camping stove experts, can you help?

[snowleopard]

We recently bought a double-ring camping stove (campingaz Camping Chef is its name) but were told we needed to get a special 901 or larger gas canister for it. Went off to buy one later and funf that the smallest size is over £40 and then costs over £11 to refill - even though it takes the same amount of gas as a normal small disposable camping gas canister (the blue ones) and wouls nly last an hour or two ion the double stove.

Can this be right? If you have a dual burner camping stove, does that mean you have to be ripped off for the gas? I like the idea of a refillable canister for green reasons but i had no idea it would be this expensive. Does anyone know of a better option of any kind? TIA.

funf? wtf - found

If you buy a new one for £40 it should be full. It does cost about £15 to get a refill but unless you use them all the time then the gas lasts a long time. We change ours maybe once a year.

Ah... the man told us it would be just like a normal canister and give a couple of hours of dual burner use. Is that not true then? Do the heavy refillable canisters hold more gas and last longer?

Yep - they last much longer in my experience. we have a single portable ring that uses the canisters and they don't last long at all but the 901 bottle we have lasts the year or longer.

Thanks DS, that makes much more sense!

we have similar and use 904s.

I've used 904s with that exact stove, too (it's the one with the toaster grill thingy underneath, no?).

Yes, that's the one and it will take 901, 904 and 907. I liked the look of 901 just because it's smaller and more portable, but it seems the gas is more expensive ie £11 to refill a 901, £17 to refill a 904 but it holds 3 or 4 times as much gas.

I'm still confused though as I phoned a gas supplier about it just now and he also said a 901 holds the same as a single disposab;e canister but the gas costs 5 times as much. ??? That just seems bananas...

Why the , badger?

That does seem weird.

Could he give you a reason as to why the gas was so much more expensive?

He said "it must be the costs of refilling". But do lots of people use these and really not mind paying a 400% premium for the gas? - I find that hard to believe. You would think that the heave refillable canister would be able to hold the gas under higher pressure and so hold more, but now 2 salespersons have told me otherwise.

We've got a kelly kettle and we will soon have made back the money we paid for it by not having to buy gas cylinders. It's fab! Sorry - slight hijack!

Oooh what is it?

seeker, can you explain kelly kettle in idiot level terms for me. I seen the site and pics but still can't quite get it through my thick 'ed.

Just googled it and it looks like a thing that boils water. But we need to cook things in a pan - is there a version that does that?

the only reason I [hmm'd] was that I was just perplexed why it'd need 'special' 901s rather than what I'd consider 'normal' 904s. They're not that big or heavy, but then I've never used the disposable ones.

(and if your normal disposables are CP250s they hold half as much as a 901 - 220g vs 450g)

We have a fire pot for cooking things on too - very pioneer spirit!

The Kelly Kettle is wonderful. It's basically a cylindrical kettle - you fill it with water then light a little fire in the pan at the bottom. The fire burns up the middle of the cylinder and boils a litre of water in 3-4 minutes!

It takes a bit of getting used to. You're "supposed" to only use twigs and grass, but we found that too much like hard work. We use a tiny slice of fire lighter and then dry twigs - works perfectly. We use it all the time - tea on the beach and on picnics as well as camping. You can put a little pan on top and use it got tiny amounts of cooking, but you have to have the special kit and the pan is so small it wouldn't be any use for more than one person.

aaaah thanks Mrs B - so they do hold more.

I just bought the exact same stove today. I bought the 907 gas canister and I was told it should last a week cooking for 4 people. The canister was £22 and £11 for a refill. This was in Go Outdoors.

Thanks very much vacaloca, that makes me think maybe I've been quoted unusually high prices.

Great taste in stoves btw

our 907 has done us 2 years of camping holidays, that's at least 6 weeks of cooking - admittedly i don't cook every day, but there seems to be plenty left (we have the same stove as you snowleopard)

perhaps I should check how full it is

So now the question is, where can I get a 904 or 907 in Edinburgh (or en route to Inverness), that will cost more like £22 and not the £60 or £70 I was quoted for them in Gray's? Go Outdoors sounds fab but I've checked and it's only down south.

We got ours in an Army shop and it was nowhere near £60. Can't remember exact amount, because DH paid, but it wasn't that dear.

In Edinburgh expat? The only army shop I can think of is in newington somewhere, was it that one?