How to Choose a Camp Stove

Kind

Burn­er (gas, oil, mul­ti-fuel) - a device that is used for cook­ing dur­ing cycling or hik­ing trips. Advan­tages: low price, com­pact­ness and light weight.

• Gas stove - a heat­ing device designed for camp­sites, base camps and oth­er sta­tion­ary camps. Advan­tage — high pow­er, allow­ing you to cook a large amount of food at a time. Dis­ad­van­tages: large size and heavy weight. Dif­fi­cult to use for long trips.

Gas heater - a device for heat­ing the sur­round­ing space (tent, etc.). There are var­i­ous types of heaters — from small devices for warm­ing hands to pow­er­ful devices of 1–2 kW.

cat­alyt­ic heater - a device that is used to heat a room, a vehi­cle, warm a per­son or warm up mech­a­nisms.

gas lamp - a device for light­ing the space in the dark. A design fea­ture is the pres­ence of a noz­zle-dis­trib­u­tor that increas­es the bright­ness of the flame. Many lamps are equipped with a glass bulb that pro­tects the flame from wind and rain, and also cov­ers objects from the flame. Frost­ed glass pro­vides more even and soft light­ing.

gas cylin­der - a ves­sel for stor­ing gas­es, both com­pressed and liq­ue­fied.

• Portable gas stove
• Gas-burn­er

Fuel type

Gas - occurs most often and is a liq­ue­fied isobu­tane or propane-butane mix­ture filled into a gas cylin­der. Advan­tages: instant igni­tion, no smell and soot, good heat dis­si­pa­tion, ease of trans­porta­tion. Dis­ad­van­tages: low effi­cien­cy of the gas burn­er in high alti­tude con­di­tions and at low tem­per­a­tures.

Liq­uid fuel - gaso­line, kerosene or diesel fuel. Advan­tages: high effi­cien­cy in the moun­tains and in the cold, as well as greater avail­abil­i­ty in the acqui­si­tion. Dis­ad­van­tages: an unpleas­ant smell, soot, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of leak­age dur­ing trans­porta­tion and clog­ging of the noz­zle.

Mul­ti­fu­el - both gas and liq­uid fuels are used. Com­bines their advan­tages and allows you to choose the right option based on the sit­u­a­tion. The dis­ad­van­tage is a high­er price than pre­vi­ous ana­logues.

Power

Max­i­mum burn­er pow­er dur­ing oper­a­tion. This indi­ca­tor must be tak­en into account when choos­ing a burn­er, since the amount of cooked food at a time direct­ly depends on it. In this case, we can pro­ceed from the fol­low­ing ratio: 1 kW per 1 liter of prod­uct. 1 liter of prod­uct is a serv­ing for one per­son.

It should be not­ed that a more pow­er­ful burn­er also has larg­er dimen­sions. There­fore, a com­pact burn­er of less pow­er is bet­ter suit­ed for hik­ing, and pow­er­ful stoves should be pur­chased for sta­tion­ary park­ing lots. For heaters and lamps, pow­er is sec­ondary — in the first case, the choice is made depend­ing on the pur­pose and design, in the sec­ond — accord­ing to the lev­el of illu­mi­na­tion.

Impor­tant: depend­ing on sea­son­al con­di­tions, the pow­er of the select­ed burn­er may be less (sum­mer time) or more (autumn-win­ter sea­son).

Boil­ing time for 1 liter of water

The time required for boil­ing (t ‑100 ° C) 1 l. water. This para­me­ter is used to com­pare dif­fer­ent types of burn­ers. This is espe­cial­ly use­ful in cas­es where the pow­er of the device is unknown. It should be not­ed that this indi­ca­tor is direct­ly relat­ed to pow­er (the more pow­er­ful the burn­er, the faster it will heat the water). In mul­ti-fuel burn­ers, the boil­ing time is indi­cat­ed for a par­tic­u­lar type of fuel.

Lamp bright­ness

The max­i­mum lev­el of illu­mi­na­tion of the burn­er-lamp dur­ing oper­a­tion. This para­me­ter should be con­sid­ered when choos­ing a device. The brighter the lamp, the more area it can illu­mi­nate. Illu­mi­na­tion is mea­sured in lux.

Fuel consumption

The amount of fuel required for the nor­mal oper­a­tion of the burn­er per unit of time. Mea­sured in grams per hour. This indi­ca­tor (along with the capac­i­ty of the cylin­der) is impor­tant for cal­cu­lat­ing the time of con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion of the burn­er.

