Hi there I am looking for recommendations for a cooking stove. We are going camping for a week and so will need to buy a stove, it needs to be a two burner as I am a veggie and my other half and little boy are not.
Money is tight so don't want to spend a fortune or buy a really cheap one and it break down on me. There are so many out there I am confused.
if you dont need a grill then a camping gaz lagon is pretty cheap.
you can run them on any gas it doesnt have to be camping gaz ,you could pick a gas cylinder at most dumps for a fiver and swop it for a full one ,you will pay for the gas ofcourse and have to buy the correct regulator for the cylinder you get plus a meter or so of hose.
the lagon is very robust and trouble free IMHO
shop around for the best price
Try one of the suitcase stoves. Only one burner but can be bought for £9.99 and cheaper. I have a folding camper with double burner and grill but never use it except for toast. I use the suitcase stove all the time just get two pans one for vegie one for meat and juggle cooking.
Not sure of your budget, we are on a tight one but on reflection (and excellent reading from this site) we've just bought a Coleman Duel Fuel from GO Outdoors for £45.00 (price match) as we were looking at the long term, no gas bottle to carry and fuel is better option/choice for us.
The other price was from www.johnscrossshop.co.uk (sorry don't have specific link) £47.00 plus GO added £3.00 for postage as John Cross site wasn't specific for cooker! (£50.00 - 10% = £45.00)
Reasons I like this one? It has a three sided windshield and that's important when you cook outdoors. If you cook in the wind you'll take x2 the gas and x3 the time to boil the kettle or cook anything. Also the grill area is partially shielded, and this means you can keep food and (heat resistant) plates warm(ish) in there even when the grill is off. It folds down into a neat package too, with room inside to store the regulator and hose, plus a few basic cooking utensils.
There is a version with detachable legs too, to save taking a table or camp kitchen. And a version without a grill, which is the one I have. I've had this last for seven years now and all that's gone wrong with it is a broken knob where Hubby threw some tent poles on it, and SunnGas sent me another one for £2. It is amazingly compact when folded and I've cooked on it for the four of us for periods of up to four weeks, so it's big enough.
Google around for best prices, of course, and don't forget places like Asda or Blacks/Millets where you can get brand name cookers sometimes for not a lot. Look for a 3-side windshield and a brand name like SunnGas, Coleman, CampingGaz or Royal and you won't go far wrong.
Also remember you'll need to buy a hose and appropriate regulator for your chosen gas type. I use CampingGaz 907 bottles, which is butane. Easily availible both here and abroad. Propane?Calor (red bottles) is cheaper but you can't get it abroad. You normally have to buy a full bottle, which can be about another £30-£40 for a 907 then pay for refills thereafter. (About £16 for a bottle which should last a family for about a fortnight, depending on whether you bought a 3-sided windshield!)
Cheaper option is to get down the tip and scrounge an empty bottle, which technically the dump attendents shouldn't let you have but often do. Doesn't matter if it's scruffy as you exchange it on refill. Try to get one with a screw in carry handle if you get a 907, otherwise you'll need to buy one at about £2.
I just bought a Camping Gaz Camping Kitchen Plus from ebay for £46.45 inc delivery which was by far the cheapest I've seen it (most places seem to sell them around the £65 - £70 mark). For me the main criteria for the stove are two burners and legs - I'm pretty tall so I didn't want to be bending down to cook on the floor and when you factor in the cost of a decent kitchen stand then it works out cheaper to a buy a stove with a built in stand. This one has side tables that convert into windshields and tho it has no grill, it does seems to have a kind of griddle plate that goes on top of the burners - we'll see how useful that is, tho given the type of food I usually cook I'm not sure about this.
There are still two sellers selling them at this price (tho one says this batch is the last of their stock). I've removed the links coz I can't seem to get the URLs to work grrrr!
The names of the ebay shops are Camping-International (search for item number 250256226348) and Bestbuys-Great-Outdoor-Store (search for item number 250256226348)
Can I ask, are you a vegetarian on ethical grounds or for health reasons?
Does it matter?
Well, if you have an ethical issue with eating meat, you just might also have an issue with the waste produced from all those empty gas cartridges.
Just something to think about.
I cannot justify the waste, so use liquid fuelled stoves when camping.
Therefore, I'll second the advice for a Coleman dual fuel, and also recommend you use Aspen 4T as a fuel. It's cheaper than Coleman fuel and a lot cleaner than unleaded.
Each to their own however, I'm not criticising anyone's choice here, just trying to offer advice.
We have a suitcase stove for short trips and a double burner (bought from Lidl a couple of years ago) and to be honest we don't find the suitcase stove much more expensive. You can buy the gas cannisters for 4 for £5 and two lasted us a week. For us at that time space in the car was an issue, we simply didn't have room for the big gas bottle. Both work very well, in fact the suitcase stove seems more powerful than the double burner. I would imagine operating two suitcase stoves could prove quite expensive over the course of a holiday though.
------------- May/June - Spring Valley
Aug/Sept - Leekworth
Thanks for all those recommendations you've certainly given me plenty of food for thoght.
Spudz - I am a veggie as I don't like the taste of meat, nothing ethical but as the rest of my family isn't I need two burners to enable me to cook two meals at the same time.
hi. do you do EHU. we do and bought an electric 2 ring hob from argos ( i think there £30 this year) , we don't have to worry about gas either carrying it or paying for it. It turned out to be a very good buy.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: Cooking Stove
Well made, 2 burners and a grill, perfect for toast!!
