It’s time to replace my 20 year old coleman multifuel stove. I don’t want the hassle of carrying petrol or other smelly fuel around, so it has to be gas. It’ll be almost exclusively car camping.

The alpkit Koro looks like a tidy piece of kit and pretty good value, anything else I should consider?

Just get one of those cheap one-burner stoves from Go Outdoors or Decathlon

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/1-burner-camping-stove-id_8342644.html

Unless of course you need the Koro as it’s

A high powered titanium gas canister stove suitable for mountaineering in subzero conditions. Compact design and made from titanium to save weight

🙄

Where do you take your car? 😆

Well…. fast boiling time is an advantage. But yeah, my car will just about make across a really gnarly campsite field…. just.

I have a version of one of those stoves above in my van. Great bit of kit. Boils water very quickly and is very stable.

What scotroutes said.

It never ceases to amaze me how useful those cheap stoves are. I’ve got one I’ve had for years and years. It’s been used and abused and even welded back together, but I still use it for car camping, cooking outside in the garden and just chucking in the car for a cuppa on a day trip or long journey. That said, I’ve hauled it for miles across festival sites and even strapped it to a pannier rack on massively-overloaded camping trips, before bikepacking was a word. You even see chefs doing demonstrations on them, because they’re just as good as your gas hob.

All that for a tenner, and it runs on butane cartridges you can get for a quid or so.

Only issues are using butane when it’s very very cold, and a windshield will help you, even in the back of the car (as with any stove).

Personally I wouldn’t buy one of those^ cheap stoves, mainly because they’re tat, don’t have much power and they’re good for nothing other than a campsite (and not that great at that IMO). saying that, friends have them, like them and they work, sort of.
Buy that Ti Overkill from Alpkit and it’ll be all you ever use in future, campsite, wild camping, alps bivving, bike bivvi, everything, you’ll throw away all your old stoves (unless you’re a regular to the Himalaya or a weight weenie/space weenie stove wittling nerd). Prop/Bute gas stoves are the best stoves IMO, so buy a decent one, get a wind shield for it. you might get cans cheaper from builders merchants rather than outdoor stores. Also IMO, the hosed stoves like that Alpkit are much better than the tower ones, more stable, you can turn the can upside down for direct feed which helps when it starts running out, also I put my cans top of the pan when it’s struggling (mid winter), not a problem as long as you manage it.

^Those cheap gas stoves are perfect for car camping. Pretty quick to boil water, etc. Gas available cheaply everywhere. Very stable. Cheap enough to buy two if you fancy some gourmet cooking eg meat AND vegetables. We use ours a lot including wild camping, even been used as a cooker replacement during DIY and for a bit lead casting

B.A.Nana – Member
Personally I wouldn’t buy one of those^ cheap stoves, mainly because they’re tat, don’t have much power and they’re good for nothing other than a campsite (and not that great at that IMO). saying that, friends have them, like them and they work, sort of.

Sorry buddy but i think you are wrong on this one. There are a bunch of us who have stoves in our vans. We mainly kitesurf so we spend a bit of time away living in them and these stoves have proven to be very good. The only downside is the life of the butane cartridges but for a tenner they are brilliant.

I have a Vango, lightweight camping stove and the ten pound cheap stoves boils water way faster and is more stable when actually cooking due to the surface area.

Find an old Tilley stove on eBay. I’m still using the one my grandparents bought 50+ years ago.

Seen more than one of those stoves catch fire…

We had one of those cheap tat ones. the lid folded out in to a windshield and it worked flawlessly for years.

WE also have an alpkit Koro (although branded as a fire Maple – they were being sold before Alpkit started rebranding them) and due to the poor o-ring seal inside it’s caused more than one cannister leak and scary moments with fire.

I have had one of those cheapo stoves for last 10yrs. Fine for what they are.

BUT i have just upgraded on Friday and am well chuffed. £50 down from £80 for a Jetboil Zip. Wow it boils water fast and it did me and the kids some lovely soup in seconds the other day. Packs down to the size of a small thermos flask and will live in the boot of my car from now on.

Not sure they still have them instore but i got mine from Penrith Go Outdoors

With the cheap tat ones some are good and some are useless. I’ve seen some that work well and some that couldn’t defrost an ice cube. Pot luck I’m afraid.

So, in conclusion…. cheap ones might be ok at cooking, but might catch fire
Expensive one will almost certainly be ok at cooking, but might be considered an overkill and might catch fire.

so a trangia then 😉
no bits to go wrong other than the o-ring you don’t actually need, and catching fire is the whole idea.
still using mine, the one I bought when I was in scouts in about 1985.

