I’m on a kick with gasoline / white gas camping gear lately. Here’s the links in reverse order:
- Camping Discussion: Let There Be Light
- Camping Discussion: WIN!
- Camping Gear Discussion: Photos & Testing
- Camping Gear Discussion: Restoring Old Friends And Buying Their New Counterparts
In the end I bought a Coleman Powerhouse Dual Fuel lantern and a Coleman 1 Burner Dual Fuel Sportster 533 Stove. I’ve used the stove several times and the lantern a few times. Both have been reliable and a memory of my youth.
Here’s the interesting part, when I sought the Dual Fuel Stove (in April) they were more or less gone. Coleman itself was sold out. So was every camping store in creation; physical or online. I wound up paying premium through a third party because I thought maybe the model had been lawyered out of existence.
It is three months later and they’re back in stock. Coleman has apparently pulled its head out of its ass and caught up with demand. I salute them for keeping up instead of quitting. May they long profit!
They’re available from Amazon and available (cheaper) from Coleman. Both prices are less than what I paid a few months ago. Oh well, you place your bets and take your chances. Also, I’ve enjoyed owning the set the last few months; so no regrets.
I’ll be camping this weekend and will have the two devices with me. I’ll enjoy the hell out of them!
However, I don’t recommend them for everyone. If you’re an ultralight backpacker, forget it… they both weigh a ton. If you’re easily freaked out by flames or worried about kids, they’re not ideal.
For light, batteries and LED devices are far less cumbersome. Though nothing lights up a campsite like an alien landing zone quite as well as a good old fashioned gas & mantle lantern. Flashlights and headlamps get the job done, a liquid fuel lantern is better for ambience.
For cooking, it depends on what you’re doing. If you want to cook fast with a light weigh device get a JetBoil. They run on expensive disposable little butane canisters but they can boil water as fast as a microwave! I used my JetBoil for years and it was a good piece of kit. The biggest drawback is you wind up with a bunch of half used canisters hanging around. Also, if you run out of butane, you’re screwed. The radiator fins on a JetBoil container aren’t useable over a wood fire. That’s a not a big deal until it’s the most important thing ever! (Don’t ask how I know.)
If you don’t care about weight and don’t want to think too hard just get a generic propane burner on a 1 pound disposable canister. (They’re dirt cheap aside from the propane canister. I own a few of them too.) You’ll end up with a bunch of half filled propane canisters (unless you refill them which is a sketchy hassle). Also, one pound disposeable tanks are ridiculously expensive in the Bidenverse.
The dual fuel Coleman wins if you’re willing to tinker a bit with the flame and wait a minute longer for your coffee to percolate. In exchange, you can use fuel that’s the cheapest of the bunch and available literally everywhere. The stoves have near bulletproof reliability… including in cold weather. (Gas fuels can and do freeze. The temperature at which they freeze and conk out are exactly the conditions when a froze up stove will kick your ass! If you’re a summer only camper you’ll never encounter this, if you’re a winter camper you already know it.) Also, I find the slower pace and more “campfire-ish” stove is a bit of a mellow pleasure. YMMV
One last note, all things go full circle. I started camping with basic foods from a grocery store, firewood from the forest, and a frying pan. Step by step I’m turning back to that path.
When I was a young Curmudgeon it was a pain in the ass. A frying pan is heavy, wood coals are a messy bitch to cook over, and it’s all very slow. Then again it was all I had and it worked. So that’s what I did.
Over time I got serious and went very deep into nature. I switched to boiling water with butane and wonder stoves. I’d dump the water into a Mountain House envelope and chow down. It was fast and easy but definitely lacks in style. No regrets, it was a good time.
Now I’m gradually reverting to the old ways. Here’s an small old frying pan I scrounged up for this weekend’s camping; whiskey bottle for scale. (Yes the whiskey goes camping with me too!)
Don’t get me wrong, Mountain House is great food; easy to make and carry. But for some reason, I feel like it’s time for something new. I’ve a primal need to fry bacon on a little skillet. Note too that I raised the bacon myself and the eggs come from my own hens!
I can’t remember where I got it but I doubt it’s a valuable antique. I thought it came in a novelty thing like a Pepperidge Farms type gift pack. Mrs. Curmudgeon thinks it came from a lawn sale in Maine 30 years ago. She’s better at remembering things than me.
It’s just the right size for the campstove but nothing is officially a good idea until I’ve tried it a few times. I’ll report back later.
As the world goes mad, the little things help keep you rooted. If an extra ten minutes percolating coffee (instead of a speedy JetBoil French press) and cooking actual eggs on a clunky iron skillet (instead of a freeze dried wonder meal) keeps me happy/sane… why not?
Of course, none of this rules out cooking on a legit fire; which I do whenever I’ve got time to kill, there are no burning restrictions, and it’s cold out. (All stoves, liquid fueled or gas fueled, are ok under most burning restrictions.) My truck always has my folding campstove. I usually carry a trashcan of pallet wood. Parks limit you to purchased firewood and they charge $7+ a pop. I get it, popular parks would be a desert if everyone gathered available fuels and shipping in remotely grown firewood brings bugs. Pallet wood is my solution. It’s 100% bug free. It’s kiln dried so it lights easy. I cut out every nail so it’s perfectly clean. It’s super convenient. A trashcan in the truck bed is a great way to carry it. It’s a goodly supply, it keeps the wood bone dry, and nobody ever questions or steals a trash can.
