Anybody used these stoves?

[Asa Samuel]

Hi, just wondering if anybody had tried this stove http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-Camping-...amping_CookingSupplies_ET?hash=item3a59fcebed and whether it is worth it? I'd really like to get a gas stove and I know it won't be as good as some of the more expensive ones but I am on a tight budget

No doubt rik_uk3 will be along in a minute

Thanks,
Asa.

 

[Matt.S]

Looks a lot like the one Gelert offers.

 

[Big Geordie]

Hi Asa,

Great little piece of kit. I have the Gelert version. Since it screws directly on to the gas canister, some people would say that it is less stable with a pan on top.It is easy to overcome that, just position it near a stone to support the pan.
It is cheap & cheerful and only takes up a very small space in a pocket. In terms of long term costs, gas canisters are more expensive, more bulky and more difficult to dispose of when empty compared with a little meths burner or a hexamine cooker.
It won't be long before you end up like most of us- with 6 of everything!
Good luck with it.
G

 

[nigeltm]

I bought a similar stove about 6 years ago and find it great. One of those and the smallest size screw top gas cannister take up no space at all in the lid of my rucksack. So no matter what the conditions I know I can get some hot grub. A perfect backup for those days a camp fire isn't an option. Together they give you enough cooking time for a couple of days.

The pukka Coleman F1 stove is around £20 and most shop bought copies in the UK are £10 to £15. So if you get this one all in for £7 or less you can't go wrong.

 

[johnboy]

Asa,

Those stoves are ok. They are a chinese copy of the Kovea Titanium stove and there are a lot of copies about.

Kovea are a Korean company and IIRC they shifted some of there production to china and since than there are a lot of Kovea copies around

The build construction is good and they last well enough and they meet the CE requirement on safety mostly. The pan support is small however so if you're brewing up in say a crusader mug then fine if you put a large pan on there then you need to be mindful on stability especially if you' use a 100g canister... The peizo works but can pack up in short order.. They take standard EN417 canisters

HTH

John

 

[bashabuddy]

Ive also been looking for said holy grail. I have come across a clone of the MSR pocket Rocket. It seems to have gone missing from the web site????

It is almost exactly the same except the MSR stamps, and at 11 quid its a bargain for a Yorkshire man ..

I have a link for the MSR ... take a looksie ..

MSR pocket Rocket

i had also noticed a little Vango version of the same stove for 15 quid on Thursday when i was in ..

HTH

 

[johnboy]

The Chinese Pocket rocket copies I've seen have been poor mainly the valve.

MSR in it's wisdom used an aluminium block as the carrier for the valve assembly. Ok if you have decent machining and QA processes..

Sadly the chinese clones I've seen don't. So the valve is the weakest area...

Also the Chinese ones are over jetted to up the performance so the flame can be a real mess and the aeration is stuffed..

Not all clones are equal...

HTH

 

[Mestersvig]

These east Asian brief case BBQ stoves are cheap to buy and run, and the ones available in the UK are generally good enough quality for car camping, fishing etc. They make them in the millions in Korea and China, where they are used for indoor and outdoor cooking for small groups, families etc. It's advisable to look at a few before you buy and go for quality; the cheapest ones are made of really thin steel and won't last long. If you can find one with a CE quality mark, so much the better.

 

[Andy BB]

I presume you're talking about the first stove in the linky.

Have to say that - pragmatically - they're excellent value, and remarkably fast and easy to cook on - good heat control, lots of it, and I've always found them very stable. (I've also got one - slightly larger - but with a "skillet-style" top you can add on - Robert Dyas sometimes has them in) Gas canisters are cheap and readily available. Not a sub-zero cooker to be fair as most cylinders are butane, but that covers most of the year in the UK! Not a long-term investment as they tend to be built of cheap materials, but for general ease of use (slot in cartridge, turn gas on, click the ignitor in the rotating control and off you go), they are excellent.

However, not as much fun as many other cookers, which get you more "involved" in the whole process. Can't beat a bit of pumping, priming, and general messing about with a good liquid stove, or brewing up on a coke-can stove you've built yourself out of a beercan or two!

 

[ozzy1977]

I have one , not for camping though it is under the kitchen sink for power cuts.

 

[Mestersvig]

I presume you're talking about the first stove in the linky.

Have to say that - pragmatically - they're excellent value, and remarkably fast and easy to cook on - good heat control, lots of it, and I've always found them very stable. (I've also got one - slightly larger - but with a "skillet-style" top you can add on - Robert Dyas sometimes has them in) Gas canisters are cheap and readily available. Not a sub-zero cooker to be fair as most cylinders are butane, but that covers most of the year in the UK! Not a long-term investment as they tend to be built of cheap materials, but for general ease of use (slot in cartridge, turn gas on, click the ignitor in the rotating control and off you go), they are excellent.

However, not as much fun as many other cookers, which get you more "involved" in the whole process. Can't beat a bit of pumping, priming, and general messing about with a good liquid stove, or brewing up on a coke-can stove you've built yourself out of a beercan or two!

Yes, I agree with all of that though my tinkering these days focuses on my remote canister gas stove. I started using the brief case BBQ stoves as an easy / safe option when family car camping with small kids. I keep my "real" stove for more ambitious trips. The BBQ stoves also first made me realise the huge potential for cost saving by running remote canister stoves on pure butane canisters.
M

 

[dave53]

ive had one of those for about 15 years good bit of kit for car camping if you want smaller there is plenty of other stoves out there the one you were looking at on ebay is well overpriced you can pick them up in go outdoors a lot cheeper look around regards dave

 

[Asa Samuel]

Bloody 'ell this is an old thread!

Thanks for all the replies, I've since gotten myself an on-canister mini camping stove and that does me great.