What Do You Cook With

What Do You Cook With:

A strange question some may think, but with the emphasis moving away from gas, there are now a number of options which people are choosing due to limitations of gas, availability across several countries, and restrictions such as being unable to take them through the channel tunnel for example. I moved away from gas many years ago due to the lack of availability of consistent supplies which used an exchange scheme for several manufacturers bottles, this meant i had to carry sufficient gas for an entire trip which added weight and took up valuable space. This meant i looked at different options for ease of use, so i will summarise my own experiences of different fuels.

Petrol is my preferred option, easily available worldwide, uses little fuel compared to gas, and it is much hotter on its hottest setting and cooler on its lowest setting, and being so efficient means much less fuel needs to be carried for cooking. One gallon (4.5 litres) will easily suffice for one month of cooking and heating water for washing, so only one small container needs to be carried, because it is hotter it cooks quicker, so uses far less fuel, and its flexibility is superb. I carry two twin burner petrol cookers which gives four burners, mine are both some years old, the oldest being 60 years old, and the only issues are periodically checking the seals and replacing them around every 30 years, then cleaning the burners with the proper tool which is done at the beginning and end of every season. This does limit your cooking to pots and pans, and means no oven or grill as many gas cookers may have.

More recently i converted the boat to become gas free due to possible safety implications, this now uses diesel to power the cooker which has to be a fixed installation, it can run off its own supply but most run off the diesel tank used for fuel. These are basically a plate which houses two pans, the burner sits under one end which becomes hotter than the other end, thus giving a hotter and colder plate on which to cook. Diesel has the benefit of being able to have a grill and an oven which can be integrated into an expedition vehicle as a combined hob and cooker, or the cooker can be located away from the hobs as they are seperate units, they are fuel efficient and act very much the same as an electric cooker as they need a little warming time before getting to cooking heat.
Being a fixed installation means they cannot be removed from the vehicle as they have external flues for air and fume extraction, so are much safer for cooking inside a vehicle, and a diesel leak is much safer than having a gas leak inside anywhere.

Just a couple of points for discussion.

BBQ or open fire wins every time for me
but when just break fast needs cooking or soup or water then my petrol primus cooker does the job, also warms up the rear of the land rover when sat in side i wouldn't reccomend but i have seen it done where one has been used to dry out a tent

cheers kieran

Do have a double gas burner with grill, more avaiability for gas here in UK, but if staying at one site for more than 1 day just started getting used to a Ozpig

well i use lots of things at the moment winter time i use this

along with this Weber Baby Q

and somtimes i use this

We have a selection of stuff depending on where we're going, what we're cooking, how long etc.

99% of the time we have the jetboil with us - used for boiling water generally but do have the bit to let you use normal pans on too so sometimes used for cooking.

Got one of those cheap breifcase gas stoves for general cooking - used most often for breakfast.

Have a trangia but it doesn't get used that often really - more a throwback from when I was in scouts/DOE

Got the Ozpig - had it around 18months and used it loads but I think there's room to improve it a lot and most of the time we use it at home - it's only really much use for base camp type of trips

Wherever possible I liek to use open fire and generally use the a home made tripod over it with a hanging grill. Do als ohave a selection of floor standing grills too but the tripod wins hands down.

A few photos of stuff in use

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The problem with open fires, well at leats in the UK is that often they are illegal in public and a number of private open spaces, this is usually due to local bye-laws, locally introduced anti social behavior, or many obscure laws which give local authorities powers to prevent open fires, and prosecute offenders.

In one obscure case i found a couple of years ago a couple were prosecuted because they used fallen timber for their camp fire, some over zealous official scoured the legislation and found it could be construed as damaging an endangered species habitat, and the court bought it. Unfortunately i cannot find the original story, unfortunate because it makes good reading, and shows the lengths local authorities will go to for a prosecution which has little chance of defence.

Assassin wrote:

The problem with open fires, well at leats in the UK is that often they are illegal in public and a number of private open spaces, this is usually due to local bye-laws, locally introduced anti social behavior, or many obscure laws which give local authorities powers to prevent open fires, and prosecute offenders.

In one obscure case i found a couple of years ago a couple were prosecuted because they used fallen timber for their camp fire, some over zealous official scoured the legislation and found it could be construed as damaging an endangered species habitat, and the court bought it. Unfortunately i cannot find the original story, unfortunate because it makes good reading, and shows the lengths local authorities will go to for a prosecution which has little chance of defence.

