Hi,
We have used gas cookers but while in Victoria OZ bumped into a guy with a Trangia. We thought it looked great so got one. TBH we wouldn't take anything else now. It is bulky but when you way up the fact that it has a kettle - two pans and a burner all in the pack with two ally plates straped to it - it's not that bad.

Tips we learned. Take the spirit burner and use it when you have fuel or if you have to use it in the tent. The MSR petrol burner is good but blackens the pans but you can always get petrol.

Get a 2nd larger fry pan and place it over the 1st when cooking - speeds up cooking. You can also stack pans to keep food warm on top while the bottom pan is cooking and the cooker is stable.

Scratch a mark inside the kettle for 1 and 2 cups of water - saves heating to much.

Cheers

These Optimus stoves are good and the modern ones burn almost any kind of fuel [ including diesel - !!!] .
You can pick them up fairly cheaply off ebay .
Optimus Hiker+

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

It depends on you. I use mine, but you might not.

I've got a couple different ones that both run off the same fuel my bikes do. Just pull out the line before it goes into the carb and fill up the stove tank. When I want the stove tank empty, I drain it back into my motorcycle tank.

Once I figure out a way of roasting coffee beans on my exhaust pipe, I'll be set!

__________________
Not Ted Simon since 1970!
http://nokilli.com/rtw

I used to tie a full roast to the exhaust manifold of my Landy, wrapped in Tin foil, and held on with wire. 5 hours game driving and I set up table, opened the engine bay, pulled out a perfect roast with onions, all that was needed was a salad from the fridge and a bottle of red.

I have recently tried something simiar with my BMW R1150RT. tied a sausage onto the twin (down) pipes and it cooked in a 3 hour journey. He he.

When standing I have looked at the cylinder heads and thought thats an ideal Braai (BBQ) grid, but apparently the bike doesnt like it...

Good luck G

I remeber seeing a picture once of some guy with an old bmw with a metal plate on the cylinder head frying an egg, never found out how long it took him, wheather it tasted nice, or if it was just a piss take but would be cool to just stop at the side of the road and start making food literally off your bike.

There seems to be many lightweight stoves about. I think i may try to make the soda can stove. Has anyone got any views on the Hex Military Stoves.

I always like to carry a stove of some kind as its nice to camp in the wild and theres nothing better than waking up from a good nights sleep to a warm drink and breakfast in lovely peaceful surroundings.

I am also a fan of the military boil in the bag meals as they save getting the boil pot dirty so you can have the excess water as a warm drink.

I used to use a whisperlight international, excelent stove but messy so i really like the idea of something cleaner burning.

In the uk I found a firm called Winward outdoor who sell a fire fly stove it looks tiny. Has anyone tried one of these yet ?:confused1:

[QUOTE=Ken & Carol]
Trangia...Can be used with mets, petrol, and gas. Prefer the petrol version as no 'other' type of fuel is required. Its all on the bike. Mets and gas can be hard to find in some countries.

Lots of great comments, I decided the Trangia bi-fuel would suit me best, but then I fould this in their user manual

"E. NEVER use other fuel kinds than those the stove is designed for. AVOID use of automobile (car) gasoline as fuel for a stove. Automobile gasoline contains a lot of additives that are needed as lubricants etc. in a car engine. These additives are not burnt properly in a stove. Instead they escape as extremely health hazardous fuel vapor and exhaust fumes that may cause cancer. Furthermore, unleaded automobile gasoline may in some cases damage
rubber components in seals, o-rings etc which could lead to fuel leaks on the stove. Use white gasoline, heptane and similar instead of car gasoline. Please note that any fuel containing benzene and other additives is extremely health hazardous and should be used only for short times.

Is this a corporate responsible statement, are so many other overlanders wrong in using petrol.....

I guess the message is cook outside ...

[quote=goodwoodweirdo]Maybe they should add that using petrol stoves in the sort of confined spaces where these vapors could be hazardous may also lead to fieballs and explosions, which may be harmful to long term health!!!!!

Like you say - cook outside, or at least in a very well ventilated area. Common sense says this applies to any stove, whatever the fuel type.

I'd think that when stove manufacturers design petrol stoves they have the sense to use rubbers which are imune to the effects of petrol.

Sounds like they're covering their arses for all possible events!!

I use a MSR WhisperLite Internationale. It works just fine on pump fuel. It is designed to use several kinds of fuel and this is why I went with this version. I do not want to carry an extra kind of fuel. I carry two MSR fuel canisters that can be dumped directly into my bike's fuel tank in an emergency or I can drain fuel out of the bike to fuel the stove in an emergency.

Unleaded fuel does not burn as clean as white gas in the stove, but the MSR uses Shaker Jet technology to deal with the difference.

It doesn't matter what kind of camp stive you use, always do your cooking outside. You can buy small tents to cover your cooking area if you need to keep it dry. However, I have used my MSR stove in the rain and it worked fine (with the wind screen).

For food, I buy the packs of camping food. I buy the packs for two people and then I split them in half and vacuum seal them as individual meals. Doing this is a very inexpensive way to eat on the road and the food is actually better than what you can normally get on the road. The small vacuum seales meals pack very small, too.

The problems with propane/butane stoves is that they require a certain type of canister. Since you can't carry them on a plane, you must buy them on location. In Egypt and India I looked hard and never saw any for sale until we got to Kathmandu. This is an overriding concern that excludes gas stoves for less-developed countries

Liquid-fuel stoves have some minor inconveniences but they are not show-stoppers.

