How to effectively use a camp stove to make great meals in the outdoors.
Show Notes:
- Temperature is a big factor in all cooking in the outdoors, more so for propane stoves. In the cold weather the small propane tanks tend to get cold, begin to sweat, and eventually freeze up. Keep extras handy so you can swap them out as needed.
- Coleman Classic Propane Stove (Amazon)
- Coghlan’s Two Burner Non-Stick Camp Griddle (Amazon)
- Bruntmor, Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Reversible Grill/Griddle Pan (Amazon)
Transcript:
Camping stoves are generally cheap and reliable pieces of equipment, but they can be tricky to use.
One of the first problems with using one of these stoves, especially with less experienced scouts is that they do not take the time to heat up their pots. You see this a lot when cooking things like pancakes on a chilly morning.
When you start out, the stove is cold, you are cold, and the pans are cold. So the scout takes some cold batter and drops it on the cold stove, and then just stares at it.
As the attention span of some young scouts is not high, after a minute they flip over the pancake, making a smeary mess on the griddle, the spatula and by the time the equipment is actually ready to use, they are working through a mess.
By waiting for the stove to heat up before adding any butter or cooking spray you have a much better chance of making a good meal.
Flame control for these stoves is important, depending on how finicky your stove is, you may need to adjust the flame as you go. Waiting to heat up the equipment however solves a lot of these problems.
Now the stove using a camping griddle has 2 basic areas, the areas directly under the flame and a center area that does not get as hot. I specifically mention a camping griddle, as these tend to be lighter weight, and do not distribute the heat as well as say a more expensive and heaver cast iron griddle.
You can however use this to your advantage.
Once you make your pancakes, they need to come off of the heat otherwise you will burn them. But instead of taking them off you can form a stack in the center area of the grill.
This actually does two things, one, it keeps the food warm, and two it discourages you from starting a pancake in the center, where it really won’t cook well.
I also show this technique to scouts when making items like grilled cheese or scrambled eggs.
Especially when it’s cold out, by the time you finish cooking, part of your food would otherwise get cold.
You can also put a small metal plate or some tin foil in the center area, to make it easier to move the completed food. But this is what works for us.
Take what you like and leave the rest, and as we say in Woodbadge, feedback is a gift, leave yours below in the comments, with the hope we can all learn together.
I’m Scoutmaster Dave, and this was working with a camping stove.