The sort of places where you are likely to get in trouble for havign a fire are the sort of places best avoided anyway - Scotland's pretty chilled out fires wise if you are sensible. Even had a conversation one night round our fire with a local copper and the park ranger who were fine with it.

salt

Hmm. I try not to over complicate things... I take along a Camping Gaz single burner portable £15 thing with 4 or so small cans of gas (nornally 4 for £20)...sorted! Small, quick to setup and does the job . Buying gas is not a problem, because I take enough with me to last the trip.

like Rusty...I keep it simple, as I dont travel more than four weeks at a time.

[img]https://2img.net/h/i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg186/g7ree/Scotland%20October%202010/DSC00037.jpg[img]

I am buggered if I can get the image on this to work....and yes it is coppied as an image file from photobucket :computer-22:

Mac wrote:

like Rusty...I keep it simple, as I dont travel more than four weeks at a time.

[img]https://2img.net/h/i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg186/g7ree/Scotland%20October%202010/DSC00037.jpg[img]

I am buggered if I can get the image on this to work....and yes it is coppied as an image file from photobucket

photo gone,

I just use a small portable bbq with a small gas bottle, used it lots, not had hugely complicated meals. Lots of sausage and hash brown sarnies with plenty of brown sauce, ill post photo's when i find them.

we've been working on some scrub clearance the last few weeks where we've had to burn all the material on site rather than chipping it. It's given us plenty of opportunity to further experiment with our "Bucket Oven" - we've been part filling the tim bucket with embers at around 10am dropping a couple of taties in wrapped in foil and then toppign the bucket up with more embers and placing a piece of tin sheet on top to hold the heat in. about 12ish we'd lift the lid off, pierce a hole in a tin of beans and then sit in the embers on the top for a few minutes - never had jacket taties that were so good!

Much more gentle heat than just using the embers on the fire and we even managed to do some fray bentos pies at the same time as the taties on Friday.

I think I'm going to consider using the bucket idea when camping as it won't take up too much space and can be used for other things too, tho i do realise it's not worth taking on every trip there are others it could be quite useful.

Here is my old Jimny I used for green laning. I took the heat shield off the manifold and replaced it with a stainless stell oven....worked a treat :D

[IMG]https://2img.net/h/i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg186/g7ree/te14.jpg[/IMG]

The Jimny was later taken on the mongol rally when I sold it.

[IMG]https://2img.net/h/i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg186/g7ree/jimny2.jpg[/IMG]

Grrrrr not got a clue why it is not highlighting img at the start of the address. :mad:

Mac wrote:

Grrrrr not got a clue why it is not highlighting img at the start of the address.

are the photos still on photobuket? if so the link should work

Yes mate they are still on photbucket......I run a couple of forums, so I'm up to speed on the routine.

Mac...pics for you..I think somehow when you post it, it is making it into a link rather than a picture...

Macs post , but edited:

Here is my old Jimny I used for green laning. I took the heat shield off the manifold and replaced it with a stainless stell oven....worked a treat



The Jimny was later taken on the mongol rally when I sold it.

Has anyone used ground ovens? not used them for many years until fairly recently, then with the beloved grandchildren it was resurrected when they began to cook themselves, and yes we start them early.

The principal is easy, you dig a hole for a firepit and light the fire on a bed of large stones, then you let the fire burn as normal, once you have done with the fire and it is embers you place meat in tin foil in the middle of the embers, the stones are now very hot and you cover your meat with them and lay some earth on top. It retains the heat for many hours, and will cook a large joint in 2-4 hours normally.

Ground Ovens! Errggghhh everything tastes of earth. IMHO

I like an open fire and have a tripod BBQ which is fine for most campsites that allow BBQ's after you've finished cooking, remove the tripod, stick on a few logs and you've got a nice campfire.

I also have a number of small stoves, MSR Whisperlite - great liquid fuel stove and runs on just about anything.
A Go Systems Multi fuel stove, runs on liquid fuels and also on self sealing gas canisters, very flexible.
A small cheap £20 gas stove that I had for a quick brew up before I got a...
JetBoil Flash, great bit of kit if you just want to boil some water quickly, but certainly not the be all and end all that some people seem to think it is.
I also highly rate the trangia system, compact with all pans and kettle included and you can run them on meths or upgrade your burner to gas or even multi fuel. Lots of choices of types of pans and sizes etc.

use a kelly kettle for boiling water and a campfire for cooking.
if we cant have a campfire we use one of those suitcase cookers

Nice one Rusty...Thanks for sorting those pictures.

Hillbilly Raider wrote:

use a kelly kettle for boiling water and a campfire for cooking.
if we cant have a campfire we use one of those suitcase cookers

Got to agree, a Kelly kettle standing alongside the embers of an open fire is excellent for boiling water.

yes used ground ovens quit a few times