Rethinking My Cooking Methods Post Teotwawki

Depending on your budget for a kerosene (paraffin in the UK) stove I'd go for the Primus Omnifuel, burns gas, kerosene, coleman fuel/gasoline and diesel. I've a friend who actually collects stoves and he put me on the the sheer simplicity and utter reliability of old brass primus stoves, very few spares needed and they last forever...the chap is obsessed with the things LOL. Watch out with butane as it don't work well in the winter if your camping. Aslo those little cassette stoves have a habit of leaking and blowing back at you...tread carefully with them/

 

Let me guess that friend of yours also has Svea 123R in his collection Anyone who is serious in collecting field stove is guarantee to have the legendary Svea 123R. If only Svea 123R can burn kerosene that would solve my need of durable stove. I still remember my grandfather has a Svea 123 as part of his field kit which is weird, although I'm guessing his running out of Esbit tablets and the Svea is just another of his "combat loot". One thing I always remember about Svea 123R is the roaring jet engine like sound it made , and the fact that in most case the vintage Svea 123 has seen more combat action than whoever currently own the stove.

I was thinking of Optimus Optifuel, however other than the price it seem too complex thus may not be durable enough to be toss around or being dropped.

The main reason I need a kerosene burning stove is due to it flammable nature compare to butane canister (thus giving the flight crew more comfort ), and also it's lighter because it doesn't need metal / pressurized container, and overall it simplified my logistic arrangement. As a bonus point kerosene could be use for fueling drone if our client bring such drone with them.

I live in tropical environment so I'm not worry about cold weather. In most case the lowest temperature I may encounter is about -5°C even that is at 7000 ft of elevation.

I'm aware of the leaking, which is why I routinely check my personal stove in a bathtub .
So far all my crew carry an Esbit style pocket stove with 8 x 15g fuel tablets each for backup in case the butane stove busted or went missing (shit always happen during any expedition or disaster relief)

 

Svea 123? I have three of them, two gifts off my friend and one I paid for, great little stoves (I have a SIGG Tourest cookset to match a 123).

Best choice for you then is an Optimus 111T, burns Coleman fuel/white gas/gasoline/kerosend and Ethanol and has a built in cleaning needle). Again there are very few spares needed to keep them running, leather pump cap and a rubber washer to seal the filler cap. Old stoves but incredibly reliable, over double the output of a 123.

 

I like Dutch Oven cooking. I'm talking about a real dutch oven, the kind with three little legs and a rimmed lid for placing charcoal briquettes above and below. I have four of them, along with a stand-off for baking bread in, as well as the lid tongs, briquette tongs and (help me, Jesus!) two Volcano stoves (one is for charcoal only, the other allows you to choose charcoal, wood, or propane). If you used dutch ovens, you know that there is a simple formula to keep the interior temperature at 350 deg F (177 deg C) and, by judiciously removing or adding a briquette or two, raise or lower your interior heat in 10 deg F increments.

The Volcano stove cuts your use by at least 50%; based on the cooking I've done over the past six years or so, I figure that with three bags of charcoal briquettes, a Volcano stove, and judicious cooking, you can cook for a family of two for just about a year. For reasons obvious to most Westerners, the Dutch Oven is the official State Cookware of the Great State of Utah, and you can find out lots more about this prepper's favorite at IDOS (here).

 

we had a two kerosene made by Perfection.

here's a link to different styles.

https://stpaulmercantile.com/kerosene-cook-stoves-and-oven?zenid=7fih5c37e5kd31vevgovq26al6

The north pond hermit claimed to use 10 20 lbs jugs of propane gas a winter, more for melting snow than cooking.

 

You know that Butterfly brand kerosene stove only cost less than $15 around here . Haven't bought any of them though because we got storage space limitation here (kerosene stove smell stink), but suffice to say that Butterfly stove will be my 1st choice due to their cost and availability, albeit need 2 of them for redundancy.

 

Butterfly Brand are made in India IIRC, they also make clones of a German lantern. Build quality is very poor, I'd not touch with a barge pole.

 

Butterfly brand has been made here (Indonesia) for some time, however the build quality is roughly similar with those made in India (to be expected from something that cheap). My plan is only to buy them when there is an emerging need (disaster relief or there is a requirement to bring kerosene for fuelling drone), buying 2 of them new and disposing them after the whole thing is done.

 

I have a German made petromax lantern that does well

 

dang I love that die Originale Petromax. Too bad they are really expensive (well over $100), and the copy version (China made) is very fragile.

 

would like to get a tilley lantern just to try one out.

 

Tilley lamps are very good, very cheap on ebay UK. The British army for years used Vaplux pressure lanterns but sadly have moved over to LED these days. I've a good few Vapalux and they work very well on paraffin/kerosene. Don't overlook Coleman lanterns, we have some of those too

 

I am thinking about building a solar oven. We have a lot of hot days here and I can see a lot of advantages to having a way to cook that has no fuel requirements except sunshine. I think that I am going to make a lightweight one with foil used as my reflective surfaces and then if it works well I will think about replacing that foil with polished stainless steel.

does anyone here have any experience with solar ovens and cooking? Just as an offshoot I remember an old Mother Earth News article one time that was titled "Cooking in your compost pile." If you are keeping livestock and have a large compost pile you can bury a sealed metal pot in it and it will be hot enough to work as a slow cooker. One a bright hot summer day you can do the same thing with a sealed pot or maybe even a dutch oven with a lid set on a black steel plate. I know that the hood of my black truck gets hot enough to blister your hand if you lay it on it.

 

Solar ovens can work very well, even in the UK. Do you practise 'haybox cooking' ?

 

Just to clarify a Preppier doesn't steal if your going to steal and loot your a survivalist because your goal is to survive no mater the cast a preppier's goal is to be prepared to survive with what they already have