Camper stoves are a much more difficult topic than I thought.
My first experience with mobile cooking was very small units for hiking. When I was into tent camping I purchased a Coleman twin gas burner that used and a wire frame stand to get it at a comfortable cooking height. I used 16 ounce or 453 g propane bottles rather than larger refillable bottles for convenience.
When it came time to choose cooking method for the camper I initially assumed that I would install a fixed twin burner in the van. When I read the conversion company’s website, however, I noticed that most people chose not to install a fixed system, preferring a portable stove or Weber BBQ to cook outside the vehicle. This made sense – particularly in the context of hot Queensland summers and it also kept food smells and smoke and grease contamination of the inside of the van to a minimum.
If you are going to install a gas cooker inside your van you will need gas certification on the installation so plan for that in your costing.
You can alway place a portable burner on the bench inside the van when you need to in inclement weather.
Note if you are burning any sort of fuel inside your van, make sure you are well ventilated and consider a carbon monoxide alarm.
These are available on ebay. One example from Quell is battery operated (they are included ) and costs about $40. It also has a ten year warranty which is impressive. Write the year you buy it on the back and get a new one as soon as the warranty is up.
The next issue I had to contemplate was which stove or cooking system to use.
Spirit or alcohol stoves
There are a number of suggestions about alcohol stoves – no pressure requirement and fuel is easily transported. The most popular product appeared to be the Dometic Origo 3000 twin burner but these did not appear available any more at 2020 when I was researching this.
I did find another brand sold by Bonetti Campers on the Maroochy River on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. There are also inexpensive versions available direct from China on ebay.
Portable gas stoves
I chose not to install a permanent gas stove for a number of reasons. One was keeping clear bench space inside and thought cooking outside would be best – we will see.
I also did not want to store a gas bottle in the vehicle, even though I would of course need to store the smaller Lots of options with lots of examples available in the camping stores. The main constraint of course was where would the portable approach be stored. I felt a baby Weber BBQ would be a bit large -but I suppose that is worth considering at some stage.
The cheapest option.
Single burner propane stove from stores like Kamrt, BigW.
They cost about $20 and are super compact, and the fuel is available everywhere.
These devices use 220 gram disposable gas cartridges that are available everywhere. The image of the 4 pack here was available at Bunnings for $5.18 ($6/kg).
That is twice as expensive as refilling a 9kg cylinder for about $27 dollars or about $3/kg. But it is super convenient, less lugging and you don’t need to muck around with fittings.
You can buy twin burner versions of the 20g butane burners which cost a lot more (say around $99). They tend to come with a BBQ style grill plate with approximate dimensions: 68.5 x 28 x 13 (W x D x H)
see Hiking stoves
