There has been a lot of development in the field of lightweight stoves in recent years and they are becoming more powerful, compact and lighter to meet demands. Even classics, like the storm cooker, have been reinvented and products like the Robens Cookery King, take cooking technology to new heights.
The choice of fuel tends to be
- Block or gel
- Alcohol
- Paraffin
- Petrol
- Gas
- We concentrate on gas as our fuel of choice for it is convenient and generally easy and safe to use, providing an easily controlled flame for accurate cooking.
Gas Canisters
Gas is stored in various styles of canister, the simplest being a cartridge that is pierced by the stove to release the gas. Once connected, you can no longer safely separate from the cartridge stove – a serious disadvantage. In addition, almost all cookers that use this system are low powered with high weight and pack size. However, this type of cartridge is the most widespread in Europe.
Campingaz stoves are designed primarily for general camping and outdoor cooking with little focus placed on weight and pack size. They use a unique canister that clamps into position and these feature a valve to allow their safe removal for transit. The canisters are widely used in southern Europe. These unthreaded cartridges are often confused with threaded cartridges.
Threaded cartridges are used by many stove manufacturers and found extensively in any outdoor store. These screw onto the compact stove and can be safely unscrewed for transit. Some self-standing stoves, like our Fire Beetle, use a short hose with a gas control valve that screws to the cartridge. Short legs provide a high degree of stability.