Camp Stoves

Trangia's range of camping stoves have been popular for years especially for (from what our sales tell us) groups such as Duke of Edinburgh and Scouts on their expedition and camping trips. We've decided to post a detailed review on the Trangia 25-6 Campstove to help provide you with "inside" information if you're looking to buy a trangia stove.

All trangias have little to no moving parts so there really is nothing to go wrong when compared against other more advanced camping stoves.

The Trangia series 25-6 stove is designed to cook for medium groups of 4 people, always works well in very bad weather, is light(ish) in weight when carrying and is simple and very quick to set up.

The stove's burner runs on methlyated spirits and is silent during operation - positive side is you have a quiet camp setup but the downside is that if you don't keep an eye on the fuel in the burner chamber you can easily run out! Another issue is to decide how much to use, especially when its not recommended to pour fuel back into your fuel bottle OR pour fuel into an empty and HOT burner. We find a half full burner runs on average for approximately 20 minutes so plan your cooking accordingly.

Do note that meths burns more effectively in cold weather over gas so we usually grab the trangia over any other camp stove when we head off to the hills in the depth of winter. The trangia stove can be ran on bottled liquid gas but needs a further accessory to allow this operation to take place.

We always seem to find the simmering ring a fiddle to use but over the years we've developed the habit of throwing it (ok we place it on carefully) over the burner to extinguish the flame. Personally when camping we've always wanted our food or hot drink heated up quickly... if you want to cook more advanced camping recipes on your stove we recommend you look at a stove with a more control over simmering (try the MSR Dragonfly for instance).

We love the way everything packs down neatly into your rucksack, place the burner in a pot, place the pots together inside the wind shield, drop the frying pan/cover lid on top and strap together. Take care with the strap though, they seem to get easily lost in tents in our experience - strap it to a rucksack when not in use to prevent loss (even if temporary its a pain!).

Generously of Trangia they supply a kettle - though its not non-stick like the pans - so if you only use your kettle to boil water at home we'd assume thats all you would use a kettle for out in the field!

In conclusion we say the Trangia 25-6 Camping Stove is: durable, usable and practical and worth a purchase.
Its a star buy in our book!

We always like to find websites that provide useful cooking tips and camping recipes for when we're outdoors - heres a small selection of just some we like:


http://camping.about.com/od/campingrecipes/u/recipes.htm
We like the organised layout of this website but its not particularly personable... recipes are linked to by food type, course or method prepared.


http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/articles/cat.asp?catid=5
Some interesting recipes on this website but seems to be just a mix without any categories or organisation (guys if you read this perhaps sort into Pasta/Casseroles/Stews etc) - still we think you'll find some camping recipes you'll really, really like - we certainly did!

http://www.netmums.com/food/Camping_food_recipes.2782/
Colourful website with a good list of the basics needed for campstove cooking plus links to seperate recipes.

http://www.scottishcampingguide.com/board.php
We love the recipe for the "Freshest Trout ever" - made us smile but oh its so true too! The tip on carrying bags of herbs is spot on!

http://www.recipesforcamping.com/
Over 1145 camping recipes so you'll totally be spoilt for choice! Downside is a lot of the recipes maybe a little American four our European tastes but don't let that put you off.

http://www.campfiredude.com/campfire-cooking.shtml
With only a few ideas for recipes but goes into some great details about different styles of campfire cooking.

We're big fans of MSR Stoves and thought it time to create a review on the MSR Dragonfly Stove, a camping stove you can even simmer on (according to MSR anyway but more later).

First released way back in 1998 MSR's Dragonfly Stove has continually proved to be popular - some say more so than the XGK stove.

Notably this camping stove consistently won Germany's Outdoor magazine's third position in their Gear of the Year awards in both 2005 and 2006 so its certainly been rated highly by experts (and demanding ones at that!)

But what has it won awards for?
Well for its clever and innovative dual valve design creativity - which mostly provides total and immediate control over the stoves burner flame settings.

With the ability to reduce its size to 1/3 of its usable size plus provided with extra wide pot supports this really is a practical camping stove for serious campers.

We do hear some people have had problems with the Dragonfly having to frequently strip the stove due to it clogging up but in our experience we have not experienced this problem - but we've kept to using clean fuels and avoided using different fuels to minimise clogging. Additionally we always keep our MSR camping stove regularly maintained to avoid any problems.

We love the suspended burner cup allowing maximum heat to get to the cooking pot together with the remote burner, pioneered by MSR (but you already knew that!) keeping the stove's cooking flame away from the fuel.allowing you to use a windscreen to help get even more heat.

It is a noisy camping stove though, if thats not for you and you want something quieter then we recommend you check out the MSR Whisperlite instead as the Dragonfly's burner is a lot louder.

The Dual Valve fuel system allows you to adjust the burner from full roar to a gentle heat to allow you the opportunity to even simmer - a rarity in outdoor camping cooking! We even here some people swear you can set the flame so low you can even bake on it (!!).

The final nice touch is a decent size stuffsack to allow you to store your Dragonfly stove whilst either in your rucksack or cupboard (or garage) when not in use.

Purchase a MSR Dragonfly stove online here.