Petrol V Gas

Many people assume that gas cookers are the only way to go with cooking equipment and nothing can be further from the truth as petrol cookers have been around since Jesus was a lad, unfortunately people are unaware of them and their benefits.

Originally gas cookers used Butane gas, mainly as the only supplier to the camping/caravanning markets supplied only Butane in blue bottles in small enough sizes for most people to practically carry with them. Things have moved on with numerous suppliers entering this market, we now have Propane/Butane mixes which are hotter then pure Butane, and pure Propane which is hotter still, and these are now available in deposit paid bottles for larger quantities, and numerous sizes of disposable containers for ease of use and practicality.

Petrol is a different source of fuel and does not suffer many of the foibles of gas cooking, many of the petrol cookers currently on the market use a special refined petrol supplied through the cooker manufacturer, or normal unleaded petrol from any garage forecourt.
Petrol cookers have several distinct advantages, firstly they are much hotter than gas cookers and cook much quicker, this saves fuel and makes simple tasks like boiling the kettle much quicker, and they have a much wider cooking temperature range than gas, so are more controllable when low heat is needed for simmering.

Petrol cookers remove the need for carrying heavy gas bottles, and petrol is available anywhere, unlike gas when your bottle runs out on a Sunday night; and they are so much cheaper to run when compared to gas cookers, and with no gas bottles, regulators, pipes, and joints there is less chance of anything going wrong. Operation is slightly more complicated as you have to pump the fuel tank up to pressurise the fuel, they need priming which means turning the control knob of the burner in one direction for a couple of seconds, then in the other direction to light it; nothing complicated though.

Altogether they are a simpler and cost effective option to gas cookers with their long lives of decades and offer a cheaper and viable alternative to gas cookers.

On the down side they can be smelly and a bit of a pain to fill.

Also, if you had to cook in a vehicle (let's say my Range Rover soon-to-be-camper) I would be happier with a gaz-type cylinder powering a stove than a petrol version ... or am I just thinking of petrol stoves of old where all these concerns were really an issue? Modern versions are probably 100 times better, I really don't know. Surely a gas clyinder can't be beaten for convienience - can it?

Tom Mc wrote:

On the down side they can be smelly and a bit of a pain to fill.

Also, if you had to cook in a vehicle (let's say my Range Rover soon-to-be-camper) I would be happier with a gaz-type cylinder powering a stove than a petrol version ... or am I just thinking of petrol stoves of old where all these concerns were really an issue? Modern versions are probably 100 times better, I really don't know. Surely a gas clyinder can't be beaten for convienience - can it?

Have to agree, remember years ago had a primos you had to pump up the presure, like you rather gas,

Yeah, but they still had gas bags on cars when you were out and about!

At least we had fuel,
wasn't you first a pedle car.

Triang of course, only the best!

They do smell if you prime them incorrectly, and they are actually safer for cooking inside a vehicle because they have moved on considerably. Filling is not really an issue because many new filler bottles are on the market for safe filling of them.

Petrol units have been proven much safer than gas units as theres no regulator, joints, and pipes to leak, and no heavy gas bottles to leak; as for pumping them up mine will be pumped up and ot will last for at least a week without more pumping.

I did toy with the idea of a petrol cooker but recently I have been thinking about a 3 way fridge to take the strain away from the car battery so I would probably go gas cooker and run the fridge on gas during the day when staying in a place for a couple of days and run it 12v when travelling only need one larger gas bottle to do both then.

It might be a bit of a problem on a longer overseas trip getting the right replacement gas bottle but a mate of mine with a camper has refillable gas bottles which he fills at garage forecourts with lpg so that could be an alternative.

Many of the higher performance gases have moved away from Butane to a Butane/Propane mix to give a hotter flame temperature over Butane, and guess what LPG is??? a Propane/Butane mix.

Gaslow seems to be the standard for refillable bottles

http://www.gaslow.co.uk/

Note : you may need to fit filler like a vehicle that runs on gas has otherwise fuel stations may get jumpy about you refilling visible bottles.

You've missed 2 other fuels for cooking, both popular with the boating fraternity

Diesel cookers : webasto make one as do wallas. The wallas one can also be fitted with a blower top to provide heating so you don't have to worry about an eberspacher or suchlike. Disadvantage is cost although if you can use if for heating and so include the heating budget aswell (don't knock heating - we were at the RGS meet in yorkshire a cople of years ago and it was cold - we apologised to everyone in the morning if our ebers and webastos of the 3 ivecos there kept the surrounding roof dwellers awake )

The other one is meths, http://www.mailspeedmarine.com/cookers-galley-equipment/origo/3000-cooker514045.bhtml?gclid=CIbRrqnB364CFcYntAodkin1Zg , these are being used by the guys who hire out converted landcruiser troopies.

We took an ex british army petrol stove to libya - it was awfull - if yo see them at shows give them a wide berth, they look good but are junk - we did manage to swap it for 3 nice dishes though in Tunis, they went away very happy with their antique (made in 1991)

@wideformat - I'd go compressor fridge, yes they are expensive but worth it, 3 ways are a pain, you need to have them level to run on gas, they eat volts and most will only keep the temp down to 20-25 degrees below ambient

Rich

I have a diesel unit on the boat, with a 60' boat weight is not an issue when it weight several tonnes to begin with, but in an expedition vehicle their weight is excessive when compared to petrol or gas, and yes i know from experience as i fitted my own and they are bloody heavy.

