Add in a few items like insulated tumblers, water jugs and Coleman butane fuel lighters to complete your outdoor setup. Find everything you need for your next outdoor adventure with our collection of Coleman outdoor gear and appliances. Stay protected from the elements with screens and tents so you can spend a refreshing afternoon or a cozy night in comfort. An array of sizes makes it easy to find something that fits the whole family, with sturdy frames and reinforced seams to hold up in tough weather. The steel doesn’t have any unfinished sharp edges like many inexpensive camp stoves. The Coleman Cascade 2-Burner Camping Stove is a big upgrade to the popular Coleman Classic Camp Stove.
Not only are the 5-pound tanks refillable, but over time it’s cheaper to refill a reservoir with gas than to buy new disposable bottles. These stoves run coleman propane stove off of “Coleman” fuel or white gas which is inexpensive and widely available. There is a “dual fuel” design that will also run off of unleaded gasoline.
The knob only has a half-turn range, which means you’ve got fairly limited temperature control. We wouldn’t choose it as our main camping stove or rely on it as our main source of power, but it’s not a bad addition to your camping gear. We omitted this stove from our simmer test because it was impossible to have any real temperature control or simmer function. With the fan on low, the flames do drop down considerably, but not nearly enough to hold water just below boiling. The lack of an auto ignition is another drawback, especially because the Explorer was basically impossible to relight without a long match or grill lighter. A typical camping lighter won’t work that well with this stove.
Coleman equipment is pressure-regulated at 15 psi (pounds per square inch) to ensure steady output throughout the life of the cylinder. Propane offers great overall reliability, but be aware that it operates less effectively at subfreezing temperatures than liquid fuels. Cold will cause a pressure drop in the cylinder and output will diminish as a result.
Fortunately it’s a hardy piece of equipment that is capable of cooking a damn good meal and will be a great centerpiece in your car camping outdoor kitchen. Cook a hot meal outdoors with this Coleman Dual Fuel portable camping stove. The Cascade and 1900 stoves also share the same windscreen design, which features deeply scooped sides that made me nervous at first. How could this possibly block wind as well as the much larger side windscreens on the Classic, when they have so much less material? The answer is that they really only need to block wind at the base, to keep the flame from going out.
At one point I had to use the handle of a spoon to pry the case open again. You could fix the problem using a Dremel tool and a grinder, if you have one. I have used mine throughout the West in the high country and it is a great product you can buy at WalMart for around $20.
Biomass stoves are becoming more popular and can burn leaves, twigs, sticks, or manufactured biomass pellets. They rely on having a good source of dry fuel and can take more effort to light than gas-burning stoves. These may not be appropriate (or allowed) in certain situations, such as during high fire risk, coleman propane stove in sensitive desert, or in high-elevation areas where collecting wood is prohibited. Wood-burning stoves are becoming more popular, and the BioLite CampStove 2 is a unique take on the idea. The attached battery powers a small fan which controls the flame levels and recharges itself with heat from the fire.
Turned counter-clockwise, it allows air to flow through the check valve per the check ball. Turned fully clockwise it completely closes the check valve. Reliable and durable with three burners and an instant ignite feature. The Triton stove can simmer, but it wants to be a full-blast flame. You’ll have to control the dial sensitively to get it to simmer.
We’ve used MSR stoves all over the world for backpacking, but most of their light and compact designs have limited appeal for car camping. Enter the WindBurner Stove Combo System, which includes one of MSR’s highest-performing canister stoves, the WindBurner, along with a 2.5-liter pot and 8-inch coleman propane stove skillet for groups. As with the backpacking model, the accessories connect directly to the stove for efficient cooking and consistent heat even in windy conditions. The system is no small investment at $300, but the all-in-one setup has obvious appeal for those new to camping and backpacking.
It wasn’t a major long-term issue, but it was definitely an unpleasant surprise the first couple times we fired up the stove. We decided to perform our tests with this stove outside, rather than in the semi-controlled shed where we did the other tests, and we found that the low flame was easily extinguished by a light breeze. We suspect that in perfectly still air it would have a fantastic low setting, but we had a hard time getting it to work in practice. While we loved the ability to cook over extremely high heat and fine tune the heat settings, this stove has a hard time maintaining a good simmer. The amount of control that you have with the temperature knobs is incredible. Plus, you can open or shut the air vents to control the heat and quality of the flame, dialing it back to a concentrated and hot blue flame or up to a more dispersed yellow flame.