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From cooking meat to boiling water for a cuppa, our expert put the best camping stoves to the test
The prospect of a freeze-dried beef casserole may not get your taste buds tingling but when you’ve been out on the trails all day, hiking or biking, and you’ve really built up an appetite, a pot of bubbling goodness on a camping stove can taste as good as a restaurant meal.
Of course, when you’re living the outdoor life, your dinner reservations can vary wildly – from the relative luxury of a camper van to a portaledge halfway up a rock face – so, what you cook is also going to vary.
That’s why we’ve looked into a wide range of camping stoves, from camp-site cookers to expedition-worthy micro stoves, that will accommodate a variety of cooking outcomes, from simply getting something warming in your belly in the quickest time possible to stoves that can take pots and pans, for more substantial fare.
With each camping stove, we were looking for efficient burners that were easy to turn up and down, giving us total control over our cooking.
We were also looking for good portability and build quality, because, whether your camping stove is being transported in a car, a rucksack or a bike pannier, you don’t want to find that your dinner plans have been thwarted by damage en route.
Ease of setup, stability and cooking performance also factored in when it came to finding the best camping stoves. So, get out there and ramp up your al fresco cookery this year.
We took a range of camping stoves to wild and windy Dartmoor, to see how well they could cope with the conditions. Once there, we timed how long each stove took to boil water; sizzled bacon and eggs; bubbled up a sausage casserole, and, of course, we got a brew on. For each cooking session, we noted how quickly and easily the stoves served up the grub.
We’ve chosen the Primus essential trail kit as the best camping stove overall, as it’s a really clever little cooking kit, with a nicely compact footprint that’s modular enough to give you a range of options to satisfy the hungriest hiker. We also absolutely loved the Biolite campstove 2+ because it runs on biomass, so, you really get that bushcraft vibe by hunting around for dry wood to fuel the incredibly efficient fire system. Meanwhile, if you’re looking to travel light but still want hot, fast food at your fingertips, we’d recommend the JetBoil minimo, which simmered like a pro and boiled quickly.
Want extra comfort while sleeping in the great outdoors? We’ve rounded up the best camping mats