Review by D. Bui:

My family uses the butane stove a lot … and I mean A LOT because my mom makes GREAT hot pot meals. We would have 2 on the table. We have tried electric (hot plates and glass top) but you couldn’t control the heat very well. We have tried various other brands (Mr. Max and Stansport) but they would fail and you get inconsistent flame around the circular burner.

This Sterno is very solidly built and the flame is even all around. It costs a little bit more than the other one but it’s definitely in the category of “you get what you pay for”.

Review by Frank Berta:

Purchased two of these to use as a portable cooking station for events. Work great, not too bad on fuel consumption. As a note, buy your fuel at local Asian market. I find their pricing is much better than any mail order deal, I typically am paying just over .00 per cartridge.

Review by T. Smith:

This bag was purchased as an accessory to carry the Camp Chef large utility table. The table fits into the bag just fine.

Review by Brian K. Mccormick:

Buy the bag, use the box to start your next campfire. Seriously – do not buy this stove without also buying the bag. You will be grateful on the first campout…

Review by Patrick Ray:

Very good light and powerful unit… Maybe to hot a burner but it sure does it’s job… We canned Salmon in the field in Alaska..

Review by A. R. Little II:

I’ve had this stove for over a year now and it’s a champ. Much more heavy duty then a dual-fuel coleman or the like. You can actually cook on this. The burners are heavy duty and it hooks up to a standard propane tank. Great for surviving weeks without power (I live in a hurricane area) or portable enough to go camping, deer lease weekends, or tailgating if you’re cooking for a crew or want to make real food.

Review by kandoro:

For safety concerns just use the source tank valve for on/off control…To fill each 1 lb. bottle more completely simply put those containers in a refrigerator or even a freezer for a few minutes AND put the 20/40 lb. FULL tank in hot water and/or in the Sun…The key here is to maximize the pressure in the source tank and minimize it in the receiving 1 lb. bottle allowing for more propane to transfer before the pressure equalizes…I’ve been filling these little bottles for years using this type coupler and while they may not get 100% filled as when new they can reach 80-90% with regularity when the above steps are taken…Keep in mind NO Propane tank is completely filled anyway or at least it shouldn’t be to allow for excessive heat expansion when full..

Even if trying to refill in a freezing or below environment simply heating the 20/40 lb. bottle up by leaving it in a heated indoors for a few hours and/or in hot water will help tremendously to get more transferred…

When you get tanks refilled commercially the source has pump assisted pressure so this always allows for a complete fill…

Review by Benjamin Herbst:

I have had this or a similar product for several years now. I live in the mountains, and go camping a lot, and sometimes set up camps and leave, going to work, backpacking, etc, and dont return until night or even a few days. I had two small bulk containers, one for a propane lantern, and one for a little heater and both were stolen out of my closed tent. Since the small refillable propane tanks (small bulk tanks cost more than the regular 5 gallon bulk tank) are expensive, I switched back to the 16 oz type disposable type. I have messed with all different ways of refilling these babies, and here are my suggestions and results.

1. If you only camp once a year (or twice), just spend the each on a couple new 16 oz disposables and be done with it. If you set up “big hunting type camps” you are probably going to have a big bulk tank or 2 anyway, with a propane tree on it or some similar setup for lanters, cooking, etc. or more than likely, have a trailer, and you probably don’t need advice from me anyway.

2. Though you can get a complete (and even a little over) fill by pulling the little “bicycle valve” overflow protection valve while filling, these tanks are not really ment for that, and frequently enough (one out of 4 tanks maybe, my experience … maybe one out of every 6) this valve, once pulled out, will leak, and the tank and refill will be useless. Even though the tanks are filled all the way, I do not recommend this due to the higher percentage of leakers.

