Camp Stove suggestion?

[soprano]

Every campground I've ever been to has had either charcoal grills or firepits with grates for grilling. All you need to pack is charcoal, lighter fluid and a match. Incidentally, you can put a regular kitchen griddle or cast iron skillet over any campfire; the fuel source is irrelevant.

Pepsi can stoves work really well and are easy to make (do a Google search for plans). Fuel is cheap, available everywhere and the amount of fuel in your bottle is never a mystery like it is with propane. If you decide to try backpacking, you'll be all set. It's also important to note that if you ever fly to your camping destination, you'll need a brand new, in the box stove. A Pepsi can stove is great for this because you just make a new one for the trip and toss it in the recycle bin when you're ready to go home. Just make sure to use a wind screen, otherwise you'll run through a ton of fuel.

We have a 1-burner Coleman left over from our car camping days and I haven't touched it in years. Even on the lowest setting it burns way too hot (so food gets scorched on the bottom and stays raw on the top) and there's no way to adjust the height of the pan over the stove.

[NbyNW]

Every campground I've ever been to has had either charcoal grills or firepits with grates for grilling. All you need to pack is charcoal, lighter fluid and a match. Incidentally, you can put a regular kitchen griddle or cast iron skillet over any campfire; the fuel source is irrelevant.

We routinely cook our dinner over our wood campfire this way. Downside is that the cast iron skillet gets coated with a fine layer of ash that is PITA to clean -- it just gets everywhere, but hey, we're camping, so it's not that much of a worry. Also if you heat water for tea/coffee this way it tends to get infused with a lovely smoky flavor.

Another nice thing about the camp stoves is that we can get breakfast going a lot cleaner and faster in the morning without getting the campfire going again. It means less wood to haul to the campsite, and a morning campfire feels a bit extravagant since we usually don't linger around our campsite once we've finished breakfast.

[Catrin]

We routinely cook our dinner over our wood campfire this way. Downside is that the cast iron skillet gets coated with a fine layer of ash that is PITA to clean -- it just gets everywhere, but hey, we're camping, so it's not that much of a worry. Also if you heat water for tea/coffee this way it tends to get infused with a lovely smoky flavor.

Another nice thing about the camp stoves is that we can get breakfast going a lot cleaner and faster in the morning without getting the campfire going again. It means less wood to haul to the campsite, and a morning campfire feels a bit extravagant since we usually don't linger around our campsite once we've finished breakfast.

Exactly, I want to be able to cook a good breakfast without a fire if I want, and also there are some events at which I camp where there aren't any fire pits.

I appreciate all of the tips, different perspectives, and also suggestions for different types of stoves. I expect to wind up with a version of the one I linked to, but we will see. I am going to visit my local camping friends and check out what they use. If I can get my hands on examples it will go far in helping me decide what I will do.

[spokewench]

For ease of use, I would buy a small coleman camp stove - couple burners would do. You can cook pasta and sauce, chicken sauted, veges, etc. If you like grilling, like I do whe I'm camping a small gas grill that has legs is great. Put it on the picnic table and off it goes. It is soooo much easier than charcoal. I hate charcoal!

I don't know about these products per se - since I have very old camping equipment. But go to Campmor.com or some similar type camping supply site, they have small weber go anywhere gas grills for $54.90 and camp stoves (coleman 2 burner stoves for $69.99. Those are the types of things I would use for car camping. You can just about cook anything you want then.

[NbyNW]

Catrin, if you do end up getting the one you originally linked, I would love to see you post a review once you've had a chance to test it out!

[indysteel]

Catrin, Brian just confirmed that we briefly had the exact stove that you're thinking about buying. We took it on one trip before promptly returning it. It was impossible to adjust the flame on the burners. It was either on full force or complety off, so it was hard not to burn the food. Plus, it felt kind of flimsy. We're happier with the Coleman. HTH!

[Becky]

DH bought one of those 2-burner Coleman stoves ~20 years ago, and it's still going strong. IMO, you can't go wrong with one if weight isn't an issue...

[eofelis]

For car camping we use a 2 burner coleman stove that uses the little propane canisters. We bought ours at a big blue box store for about $30. Works great for cooking a full meal. Easy to use and clean.

[smilingcat]

Good thing I clicked on Catrin's link. It's for tailgate camping not backpacking. Two burner stoves are really great. We have a Colman stove with small propane tank and its great. It's also comes in handy when we lose power. Just make sure you use it outside. Not sure about the price but check out REI, and few sporting good stores. They would have similar items.

As for backpacking stove, I used to have one of the original Primus stove using white gas. Once it got going it was great. Priming was PITA. Backpacking in the back country while beautiful was PITA. All that climbing, getting across alpine streams. If my back wasn't in such bad shape, I might consider it again. I LOVE the Alpine country.

MREs are not that great. I don't care what the guys tell me. Besides, many of the MREs are designed to have nearly 3,000 calories per meal.

[Catrin]

It does seem like Coleman stoves get the best reviews, both here and on other sites. I think that, this year, I will go with the 2-burner Coleman stove and just get a camp skillet for when I want to grill something but don't want/have a fire. Next year I will consider a dedicated grill depending on how it works out. Interestingly enough, the 2-burner stoves with no grill seems to get better reviews across all brands than the stoves with both burner and small grill.

Thanks everyone, your tips, advice and suggestions were appreciated. Seems this is the time of my life when I do new things

Learn to ride a bike at 50, learn how to camp and mountain bike at 51. What will happen this year? Hopefully get better at all of the above

[eofelis]

As for backpacking stove, I used to have one of the original Primus stove using white gas. Once it got going it was great. Priming was PITA. Backpacking in the back country while beautiful was PITA. All that climbing, getting across alpine streams. If my back wasn't in such bad shape, I might consider it again. I LOVE the Alpine country.

I do some occasional backpacking. Not enough, need to do more. We have a couple MSR white gas stoves that are pretty nifty, but I only want to heat a bit of water for freeze dried meals and tea. That's all the cooking I want to do in camp

A couple of years ago I picked up an Esbit tablet stove, $10 at REI. The fuel tablets are just a few dollars. It all packs into my metal cup that I use to heat the water in, about the size of a quart nalgene bottle. Worked great on a 5 day trip into the Grand Canyon a couple of years ago.

[Brandi]

Coleman! Have had ours for 25 years. Every once in a while we have to clean out a line with a safety pin due to a piece of lint or dirt. But it is wonderful. Things never cook quite the same when you are camping. But that's ok always taste better when you are camping though. I Use the camp fire a lot too.