This is the CAMPLUX FoldGo Camping Stove and there are others that are about identical, save in color and text, and some that have a different shape for the butane/storage housing.
There is a butane canister in the red housing during use. The two pan support arms at the left (one not visible in the photo) fold toward/alongside the rightmost, and the whole assembly folds inside the housing (the red part flips up) for storage. Thus it takes less space than the “briefcase” style butane (and propane) stove. The trade off is that it is butane only. The butane canister is held magnetically rather than mechanically.
The smaller than “briefcase” style size is nice, and it can hold bigger, heavier pans than the backpacking stoves which are as small and light as they can practically be. For what it’s worth, this was NOT a Vine item. I went and bought it outright.
This is a small kerosene lamp/heater/stove setup. With the wide wick, there is a wide flame, so a fair amount of light[1] is possible. The amount of heat didn’t seem that much from the side, but maybe a heat-powered fan atop would help. The stove bit had me wondering, as I have heater plates for a couple lanterns and they can warm things but never get hot enough to do any genuine cooking.
My first run, not shown, was to see how hot a (metal) cup of water would get. While the thermometer I used never quite got to 210 F, the water was obviously boiling. So much for calibration. The barometric pressure wasn’t that low! Encouraged, I decided to try some actual cooking or close. The barbecue pork was pre-cooked. I got that rather than anything raw as I had my doubts about actual cooking ability. The result was quite encouraging – there was actual sizzle – and enough so that I will sometime (not likely soon for various reasons – nothing major) try full on from-raw cooking. Though the meat thermometer (or a meat thermometer) will get used to be sure of things.
The top support for the pan is detachable, and is clamped on so it won’t just fall or be bumped off. The assembly around the flame can be detached entirely from the fuel reservoir base, by moving a clip and wiggling a sort of interlock setup – it’s not coming apart by accident. In normal use (not trimming or installing a wick) the front is a (latched) door that can be opened to light the wick and then closed for use.
The setup did include a spare wick and the Allen wrench to take the top off of the fuel reservoir to allow installation. That’s good, but hopefully any need for the replacement is far into the future. The filler inlet is rather small. I had to use a very small funnel when fueling. According the manufacturer it should have no more than 400 ml of kerosene and then is expected to last 8 hours. I suspect it doesn’t last that long at full (non-sooting) flame. I have no plans to run a test of burn time.
[1] I thought I had properly trimmed the wick before use. It’s a lot more sensitive to unevenness than one might expect. Like all wick systems, the flame follows the wick height and the highest flame soots first. Even wick, even flame, and thus can be turned higher overall before sooting.
A few months back I acquired a(nother) little heater/cooker. I couldn’t use it right off as it is “for outdoor use only” and even if it is well-behaved and could perhaps, with care, be used indoors, I was NOT about to try it before getting familiar with the thing and seeing if it had any bad habits. Also, it uses butane, which is great except for that not vaporizing below 33 F thing… and since a few months back was Winter… well, what would have happened would have been a whole lot of not much. And since then it’s been cold, or rainy, or crazy windy, or something. Until a night or so ago.
The butane canister is below (internal) and the ignition is a piezo setup that works, so no matches or lighter needed. The fuel control works well enough. There is a sort of sliding valve/stop vane arrangement that can be adjusted before use to let more or less exhaust gas (HEAT!) go straight up. I presume the full open position is for when a pot or pan is set atop for cooking or at least warming. Once lit, that thing can only be adjusted with aid of a tool (rod, stick) as it’s far too hot to get near enough to touch and touching is Right Out.
I did not try to warm food, cook, nor even simply boil water this time. This was a first run test. The weather was 37 to 40 F depending upon which service you believed, and the wind was mild. While the “outdoor use only” might be fully true, at these temperatures and with that wind, the amount of useful heat was… minimal. Screening from the wind would help. I suspect this is more for warmer climates and times, more to “take the edge off” a mildly cool time than to warm a cold one. Or to serve as a cooker.
Here is a very nice “camp stove” that can run on butane cartridge canisters (yes, lying down, but just so) OR, with the adapter, propane.
With the cartridge in place:
It’s very nice, very well-behaved device. It works great with the butane cans, and is fine with the propane. It behaves just like a regular gas burner (aside from the level control working ‘backwards’). No doubt it’d be a great (vehicle) camping stove. As an “oh crap, grid down” device it’s just as great. While other “camp stoves” feel like camp stoves, this feels that bit more… civilized. The brand doesn’t matter. There are many. They are likely all made in the same plant, with different labels affixed. Such have nice “carrying cases” such that they can be set aside without issue (just keep the fuel separate!). IMO, this is THE way to use the butane cartridge style canisters, FWIW.
This is a relatively low setting. It can go lower, but the flame then pulses which seems non-ideal.
And this is with the gas valve wide open.
In the first photo, you can see adapters so the stove can also use the cartridge style butane tanks (they look a bit like mutant spray paint cans) or propane canisters. An obvious feature is that the fuel tank is not the weight holding the burner in place, but is at least a little way away from the flame.
If some find this looks familiar, there is a reason. I took my time getting around to buying this, and longer to get around to using it (ox slow), but I first saw it on Dio’s site a couple years back:
Yes, I was using it indoors. That’s alright. The CO detectors didn’t budge, and the cook time was short. If nothing else, it shows that you CAN cook “off grid” even when the weather is miserable. I do not know the future, but I do know the worse future I prepare for the better future I will experience.
I did have a bit of time, so I ran the test Dio hadn’t (at that time). I took a cup of water from the fridge dispenser and set it to boil with each fuel container/choice. Time are Minutes:Seconds according to phone stopwatch function, started when the pot was set upon the stove, with flame at maximum or maximum safe. More after the the times.