3. I recommend following the instructions, which requires putting the bulk 5 gal. tank in the sun for a few hours (let it get nice and warm), and the little 16 oz tanks in the freezer, using temperature differential as a pump. Then, grab one tank from the freezer and attach to the refill device/bulk tank, make sure everything is decently tight, and open the valve on the bulk tank (which is upside down – I usually do it on the tailgate of my Toyota Tacoma). You can hear the propane going into the small tank, and when it seems like its not going to get any fuller – usually around 45 seconds to a minute, shut of the big tank valve and unscrew the little one, and go and get another nice cold one from the freezer (little propane tank, not beer). When I first started refilling them, I weighed them to see how much propane I got in the little tank. When I was a newbee, and didn’t know what I was doing, and didn’t have enought temperature difference, I wouldn’t get hardly any liquid propane in. Then I learned the “pull out the bicycle valve trick” and found I could fill them even a little more full than new, by weight on a postal scale. Now and finally, I just put the big tank in the sun, and the little ones in the freezer, and I don’t weigh them anymore, but my “picking them up” scale tells me that they are probably somewhere about 1/2 full, or a little more. This is enough for me, for just one single mantle lantern and one propane stove. Usually they don’t leak if you don’t mess with the overpressure protection valve.

Lastly, a couple things to keep in mind (principles of propane refill) – propane is always at a constant pressure, at a certain temperature. As some of the gas escapes, or is burned, the pressure that would drop is refilled by propane gas which has expaned from some of the liquid. Therefore, if both tanks were equal in temperature, and you hooked one to the other and opened the valve, (assuming the big tank is upside down so the liquid proane is comming out and not gas – if you refill with just gas, you might get 30 seconds worth of gas into the little tank, which is basically nothing and not what you are looking for) the smaller one would only get maybe 5% or 10% full, untill both tanks were under the same pressure. The object is to get as much “liquid” propane in. The more temperature differential, the more liquid you will get in, because the pressure will be lower in the cold tank. Of course, the bicycle valve trick works great (wear gloves on your right hand, because the propane gas is cold when it comes out/evaporates, and no smoking). But, because they weren’t made for that, seem to have a hard time seating themselves again, even when pushed in, etc. Now that I’ve been refilling these little babies for a few years, it seems so quick and easy, and probably saves a few bucks, and is better for the environment not throwing away a decent little tank.

So, summary – yes these work fine, but anticipate only about 1/2 full (or slightly more) small tanks.

Oh, and lastly about the no smoking comment – I stand by that, but propane gas is heavier than air (which is why you can’t use propane appliances in your basement) and goes down when leaking. I’ve had a little leaking tank within 2′ maybe of a flame which was higher and screened, and it didn’t catch, but I was watching it closely, and threw the tank away shortly thereafter. Try that with gasoline fumes, and you will find yourself in a big explosion of flames!

Sorry for the long review, hopefully it will be kinda helpful.

Review by Tool Connoisseur:

This is a great little portable grill – if you don’t expect too much! (Too many people write reviews here expecting inexpensive items to be gold plated and nuclear powered). It’s not meant to replace a regular full-size grill and shouldn’t be compared to one. Use it for car camping or a tailgate party for cooking for two or three people (maybe four but that’s pushing it) and just realize it has limitations, though they are easy to work around.

I got it on sale for only so consider it an excellent value. It was simple to put together, no directions required and takes about a minute. My legs stay in well once inserted and come back out with a good tug. There is an included nylon carry-bag which works fine for keeping the parts together (the grille, two legs, gas bottle, pan support and plastic grille cover). It also functions well as a regular single-burner stove when you take the grill off. It feels stable and solid if set on a good surface.

The burner adjusts well from off to low to high and is quick and easy to start by pushing the burner control knob in. The drippings collect well in the pan below the burner. There is a small griddle on one side of the grill that will hold one egg or pancake (or two small ones). The biggest drawback is the heat distribution. Since it uses a small burner in the middle and has no heat distribution baffle; it is much hotter in the center than towards the edge. You get around this by actively moving your burgers around to keep them cooking evenly (this can be an advantage if you want something to cook slower by pushing to the outside). Coleman says you must put water in the catch basin, which seems to distribute the heat a little better but I think that is also to reduce the possibility of a grease fire. I tried it a couple of times without the water and it worked OK.

Overall, it is a good value when used for what it is intended for. I think Coleman could have designed the grill with better heat distribution without significantly adding to the cost, so I give it four stars.

Review by K. Stuckey:

I camped down at MIS and bought this grill on sale the day before. Not only was it easy to set up once I was down there – it was perfect for me since I was cooking only for one. It was awesome to take the grill top off and be able to perk coffee in the morning and then grill burgers on it later. Definitely fill the basin when grilling, it makes cleanup a snap. The bag makes it super portable and the propane attachment is a breeze to replace. All in all a great deal and super useful.