^^ and if you don’t want to carry liquid fuel, the Trangia with gas burner.

Sorry buddy but i think you are wrong on this one. There are a bunch of us who have stoves in our vans. We mainly kitesurf so we spend a bit of time away living in them and these stoves have proven to be very good.

Over the years I’ve used pretty much every type of stove going. From kerosene primer stoves, petrol, solid fuel block scouts thing, trangia, trangia gas, MSR multifuel, gas, silly coke can thing etc etc. So I’ve a reasonable base of experience of most stove types.
Quite a few of my none outdoors friends have those £10 gas things, they are flimsy and cheaply made, adequate for campsite cooking, but all the ones I’ve played with the max power has been pretty pathetic. My none outdoors friends have no reference point as to what is a good stove and therefore their stove expectations are set pretty low. I’m used to having a boiling kettle in 3 mins not 10 mins, so I take a better stove. Maybe I’ve just experienced the bad ones (as per wwpaddler^), or maybe what you, your mates and I consider as good is just not the same.

I have a Vango, lightweight camping stove and the ten pound cheap stoves boils water way faster

I’d probably suggest you made a bum decision when you chose the vango then?

As a summary, the ones I’ve used are perfectly adequate stoves, but in the whole scheme of camp stoves, in my opinion they’re not very good, but what would you expect for £10?. If the OP chooses to buy one, then it’ll boil water and cook food. I would just expect better of him 😉

so a trangia then
no bits to go wrong other than the o-ring you don’t actually need, and catching fire is the whole idea.
still using mine, the one I bought when I was in scouts in about 1985.

That’s what I use – brilliant for beaches, fuel available everywhere, only makes you smell mildly like a tramp 😀

Actually I thought Trangia was a bit posh and got a copy with anodised pans from Sports Direct for £18. Burner sealing is a bit poo, so I double bag it, but still get mildly meths tasting tea. Just get used to it!

I never keep meths in the stove, and always burn it off. So no meths tasting tea.
Back in the day I’d use a proper fuel bottle to keep the meths in, but tbh, the plastic bottles that it comes in, in the supermarket, are as good.

edit: think I used rubbing alcohol as fuel when I used it in US. Costs bog all from walmart.

Freind bought the cheap chinese ebay/lidl/aldi special for a tenner. Now curses that, and did admit that the official one I bought for £15 before he was born, is better quality, fits better, better handle, better burner, and I think he might have actually gone to buy a proper one.

Thought about amending mine for gas (mine needs drilling, but I think new ones have the pre-punched hole), but several years later I’ve never got around to it.

jonm81 – Member
^^ and if you don’t want to carry liquid fuel, the Trangia with gas burner.

Isn’t the trangia gas burner for people who’ve bought into the whole trangia thing and then realised that meths cooking isn’t that good?. 😉

Just a bog standard two burner with grill and a big gas bottle from your local caravanning/camping shop – or GoOutdoors.

Isn’t the trangia gas burner for people who’ve bought into the whole trangia thing and then realised that meths cooking isn’t that good?.

Not really.

I have the gas burner and use it mostly when camping out of the car when weight and volume aren’t really an issue.

I use the meths burner when out in more remote places, bikepacking or where I am not sure camping gas will be available (eg cycle touring in some bits of France.

Different burners for different purposes but all with the awesomeness of using a trangia.

Like B.A.Nana I pretty much own/have owned all the variants and each have their uses — it really is “horses for courses” Ultra lightweight stuff like the Koro or Pocket Rocket, or high spec multi fuel stoves are a bit OTT for car camping and going for a weight weeny beer can stove would just be ridiculous

For me it would depend on how big a tent I’d be using, how long I was staying for and what I was wanting to prepare on the stove. For a weekend car camping trip it’s a camping gaz two ring burner because we’ve got the space and don’t need to compromise on space/size or what we can or can’t cook on it.

An Alpkit Brukit is a permanent fixture in the back of our car – great for a quick brew on a road trip or at the end of the day.

For bikepacking it’s a Bearbones meths stove, for winter mountaineering it’s an Alpkit Koro (much prefer that design for stability and being able to invert the canister), whereas for more remote/foreign trips and sea kayaking it’s been the MSR whisperlite.

Whatever you choose there will always be the naysayers … the important thing is to get out and enjoy whatever it is you do. “Go nice places, do good things”!!