Canister propane: 1:20 Canister butane: 1:50 Cartridge butane: 2:00 (might be 1:50 to 1:55)
The difference between canister and cartridge butane might be simple adjustment or measurement error. I did not do multiple runs, as a proper science experiment would have. It could also be that the canister is a bit higher pressure than the cartridge. I do not know if that is the case. As for the propane, while propane might be less fuel efficient than butane, it is certainly at a much higher pressure and thus a lot of fuel was burning even without the valve wide open.
I would recommend putting the adapter on the stove hose first, and then connecting the cartridge. I did the opposite and had gas escape – enough to be thermally chilling. It might not take much, but better the gas is contained until truly desired. Also, the cartridge MUST be kept upright. You want gas, not liquid butane. Yes, there are camp stoves that use butane cartridges lying down. Those are designed to keep things “just so” to get away with it. This… is not.
My first choice would be canister butane for the simplicity of not needing an adapter and not having to finesse the fuel valve. If things were cold (come home to a house with the furnace out in the Winter…) then propane would be the choice. Cartridge butane, which is at least slightly more apt to tip over than canisters, I would save for a different stove. As for the times-to-boil… sure propane has a slight advantage, but just that. It’s not like the variation between alcohols and alcohol mixes.
A local store had a Lodge Dutch Oven for sale for some time. It was 49.99 at and just after Christmas. For a 5 qt Lodge, that’s not a bad price at all. I kept an eye on it as time went by. It eventually was marked down to a “get this OUT of here, please” $39.99 which is a very good price indeed. But I held off a bit.
This Friday started a three-day bit of “for every $40 spent, get $0.25/gallon off.” Even better. But I/we have this fancy addition to the store fuel program that has some additional benefit. One, I had not realized, was that ‘housewares’ had a 20% discount. That $39.99 became $31.99. But, there was yet another discount lurking in the works… so I managed to snag that Dutch Oven for just under $30.
Now I need to learn/teach myself how to use it. Something really simple to start would be best. And it might be quite a while because, well, as you know, ox slow – which is probably very appropriate for this.
Some time ago we acquired an air fryer, and then eventually another due to a recall. The device is quite handy, but some items mean cleanup can be a pain. I bought a pack of parchment paper liners for it, which helped some, but they are flat disks and the side of the basket could still get spattered. When we started running low on the paper (square-ish, but the basket is round) I ordered some round ones and while I was looking, also ordered a couple silicone liners that have sides.
I was bit concerned about air flow as these were solid (no holes), but the new parchment liners were also no-hole. And the silicone turned out to be a Very Good Idea. Cleanup is easy if not trivial, and the air flow issue isn’t an issue.
But I have all these parchment paper “disks”… now what? Well, the pizza pan that is supposed to be nonstick has started to stick some in the middle (the coating is intact, or at least appears to be). I had been giving that area a spritz of oil (avocado oil for the high smoke point). I tried one of the parchment disks there instead and it worked rather well.
Ah, but so many (all?) instructions for frozen or take-and-bake pizza say to put the pizza directly on the oven rack. Nice idea, but too many times the result is a mess in the oven, even if the pizza turns out right. That’s why the pizza pan (with holes…) has been used. So, what about putting the pizza on a big piece of parchment paper and skipping the pan? Since we have a “pizza shovel” this is workable.
So far, we’ve only tried it once. But that once was a success. The pizza came out right and there wasn’t a mess in the oven. Repeating this a few times will reveal if this is the solution it seems to be or if there’s a hidden flaw not yet detected.
Of course, this means there are these parchment paper air fryer liners that seem not to be of any great use now. Oh well. As problems go, it’s a wonderfully minor one.
I had an idea for an April Fool’s gag, which might yet happen some year. Nothing came of it this year, so… this.
Water, not the political mess(es). Those might be doing the same, but this is about water and steam and coffee and such wonderfully mundane things.
Some time ago I bought, when it was on special, the King Harv’s coffee Planets collection. The ad copy for such is amusing and there have been a couple amusing AccordingToHoyt posts about King Harv’s coffees. I chose to get them in a grind suitable for French Press as that’s the best way I know to make coffee. Or rather, the way I know makes the best coffee. Other methods available to me might be faster or simpler (k-cups are convenient, no doubt) but the French Press might be more time consuming and fiddly, the results are worth it. And I usually have enough time even on early nights that this is no big deal. Full cleanup waits until morning, after work.
For the last several evenings I’d been filling the kettle with six (6) cups of water in the morning and letting it stand in the kettle all day until it was time to boil. This let it get up to ambient temperature without any excess energy expenditure – and means the boil happens just that little bit faster. I timed from ‘burner on’ to ‘whistle’ and it seems no matter which burner I use, it takes about 12 minutes to get those six (6) cups boiling. Not bad. But was it what it could be?
Thursday morning I filled the (otherwise empty – alright there was air) French Press with water and measured it. Three and half (3.5) cups. There’s no need to bring six cups to the boil when I will only be using three and half cups at most. Now, there is reason to have more than three and half cups of water in the kettle. I do not care to set a dry or nearly dry kettle on a hot burner even if the burner is by then off. And that does happen as that way the kettle is as out of the way as it can be.
Thus the experiment began anew. Thursday morning was four and half (4.5) cups of water in the kettle. Thursday evening the boil took just under nine (9) minutes. Faster, but also less energy used. Three minutes of burner time isn’t much, but if I do this five night a week, that’s 15 minutes saved. A month is an hour saved. That might add up, if only to a few cents. But a penny saved and all that.
Friday the run was repeated, with a bit more precise measuring of time. From ‘burner on’ to ‘whistle’ was 8 minutes, 30 seconds for four and a half (4.5) cups of water. Seems like that’s the way to go.
The Elegant Ungulate 