Finally got around to testing out my heating and cooking gear. 

This is a Harbor Freight single propane burner, it’s the shizz. Nicely made, perfect flame etc. I used this one long ago to make coffee, but on a 12 oz bottle versus the 15 lb cylinder. The hose to the right I got at Home Depot, it has a regulator with the gas flare fitting. Gotta have that…

This is the main cooking surface, you can get fancy and go two burner but I’m not Paula Deen. It will also kick out a fair amount of heat if it gets chilly or you are too lazy or cheap to buy a Heater Buddy.

This is the oven.

I got it at St.Pauls Mercantile, along with other cool third-world stuff. This little oven is so awesome, it got to 500 degrees before I realized it and will run at 325 at the very lowest stove simmer setting. Note the oven sits on top the HF burner, it’s not one piece. It’s 10×11″x13″ internally, and will hold quite a bit if you get pans that fit. Normal loaf pans may be too big to put 4 in at once, so you have to make sure to measure them before buying. Same thing with cookie sheets.

Shot of the internal temp and burner, the front thermometer is for amusement only.

The Butterfly Kerosene stove

Also available at St. Pauls, so cool! You fill the tank with K1 (diesel would probably work in a bind), let the wick soak, and light it off. It burned a lot cleaner than the heaters I’ve owned, nice blue flame with no yellow tail. As with the oven, will put out a ton of heat and will get a pot roiling quickly at full tilt. You can adjust the flame a lot, and use it as a heater. The beauty of this is the fuel, 5 gallons of K1 will go a long way so pound for pound this is the way to fly. It does smell, and will smoke like a bitch when you fire it up and shut it off due to the way the chimney heats up and cools off. All kero burners do that, so nothing new there. What impressed me was the simplicity of the design and how well it worked, there’s something to be said for one moving part. One caveat: the burner ring has to be level or the flame will not be equal nor will it get very hot:

Notice how I cleverly ignored the big font in the instructions about making sure it’s level. I though it was referring the tank, but it’s the burner. The liquid K1 needs to fill the wick evenly, if it’s slightly off kilter the wick will run dry on one side and then not make enough heat to vaporize the fuel.

Heater Buddy

Another cool item, it’s a small ceramic element heater that can run from a 12 oz bottle or a tank. This is a non-regulated adaptor hose, it has a male bottle thread on the heater end.  Small, efficient, and flexible. Even has a pilot light.

All in all a very satisfying afternoon, things actually worked as expected and I have “Operation Eagle Toast” behind me.