Review by M. G. Navarra:

The Bayou Classic cut about 45 minutes to an hour off of my brew time. Got three gallons of water to a boil in less than half the time of my kitchen range, and held a good strong boil for an hour. If you’re a homebrewer looking to leave the stovetop, and go to an outdoor propane cooker, this is the one to buy.

Review by C. Guenther:

This burner puts out a lot of BTUs but it’s also pretty noisy. I use it with a 9 gallon pot and it gets boiling quick. Served my purposes (beer brewing) perfectly!

Review by D. Sheffield:

Well, I’d have to say this product does do what it was design to do – it cooks eggs, bacon, and pancakes fine. But, there is a major design flaw as far as I’m concerned. When you cook something with lots of grease (e.g. bacon), the grease just runs off the sides through the holes (visible in the picture) into the body of the grill with the burners are. It then ignites creating a turbo cook mode! I was able to turn the gas off completely and cook the entire meal off bacon fat. As ‘green-friendly’ as this maybe, I really didn’t care for the approach. What a MESS to clean up!

If you only plan to cook eggs or panacakes, it works fine. Just make sure you have it PERFECTLY level. I lost an entire egg through one of the side holes due to a little slant. You can imagine what my stove looked like after this breakfast

Review by Amber Ellison:

We just bought the Road Trip Grill to add to our camping arsonal. We love it, but in attempting to use the griddle accessory, we found a major design flaw. It has slot-like holes all around the inside of the lip. So when the description says “great for bacon”, I would not reccomend that unless you like grease fires in the morning with your eggs. We couldn’t figure out why it was made this way, but I probably won’t be using it for that again.

Review by B. Goldstein:

I’ve used the older model of this stove previously and had been very impressed. This lighter weight, updated version should have been even better. However its design is highly problematic and I ended up returning it. Thanks to Amazon’s great return policy I didn’t even have to pay to ship it back (since the stove was dysfunctional from the start). The two problems I encountered was a pressure regulator safety device that was so sensitive it was very tricky to even get the stove to light. Camp Chef ended up sending me a new regulator, which worked better, though was still rather sensitive.

The second problem was worse, and I suspect due to a design issue. After the burner was lit and on high for a minute or two, and then lowered to a low setting the flame would initially go low, as expected, but then all of sudden the flame would practically disappear, and the burner would begin to roar very loudly, like a minature jet engine. The burner plate would then turn bright orange, brighter than if the burner was even set to high. At the same time I would occasionally see a flame jump into the gas feed tube. Kinda scary. Note – Camp Chef support staff had no explanation for what was causing this problem.

I know these are supposed to be great stoves, so I am going to try their cast iron burner model, since I believe its an older, and more established design.

Oh yeah, one more thing, this stove puts out 20k btu, not 25k as described.

Review by Joseph L. Hunt:

I use this burner in my homebrew set up. It easily produces enough heat to bring ~12gal of liquid to a nice boil fairly quickly. The stand, obviously, can support all that liquid weight plus the weight of the keg that I use for my brew kettle, more than 120 pounds! Really-great product; and no assembly required.

Review by Kevin Flick:

I like the short legs. A big heavy pot doesn’t have far to get to the ground. I put it on flat concrete in my back yard.

The instructions hardly seemed to apply. 95% of the assembly indicated had already been done. If you barely have a clue, then yes, the last 4 items (2 screws, air intake adjuster, gas pipe) might take a minute to figure out, but if that’s the case you shouldn’t be in charge of this monster anyway.

Putting it on full blast is, well, a blast. Like a small jet engine. Adjusting the air intake to get the perfect blue flame is fun.

Don’t know how easy this would be to put on a simmer in a breeze, the flame can be invisible in bright sunlight and could easily blow out on low power.

But I just want it to blast heat energy into water. 3 gallons from 60 degrees to a roiling boil in 10 mins. Nice.

Be careful, as you would naturally expect to be with something that smacks out up to 150,000 BTU.

Keep away from small ponies, children and cuddly toys.

I might dock it one star for a slightly wobbly burner (not a load bearing piece though) and poor manual (hardly needed). But I’m not going to because it does exactly what I want at a great price.

Update, 8/31/08: I bought this for . It seems to be much more than this today.

After using the product for a while, I think a windshield feature would be useful: the flame will blow out in a breeze.

I would probably pick Bayou Classic SP10 High-Pressure Outdoor Gas Cooker, Propane instead.