Your Complete Guide to Outdoor Cooking in the UK
Somewhere between the gas bottle cupboard and the leisure battery box, most self-builders hit the same wall: can you actually cook properly on 12V power without remortgaging the van? A 12V induction hob is, broadly speaking, an induction cooktop chosen specifically to run off a campervan’s 12V leisure battery system — usually via an inverter, … Read more
Let’s clear something up before we go any further: a 12V induction hob for motorhome use isn’t quite what the name promises, and if a listing tells you otherwise, be sceptical. What it actually means, in every real product on the market, is a standard 230V AC induction hob that’s designed to be run from … Read more
There’s a very specific kind of despair that comes from crouching behind a windbreak at 7am, cupping your hands around a gas ring that simply will not catch, while the person in the next pitch calmly fries bacon on something that looks suspiciously like it plugged straight into the mains. That something was almost certainly … Read more
Somewhere between the cigarette-lighter socket and the leisure battery sits a small, slightly absurd dream: cooking a proper hot meal without ever striking a match. That’s the appeal of a 12V stove for motorhome life, and it’s also where a lot of buyers get their expectations tangled. A 12V stove for motorhome use is a … Read more
An electric camping stove for van life is any cooking appliance that swaps a gas flame for mains or 12V electricity — a hot plate, an induction hob, or a 12V lunchbox-style stove wired into your leisure battery. No canister, no naked flame, no faint whiff of gas when you unclip the regulator with cold … Read more
There’s a particular kind of smugness that settles over you when your camping neighbours are shaking an empty gas canister over a lukewarm pan, and you’re still got half a bottle of unleaded sloshing around in your fuel bottle. That’s the quiet appeal of petrol stoves under £120: a fuel source you can buy at … Read more
There’s a particular kind of dread that sets in when your gas canister runs dry on a freezing Welsh hillside with no shop for eleven miles. A petrol camping stove doesn’t have that problem. Fill it from any forecourt, any layby, any jerrycan in the boot, and you’re cooking — which is exactly why this … Read more
There’s a particular sound every liquid-fuel devotee knows: the hiss-then-roar of a white gas stove for backpacking catching flame on a cold morning, somewhere well above the treeline. It’s not subtle. It’s not silent. But when the temperature has dropped low enough to make a gas canister sulk and splutter, that roar is the sound … Read more
A white gas stove for high altitude use is a liquid-fuel camping stove, typically burning naphtha-based “white gas,” designed to keep producing a strong, controllable flame when thin air and freezing temperatures cause ordinary gas canister stoves to sputter and die. If you’ve ever watched a butane canister lose the will to live at 3,500 … Read more
There’s a very specific kind of dread that sets in around 6am on a January bivvy, hands numb, when you realise your gas canister has gone from “roaring blue flame” to “sad, sputtering whisper” purely because the temperature dropped below freezing overnight. Butane simply gives up the fight below about 5°C, and it’s not being … Read more