Time of continuous work

The time dur­ing which the burn­er is able to work with­out chang­ing the cylin­der or refill­ing the tank. This indi­ca­tor depends on the capac­i­ty of the cylin­der (tank). The time of con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion can be cal­cu­lat­ed based on the amount of fuel con­sump­tion and its amount in the cylin­der. In mul­ti-fuel burn­ers, the con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion time is indi­cat­ed for a par­tic­u­lar type of fuel.

Connection type

Con­nec­tion type — a method of con­nect­ing a gas cylin­der (tank) and a burn­er.

Thread­ed - occurs most often in gas and mul­ti-fuel burn­ers. The prin­ci­ple of fas­ten­ing resem­bles a con­nec­tion with bolts. Dif­fers in high reli­a­bil­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty. The dis­ad­van­tage is the high­er price of the cylin­der than devices with a col­let mount.

Tsan­govoe - Fas­ten­ing is car­ried out using a clamp (col­let). It is found in gas stoves in long-term sta­tion­ary park­ing lots. Col­let cylin­ders are cheap­er than thread­ed ones, but also less durable.

Threaded/collet - a com­bined ver­sion that pro­vides for both types of fas­ten­ing. To switch from one type of con­nec­tion to anoth­er, spe­cial adapters are used.

remote - fas­ten­ing is car­ried out using a hose, while the burn­er is not installed on the cylin­der, as is the case with the pre­vi­ous types of fas­ten­ing, but on the ground next to it. Burn­ers with this mount have a low­er height, high struc­tur­al sta­bil­i­ty and the abil­i­ty to con­nect to a cylin­der of any type and size. Dis­ad­van­tages: the pos­si­bil­i­ty of gas leak­age dur­ing con­nec­tion and the large size of the burn­ers.

built-in – the fuel con­tain­er is part of the burn­er design and there­fore can­not be detached. It is applied in the devices work­ing on liq­uid fuel.

Impor­tant: I must say that some burn­ers are designed for cer­tain mod­els of cylin­ders and can­not work with oth­ers, even if they match in type of attach­ment.

The diameter of the burner

The diam­e­ter of the flame corol­la and, accord­ing­ly, the size of the pan sup­port depend on the diam­e­ter of the burn­er. The larg­er the diam­e­ter of the burn­er, the wider the cook­ware can be used. Mod­els with a large diam­e­ter burn­er have more pow­er and large dimen­sions.

Equipment and functions

Fuel heat­ing sys­tem – increas­es the effi­cien­cy of the burn­er when the gas pres­sure in the cylin­der decreas­es (in case of low air tem­per­a­ture or when there is lit­tle gas). The fuel is heat­ed by the burn­er flame itself. In liq­uid fuel mod­els, this func­tion pro­vides a pow­er­ful and sta­ble flame. The fuel heat­ing sys­tem is found only in burn­ers with remote mount­ing.

Piezo igni­tion - an elec­tric igni­tion sys­tem based on the piezo­elec­tric effect. To ignite the fuel, just press the but­ton. Such a sys­tem does not require match­es, lighters, or bat­ter­ies.

pow­er reg­u­la­tor - allows you to change the pow­er of the burn­er by adjust­ing the inten­si­ty of the flame. This func­tion pro­vides the desired heat­ing with­out exces­sive fuel con­sump­tion.

Cook­ing capac­i­ty – is includ­ed in the deliv­ery set of the burn­er. The advan­tage of such a con­tain­er is not only com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the burn­er, but also var­i­ous addi­tion­al solu­tions that increase the con­ve­nience of its use (wind pro­tec­tion, heat exchang­ers, etc.). This capac­i­ty is more effi­cient than the “non-native” capac­i­ty.

Case includ­ed - serves for trans­porta­tion and stor­age, pro­tects against scratch­es, shocks, and also keeps parts of the burn­er dis­as­sem­bled.

Replace­able cylin­ders – cylin­ders com­pat­i­ble with the burn­er. Know­ing the names of the cylin­ders, you can eas­i­ly find fuel for the burn­er in spe­cial­ized stores.

The weight

The weight of the burn­er is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for hik­ing. For this case, there are very light mod­els, weigh­ing 60–70 g. It should be not­ed that the weight of the burn­er is indi­cat­ed with­out the weight of the cylin­der or fuel in the tank and cov­er. Gas stoves, designed for use in sta­tion­ary con­di­tions, weigh more (up to 1.5 kg and more).