As with cooking at home, two burners going at the same time will get most meals cooked in a timely manner. And for large gatherings, there are three-burner stoves like the Coleman Cascade 328. And we’ve never heard the maxim that a tired and hungry family is a happy family. This is why two-burner camp stoves are the workhorse of any group camping trip,
since they can quickly cook meals for four or more people. Perfect for those times when trail mix just won’t cut it, the Cascade Classic Camping Stove makes it easy to cook great meals outdoors. Its compact design makes it easy to bring along on your adventures, and its chrome-plated grate and aluminized steel cooktop are quick and easy to clean.
Moreover, having a good windscreen will help keep the flame lit if you’re running the heat on low. The Camp Chef Everest and Eureka Ignite Plus have excellent simmer control, while budget stoves like the Coleman Classic struggle. Spending up will increase your chances of mastering that complex backcountry meal. BTUs are closely related to cooking power, but they’re not everything. In our tests, the stoves with the highest BTUs weren’t necessarily the quickest to boil water or cook food.
The first is obviously the car camper who has a large group to feed, like me when we go on family trips. If you have to do some serious cooking, you definitely don`t want a small one burner stove. Many two burner stoves are still small and can barely accommodate
two 8″ pans let along two 12″ cooking pans. The tip cleaner valves are above the fuel control valves on these Military Heating Units. These military heating units have fittings in the top of the tanks for supporting a grate as on Models 521 and 522 above.
Most camping stoves, including our top pick, have a tendency to jump temperatures, from very low to very high, with barely a touch of the hand. Uncovered, the Coleman Classic boiled water in 5 minutes on the right burner and 6 minutes 30 seconds on the left burner. The Coleman Classic also boiled water 3 minutes faster than the more expensive (and reportedly more powerful) Coleman FyreCadet. These stoves are not for hiking expeditions, but if you use a car or truck as the base for your overnight trips, two-burner camp stoves are fundamental to a successful car-camping adventure. They’re essential for trips to national parks or local recreation areas, where cooking on an open fire or barbecue pit may not be allowed, especially during wildfire season.
The result is a camp stove that’s both classic in design and modern in function. Perfect for those times when trail mix just won’t cut it, the Cascade 18 1-Burner Camping Stove makes it easy to cook great meals outdoors. The detached grate flips 180° so you can store it while unloading the trunk and heading to the campsite. If you’re hiking, you’ll need a stove that will fit snugly into your pack, while campers can get away with something a little bigger, as long as it can slide into the back of your vehicle. Keep in mind how you’ll be using it and whether you can sacrifice cooking surface area for a smaller, easier-to-carry unit.
Cooking outside over an open flame conjures up an ancient, primal sense of accomplishment from deep within. Never mind that I came fully prepared with several cans of propane and a BIC lighter — I still feel like I’m Arthur “Master of the Flame” McMahon when I’m manning the picnic table stovetop. Coleman 426 is a 3 burner model that also dates to the late 1940’s. The controls for the side burners project through holes in each end of the stove case.
First, the plastic latches seem flimsy and didn’t always feel like they were holding the stove shut as securely as other latches. Second, the carrying handle is awkwardly shaped and uncomfortable to use. This stove was the most difficult of the tabletop camping stoves to carry with one hand.
Wind is an unfortunate reality when camping, and we wanted to know how well these stoves held up to it. We timed how long each stove took to boil one liter of water while being blasted with a box fan from about two feet away. After boiling water on each stove, we let it cool to 195 degrees, then tested how easily we could hold the water between 195 and 200 F for 5 minutes. We counted how many times the temperature went over or under as well as how many times the stove went out. The Gas One GS-3000 is a simple, inexpensive single-burner camp stove that really surprised us with its functionality.