However you do it, get out in nature and away from the news. Happy camping y’all!
A.C.
(Note: The links go to Amazon. I put the links up to make life easier for people who want actionable information. I get a few percent kickback if you buy anything from those links and it costs you absolutely nothing. So if you’re planning on buying a Ferrari or something, please go through my link! Also, it’s not like I’m exploiting you to get rich. In the last 30 days I’ve made something like 57 cents.)
Ah yes, 1792, one of my favorite bourbons. It’s distilled about 15 miles from where I am sitting. In case you’re wondering, 1792 was the year Kentucky became a state.
I forgot to mention the skillet. I have one just like it that came from a yard sale. Besides frying up a batch of bacon and eggs, it’s also the perfect size for pancakes.
Holy Brandon, have those gone up in price. I think I paid like $39 for the stove 5 years ago.
Holy Brandon indeed! It didn’t go up in price so much as greenbacks aren’t worth shit anymore.
You said:
“In exchange, you can use fuel that’s the cheapest of the bunch and available literally everywhere.”
The CORRECT version reads thus:
“In exchange, you can use fuel that’s the cheapest of the bunch and CURRENTLY available literally everywhere.”
Do not forget their intent is to eliminate fossil fuels.
Ah yes, the Bidenverse clause I should add to all statements. That said, my little stove and 60mpg Yamaha are the least of the world’s worries as far as fuel supply. I don’t need much and I could switch to a campfire and hiking pretty easily.
I’m beginning to think my penchant for returning back to the old ways may not be as unusual as I first thought.
I’ve always hiked/camped in the type of places where reliability trumps weight (within limits) every time (or whoever finds your remains at least doesn’t get a hernia clearing your gear). I started with an old Coleman (“borrowed” from my Dad, forty mumble years ago), gradually worked my way through every new whizz-bang invention to … now use a (slightly lighter and more versatile) Optimus multi-fuel (backed up with a Firebox … Ti of course, I’m not a Luddite).
At ten I, and one of the dogs, would disappear every weekend into the forest, with a poly tarp and bivvy bag, and an old canvas army ruck filled with whatever I could purloin from the pantry. I went through everything up to and including Tyvek, Sil-nylon and even Dyneema to … now use a Jerven bag (King Size as I appear to have … er, swelled) carried in a Frost River canvas ruck.
I’ve walked the Nordkalotten multiple times and every time you realise God loves us when ‘friends’ (a real friend is someone who “just passed by” 300 miles from anywhere … with bacon) drop off bacon and eggs and you get to enjoy them as ‘he’ intended, cooked over an open fire.
I found a very small cast iron skillet at a Salvation Army store. About 6″ in diameter and has very shallow walls like a griddle. I did research and found it was part of a promotional Nestle Toll House cookie baking package for baking cookies in a stove. That little guy would work great on a small burner like a Coleman, I think.
I have a couple of those small iron skillets. I use one regularly cooking eggs for breakfast. Did so just today. It holds three eggs and they turn out perfectly (as long as I pay attention & don’t get sidetracked). They were my father’s skillets. You’ll never have to worry about burning the handle of of them either.
I was given a Trangia stove as part of my 21st birthday present from my mum & dad. That was well over 30 years ago now, and I still use it every time I go camping. Apart from experimenting with the pans that come with it, it is almost exactly the same stove as day 1.
I replaced the all-aluminium saucepans & frying pan with the teflon coated versions. These were utterly terrible as teflon coating failed in no time. These were replaced with the “duo-sal” versions; stainless steel inside the pan, aluminium outside. The Duo-Sal versions are still going strong and probably around 29-30 years old . . .
The Trangia runs exclusively on “metho” – methylated spirits (ie ethanol with a dash of methanol to prevent people drinking it) and is utterly perfect for Australian conditions. It is extremely cheap fuel and available virtually anywhere.
The only time it has come close to letting me down was a trip to the high country when it snowed. The metho was too cold to vapourise and kept extinguishing my matches when I tried to light the stove. Simple solution – I put the burner under my jacket for ten minutes or so until my body warmed the metho up – and once warm it functioned perfectly.
As I mentioned – it is PERFECT for Australian conditions as our highest hill on the mainland is only ~2,200 m (I think that’s ~7200 feet), and most of the country would be well under 300 m / ~1,000 ft above sea level. I’m pretty confident that it would work on even the summit of “mount” Kosciuszko even in the middle of the coldest winter using the burner under the jumper trick. If I went to significant altitude though, that might seriously limit the ability of the metho to vapourise and burn.
Cheers,
KA
One of these days I should dust off my early-90s-vintage Powerhouse stove & lantern and make sure they work. Maybe also stock up on mantles. I made a fair amount of use of them in the 90s, and basically none since.
Long ages ago, basically on a dare, I built a prototype of a gasoline-powered backpacking lantern – sort of a cross between a propane lantern and an MSR Whisperlite stove. One early iteration produced an insane amount of light for a few minutes before melting; the final version was actually fairly usable, but not very manufacturable. (A butane-powered backpacking blow dryer remains unimplemented; the concept was basically a high-bypass turbofan engine on a handle.)
I’ve encountered butane’s temperature problem at home, in fairly mild weather: the lighter I use to start the grill stopped working, and a little contemplation led to looking up the vapor pressure of butane vs. temperature and finding that it falls off quite rapidly in vaguely-autumnal conditions. Propane does ever so much better in that regard.