I've got basic electric hobs in my kitchen which do a fine job – but a lot of cookbooks suggest that certain things would be best done on an open flame/gas hob (i.e. anything involving a wok).
My flat isn't piped up for gas and I can't afford the expense of replacing my hob with a better one than it currently has anyway – so I was wondering – would a decent gas camping stove/hob be a suitable and sensible supplement to my electric hobs?
If so, what sort of thing should I look out for on buying one?
Best Answer
Camping stoves are generally not safe for indoor use. They can produce fumes or carbon monoxide that would be fine outdoors, but dangerous indoors. Check the warning labels before buying anything to use inside.
As for the actual cooking, I don't think that you'll get the results that you expect.
My experience includes an MSR Whisperlite International backpacking stove (white gas), and Coleman two-burner stoves in both white gas and propane variants. Anecdotally, the backpacking stove has limited control, while the two-burner stoves don't quite have the oomph of a real gas stove.
The Coleman links that I provided indicate that the white gas stove has burners that put out 7,500 and 6,500 BTU, while the propane stove puts out 10,000 btu on both burners. Using the REI-provided time for boiling water, I calculated that the backpacking stove puts out about 4,500 BTU (and other backpacking stoves indicate similar times, regardless of fuel).
By comparison, my consumer-grade natural gas-powered kitchen stove has two burners that put out 15,500 BTU, one that puts out 9,500, and one (the simmer burner) that puts out 5,000. Viking offers normal burners up to 18,000 BTU, and a wok burner of 27,000.
However, white gas stoves aren't okay indoors. They're fine while they're burning, but lighting them is a bit dramatic, and once you shut them off they'll put out half-burned fumes for several minutes.
Similarly, propane camping stoves usually put off too much carbon monoxide to be safe indoors.