffle that would sit above it
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by st599_uk »

Paulatic wrote: 18 Jun 2023, 3:25pm I’ve always added water to the bottle. Thought it was to stop blackening of pan.
A tip from when I was a lad in the Scouts, rub washing up liquid on the outside before hanging over flame - any amount of soot then comes off leaving an as new pan.
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by Carlton green »

Cowsham wrote: 19 Jun 2023, 1:01pm Cooking in the frying pan is where the gas burner was much better than the spirit burner but if I could get the flame from the outer holes only of the spirit burner that would solve the problem to some extent. Might try to make some kind of baffle that would sit above it
As an alternative the Trangia simmer rings are currently £3.00 from Millets, not that expensive to modify. The lid on the simmer ring swivels to give a large or small arc of flame but two smaller flames might distribute heat better. Someone could buy a simmer ring and take two opposing segments off of the lid to give a none adjustable low heat ring - lid in the normally closed position but now two opposing small areas allow two small sets of flames. Worth experimenting with? Or you could just cut a wide strip of tin can and lay it across an open simmer ring to get two sets of flames?
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Cowsham
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

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Carlton green wrote: 19 Jun 2023, 2:56pm
Cowsham wrote: 19 Jun 2023, 1:01pm Cooking in the frying pan is where the gas burner was much better than the spirit burner but if I could get the flame from the outer holes only of the spirit burner that would solve the problem to some extent. Might try to make some kind of baffle that would sit above it
As an alternative the Trangia simmer rings are currently £3.00 from Millets, not that expensive to modify. The lid on the simmer ring swivels to give a large or small arc of flame but two smaller flames might distribute heat better. Someone could buy a simmer ring and take two opposing segments off of the lid to give a none adjustable low heat ring - lid in the normally closed position but now two opposing small areas allow two small sets of flames. Worth experimenting with? Or you could just cut a wide strip of tin can and lay it across an open simmer ring to get two sets of flames?
Yes I'll try something like that -- buy another simmer ring and modify it ( I never found the simmer ring much use apart from snuffing out the flame fully closed so I'll keep one complete for that )
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pete75
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

Post by pete75 »

This setup looks pretty impessive....

Image
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Cowsham
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Re: What's the best camping stove?

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Looks like a steam engine
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