I bought a Primus Omnifuel stove which burns anything from meths to diesel. It has a remote tank that you can empty, wash out and fill with water if necessary for airline travel. I was knocked back at an airport once with a Coleman 442 (the one with the tank attached) because the airport staff could still smell a hint of petrol smell even after washing out.

The good part about liquid-fuel stoves is that you can use petrol (yeah I know about the additives, just use it in a well-ventilated environment). There is a slow build-up of petrol crud but it takes a long time to have any effect. I had an Optimus stove for 20 years that I used exclusively with petrol and it only blocked up the fibrous pressure-regulating thingy after about 19 years. The Omnifuel stove does not have a fibrous pressure-regulating thingy at all.

The Omnifuel packs down small, fitting down flat into my smallest billy. The tank can go anywhere. The other thing if you use petrol is that you can use it for the bike.

If you still want to go with a gas stove, the Kovea titanium is great. 89g, very small, 3kW heat output, piezo ignition and uses the screw-on cartridges.
There are two main types of cartridge for propane/butane stoves, the screw-on type and the click-on type. Both can be removed between uses but the screw-on is more secure and has a back-up sealing gasket. The click-on is supported by Gaz (the company), is a bit wobbly and relies on a single seal when in use.
The older style Gaz canisters that permanently puncture the tin are almost obsolete (thank goodness) and were only available with butane gas. Butane gas has a lower pressure and butane-only stoves only put out about 1.2kW maximum. Butane-only stoves are useless at higher altitudes and low temperatures.

I have it using for a long time and satisfied a lot. You can use the same gas of your bike with it.
Once I applied too much pressure and caused a small fire. It was my fault. Written it to MSR and they changed it with a new one for free.

__________________
"where the traveller goes, nobody knows ! "

Dont go without one Jake!

Personally I prefer the spirit burner line of Trangia as they are not so dangerous. Check out Trangia Kök - Trangia Stoves Stoves, outdoor, Ultralight , Series 25, Series 27 for the complete range including gas (propane/butane?)burners. There is even a mini for the Lonely Rider

Do not ever use it inside a tent!!!

Hey Jake, you'll find prepared food in Europe very expensive by NZ/AUS standards, but the supermarkets aren't too bad.

If you're a cheap skate like me you'll find a cooker well worth the trouble in Europe. I've had experience with Coleman, MSR, Optimus and Trangia after years in the hiking clubs. They are all very good cookers and they won't let you down...

All you need to go down to your local shop and compare physical size, fuel use and type, output power etc and figure out what suits your needs best. I like the small Coleman for motorcycle travel becasue it runs on petrol without any problems for extended periods. I like the MSR for hiking becasue the fuel bottle and cooker are separate, making it slightly easier to pack into small spaces.

Trangias are good for hiking too becasue of their simplicity when your 2 weeks away from spare parts.

The Optimus is also a bulletproof performer. I had one for a number of years and was great. Lighting them can be a bit hairy though, and it's easy to get it wrong at times setting fire to people and property. The fuel tanks are also quite small.

The camping Gaz models are popular in Europe, but I'm not a fan of them becasue they crap out in the cold.

The difference between what Aussies and Kiwis consider roughing it and what Euros consider roughing it are quite staggering. In my opinion the Gaz models are designed for soft core European campers who are operating at sea level on a family holiday in summer....

For me it is also surprising to see so few knowledge about alcohol/spirt stoves goes around among travellers.

As sayed before, I also agree it's the alcohol stove is more "gourmet" stove compared to gas/petrol ones - no irritating smells to back off your hunger, but it's also multiple times more robust/reliable than any gas or petrol one with valves, pipes and other systems that can brake down, clog or just blow off.

Only thing you do is open cap of the burner, put a gulp of (wooden)spirt inside, let it soak a minute and fire it on. No moving parts, valves, pipes, seals, wierd shaped burners that are hassle to pack or high pressure bottles.

We've been using Swedish army (they obviously know what they prefer in the extreme conditions) kit for over 6 years troublefree. It's about 2-3 times cheaper to do your own food travelling in Europe. In Asia things change, but you need to get through the expensive Europe first to save huge loads of money.

Mostly running on wood-spirt availble here very cheap, but when we run out in the middle of nowhere then also "regular" cleaning purpose spirt available from pharmacies does the same job. Haven't seen any more clever gas based kits that can pack down so compact as this military one does and is that functional at the same time. You can use it as a boiler or fryer and it doesn't shut down even in very severe wind conditions.



It all packs down into the size of the outer shell (the black component in the picture). On the picture it's in the fry "mode" using the smaller vessel (cap) as frying pan, you need to turn the shell other way round for boiling "mode" with the bigger vessel seen on the left in the picture, capping it with the smaller vessel for quicker results. On packing it, with the spirt bottle (white on the picture) I also fit needed amount of coffee, tea bags, sugar, 2 spoons and 2 forks inside the same packed kit.

Also the container has needed parts to use it on the camp fire, for both boiling and frying using longer stick you can brake off from a bush. Certanly a real military genius through intense practice has designed it.

And the sweetest part: the price for the entire kit... 19 EURos!!!

Makes food up to 3-4 persons.

After comparing it with other kits I think there isn't much other possibilities to have better and smarter cooker kit than this if you cook for yourself or less than 3-4 persons IMHO. If more than 4 persons, only then you need other bigger size stuff.

My 2c