In operation they are fine, we have the twin unit with oven, and just the twin unit which gives us effectively four burners and large oven. Here lies the problem with diesel units: the twin units only actually have one burner and it relies on conduction down the cast iron plate to what is effectively the second burner, if you turn the heat down on the hottest part of the plate then the other one cools also. Having two units means we have overcome this issue, but its a lot of messing about, and weight for a 4X4 to carry.

Webasto unit here

http://motorhome.webasto.co.uk/cooking/diesel-cooker-x100.html

It weighs about 9.5 kg all in, that could be less than 1 gas bottle

Wallas don't give weights but for the hob tops its not that much

http://www.wallas.fi/default.asp?id=boat-stove-88DU

The big problem is that you don't get a grill to do toast on

iveco4x4 wrote:

Gaslow seems to be the standard for refillable bottles

http://www.gaslow.co.uk/

Note : you may need to fit filler like a vehicle that runs on gas has otherwise fuel stations may get jumpy about you refilling visible bottles.

@wideformat - I'd go compressor fridge, yes they are expensive but worth it, 3 ways are a pain, you need to have them level to run on gas, they eat volts and most will only keep the temp down to 20-25 degrees below ambient

Rich

Yeah I spoke with my mate about the refillable s and he said on the continent they get a bit tearse about filling the bottles so he fitted a lpg car type filling adapter in the side of the van when he fills them and from the outside it looks like he's filling the van up as a dual fuel vehicle.

On the fridge front a couple of other people have said the same 3 way's are great if your staying put in one place for a week or two as they use very little gas but using one on a vehicle by day and off loading and running off gas at night will soon be a complete pain, better get saving !!

iveco4x4 wrote:

The big problem is that you don't get a grill to do toast on

If you can make toast on an AGA or Rayburn you should be able to do it on a ceramic hob.
AGA sell a toast maker which is two pieces of metal meshed, hinged together and with a handle. Place the bread between the 2 pieces of mesh and place on the hob, turn over when the colour you prefer and do the other side.
I'm sure there must be cheaper versions than the AGA one, try an old fashioned hardware shop or eBay.


Robin

£805.00 + VAT for the Webasto Diesel Cooker X100 and you can't even make toast?

iveco4x4 wrote:

Gaslow seems to be the standard for refillable bottles

http://www.gaslow.co.uk/

Note : you may need to fit filler like a vehicle that runs on gas has otherwise fuel stations may get jumpy about you refilling visible bottles.

You've missed 2 other fuels for cooking, both popular with the boating fraternity

Diesel cookers : webasto make one as do wallas. The wallas one can also be fitted with a blower top to provide heating so you don't have to worry about an eberspacher or suchlike. Disadvantage is cost although if you can use if for heating and so include the heating budget aswell (don't knock heating - we were at the RGS meet in yorkshire a cople of years ago and it was cold - we apologised to everyone in the morning if our ebers and webastos of the 3 ivecos there kept the surrounding roof dwellers awake )

The other one is meths, http://www.mailspeedmarine.com/cookers-galley-equipment/origo/3000-cooker514045.bhtml?gclid=CIbRrqnB364CFcYntAodkin1Zg , these are being used by the guys who hire out converted landcruiser troopies.

We took an ex british army petrol stove to libya - it was awfull - if yo see them at shows give them a wide berth, they look good but are junk - we did manage to swap it for 3 nice dishes though in Tunis, they went away very happy with their antique (made in 1991)

@wideformat - I'd go compressor fridge, yes they are expensive but worth it, 3 ways are a pain, you need to have them level to run on gas, they eat volts and most will only keep the temp down to 20-25 degrees below ambient

Rich

Hi you seem to have conflickting ideas, you don't like the nosie of geni's yet you are happy to wake people in the morning, with your ebers and webastos.


no ofence have a great day,

Generator noise is a constant issue, particularly among boaters who have them running 24/7 and as they are predominantly diesel units their exhaust fumes are an issue when you are berthed next to someone with an older generator which is noisy and often past its best, so spews out fumes.

The camping, caravanning, and expedition fraternity are following along the lines of boaters experiences as more and more cheaper generators hit the marketplace, so will encounter similar problems in a few years.

Assassin wrote:

Generator noise is a constant issue, particularly among boaters who have them running 24/7 and as they are predominantly diesel units their exhaust fumes are an issue when you are berthed next to someone with an older generator which is noisy and often past its best, so spews out fumes.

The camping, caravanning, and expedition fraternity are following along the lines of boaters experiences as more and more cheaper generators hit the marketplace, so will encounter similar problems in a few years.

Yes agree with that, more and more people keep them running to very late at night, we always uesed to turn are one of about 9pm, remember when I was HGV driver going all over Europe,, sleeping in the cab, worst then were the fridge lories going all night, did eventulay get to sleep but real pain in the

roamingman wrote:

Hi you seem to have conflickting ideas, you don't like the nosie of geni's yet you are happy to wake people in the morning, with your ebers and webastos.


no ofence have a great day,

I didn't wake them - the cold and rain did....... :shock:

We actually parked a fair way from the tenters for that reason - the bigger problem is probabily my snoring after copious amounts of homebrew and real ale

It would also depend on WHERE you intend to go------re-fillable bottles can usually only be refilled from autogas pumps------this is not available everywhere----we discovered that they cannot be filled in Finland for example. An alternative is with an 'extenda stay' to connect a local cylinder, good if you intend to stay in a country for some time, (and you have space for another cylinder)
If your heating is NOT using LPG one cylinder will last quite a while in colder weather.
Gas 'fridges use quite a bit when on LPG 24/7---------A lot go for compressor fridges powered by solar power and a decent battery set-up-----works well with reasonable sun
Heating run off diesel makes sense with a diesel powered vehicle IMHO
Nigel