We evacuated to my dumb-ass sister-in-laws house for the hurricane. I have a wonderful gas grill at home with 80 pounds of propane. They had no way to heat any food or cook any meals with the electricity off. Which sucked. Chips, peanut butter and jelly, and cold canned food for three days. Fun. I'm a good cook and I would have made gourmet meals on a gas grill for everyone. If they had one.

So now I'm on the lookout for a portable camping stove. I'm seeing propane models, butane models, and dual fuel models.

Anyone have any recommendations on a decent camping stove? Is propane better than butane? I think the 1 lb propane canisters are much easier to find, and perhaps cheaper, than the butane canisters, but I'm not sure?

I'm not really looking for a backpacking ultra light burner, something more user friendly, but not huge.

Edit- Out of curiosity, is it safe to use a propane grill indoors? Butane grill? I'm seeing conflicting info online.

I bought one of these for a place with no gas utility and frequent power outages. It's not a camping stove if your camping includes any hiking, but it's a great stove with hot burners and good adjustments. It's actually a reasonable stove to cook on.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LWK53U



There's a two-burner version, too: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LWK53U/



The classic not-backpacking camping stove, of course, is one of the green Coleman briefcase stoves.



Camp chef (the maker of the bigger stove I linked above) also makes very highly rated briefcase-style stoves - better made but also twice as expensive as the Coleman version. Of course, the Coleman ones already tend to last forever.

The cheapest way to go is your local asian grocery store. They have hotpot stoves (same as a camp stove) that take cans of butane. I actually keep 6 cans or so at home just in case the power goes out because my stove is electric. They are around $15 and $4-5 for a 3 pack of cans. I agree with you, I have a charcoal/propane grill and have 1 tank in use with a full backup.

Timely - I was considering a portable gas grill to take on trips in the SUV.

What burns hotter - butane or propane? Does one last longer / more efficiently given 1 lb of gas?

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
The classic not-backpacking camping stove, of course, is one of the green Coleman briefcase stoves.

I still have and use this exact one. probably 20 years old, maybe older at this point.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Timely - I was considering a portable gas grill to take on trips in the SUV.

What burns hotter - butane or propane? Does one last longer / more efficiently given 1 lb of gas?

Propane will put out very slightly more total heat per pound of fuel burned than butane (like, 1.5% more).

As far as what's hotter, it just depends on the burner and regulator. More gas = more heat. You can get a propane stove that puts out 5,000 BTU or a propane stove that puts out 30,000 BTU. (A normal home stove burner is ~7,000-10,000 BTU.)

You want the Camp Chef Everest.

Portable like the Coleman, but way more power and nicer fit and finish.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
What burns hotter - butane or propane? Does one last longer / more efficiently given 1 lb of gas?

One website I looked at said they burned exactly the same, at the same temp, but butane had 12% more energy per unit, so a butane tank would last longer than a propane tank if the tanks were the same size.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
You want the Camp Chef Everest.

Portable like the Coleman, but way more power and nicer fit and finish.

That's the briefcase-style stove made by the same people as the bigger tabletop unit I posted above.

They get super reviews.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
What burns hotter - butane or propane? Does one last longer / more efficiently given 1 lb of gas?

One website I looked at said they burned exactly the same, at the same temp, but butane had 12% more energy per unit, so a butane tank would last longer than a propane tank if the tanks were the same size.

Butane has more energy per gallon, propane has more energy per pound.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
You want the Camp Chef Everest.

Portable like the Coleman, but way more power and nicer fit and finish.

+1

My uncle/hunting buddy bought a replacement Coleman last year. It's very hard to get a low flame on it. If you turn the knob more than 1/16 past off the flame is so high it burns everything.

Based on that I bought the Everest. Used it on a few trips and am happy with it.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

The classic not-backpacking camping stove, of course, is one of the green Coleman briefcase stoves.

I have one of these, bought it over 20 years ago and it still works great. The "greenie" propane canisters are sold everywhere, WalMart, supermarkets, gas stations, etc. The new ones are more powerful, 11,000 BTUs. The Camp Chef Everest ones are a little more, 12,000 BTUs. IMO, in natural disaster areas (hurricane, earthquake, etc), a camp stove set-up is an essential item for the SHTF kit.

I buy a refill valve and refill the 1lb canisters.

As others have already said the coleman briefcase stove is the entry level standard.

The camp chef's are a step up.

I own both a coleman and a two burner camp chef explorer.

explorer 2 burner

If you do any canning, seafood boils, or deep frying look at the camp chef explorer or the newer one with the legs and wind screen that stay attached called the "pro" series.

Pro series

The explorer burners are 30k btu burners, enough to boil big pots of water for canning or seafood boils, and enough for frying a turkey. Yet they go low enough that you can also use them as normal burners which some of their higher output burners have trouble doing. They also offer big cast iron griddle tops for their explorer line which turn them into griddle tops just like on a cook line.

griddle

After Winter Storm Atlas in 2015 which saw us without power for 3 days in our all electric home, we bought this 12,000 BTU/h unit along with a case of butane canisters (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001D7FYCI/).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002QUT3AU/


Cheap effective efficient insurance just like SIG4EVA says in his post above.

I have had the to switch to one of those butane stoves halfway through cooking several times. Also have a wood stove, charcoal BBQ, and two burner Coleman propane, but the single unit butane cookers are convienient and take up no space.

I personally would be ok using a camp stove with a green cylinder in the house, storing it outside when not in use. When burning, it's just like my natural gas range. And a leak from the small tank would be noticeable and small. YMMV

I believe all Hydrocarbons have the same BTU energy per pound of fuel.

The butane model like you see in Korean restaurants at the table is the one I use. Tailgate camping a few months back, making sausages on a friends porch, and at my house, every day (inside). I boil water every morning for cone-over-cup coffee with this little butane hotplate, first measuring water into a kettle. A $1.50 canister of butane will boil about 25-30 400ml portions of water. The stove could not have been much more than $25, and the butane is 4/$6.00. My Bug-out Box Deluxe is packed with another stove, 4 canisters, and a Turbo-torch attachment for the small propane canisters. Guess I'm dual fuel

Multi-fuel Volcano stove or homemade Rocket cook stove might work too.