Thursday, March 19, 2009

Stove for the homestead or bug out location

I have no gas in the home, stove and microwave are all electric. So if the power goes out, there is no cooking going on. (being prepared doesn't always mean end of the world scenarios, just a silly storm could shut you down if you aren't a little prepared.

Anyway tonite I took a new Coleman Powerpack Single-Burner Low Profile Stove
, attached the adapter to hook it up to a big propone tank that I had disconnected from my outdoor grill and cooked some bacon and beans. It also works with the 16 oz disposable propane cylinders.

It sounded like it was leaking a little gas on the propane tank side but it was windy and heck it came with a 6 foot hose, so I just set up the stove 6 feet away from the tank, turned it on and lit the stove with a match(yep, gotta have that too..)

Cooked the beans fine. The bean came from a regular size can, and fit the skillet just perfect. It was pretty windy, a wood fire would have been really, really hard to work with. The wind didn't bother it much at all. Anyway, so it works just dandy. It also works with the small propane tanks as well so you could take it in the trunk of the car. Too big for a bugout bag though.

So I would use this to cook in the backyard or maybe put it in the fireplace and cook there and open a vent if you didn't want hungry neighbors bugging you from over the fence. You have to been careful indoors though. If you didnt have a fire place or way to have some airflow you wouldn't want to use it indoors at all. Not even positive if the fireplace would provide enough air.
But for sure don't use it indoors if you don't have air coming in from outside since carbon monoxide can kill you... sneaks up on you and puts you to sleep. Open a window on each side of the house or something until we can get an expert to tell us if the fireplace vent open would be enought or not.

Coleman Powerpack Perfectflow Stove
single burner propane stove
7500 BTU burner

Iron Logic cast iron 8" skillet


The box says you can make it work with a Coleman Coffeemaker or Camp Oven. Mindblowing. They have a picture of it on the box.. a stove with a little oven on top and a stove with what looks like a regular coffeemaker on top. Messes with your mind. If that coffepot works like a normal one too I might have to get it.

Anyway, if the power goes out I will be able to cook just fine.