Camp cooking equipment

Watch you got or rate? Likes/dislikes pro's and con's, would you buy a different brand, type or size?. How do you store it? Do they go mouldy or rust after every trip. Do you prefer gas than the open fire? How long to set up?, Do you need a fission reaction to get the bugger hot?

Com'on spill your guts, I'm a nosy bugger

Gee where does one start?

We got far too much camp cooking crap but it all seems to get used. Key cooking items are

• Weber Q 100 - cannot say a bad thing about it. It boils water, toasts bread superbly and of course cooks meat and vegies. Uses stuff all gas!
• Propane burners - have to sleep with the canisters to keep the gas warm. They always live in the bottom of sleeping bag now.
• Two camp ovens - one biggie and a smaller one both are good
• Enamel camp billy - does the job but would prefer a cast iron one

That will do for starters.

I love camp cooking, I have a few camp ovens, love to do a roast if I have the patience (takes a bit long so usually i'm pretty pissed by the time its ready).
Seasoned the camp ovens by getting them as hot as possible, washing the crap out, get them hot as possible and wipe oil in it, make sure to do the outside too.
My new favourite thing is the "adjust-a-grill" from Anaconda, bang a stake in the side of the fire, grill attaches to this and you swing it over the fire and adjust the height to suit, loving the Lamb Koftas on it.

i use a 4 burner fold up bbq when out for longer then 1 or 2 nights.
also do a great roast in the camp oven,and i made up a hot plate from a plough dish to hang over a fire,it works a treat...
also use portable gas propane burners when in the boat and want a hot snack..

I like cooking on an open fire. I have a home made custom frame for spanning the fire and holding the hotplate and water billy etc.
If that is not available i use a Weber baby Q - as Bosshog said great for everything.
I currently have an ozpig set up on the verandah at home.
We are trailing it with a camp oven for cooking roasts. So far we are 4 from 4. Love the ozpig.

Open fire.... Definately. I bought a cast iron camp set.... Took me a few attempts and a thousand beers but we have roast and veggies down pat.... As well as a few other dishes, Definately worth the wait and can't beat the bush telle!

I have got a spun steel camp oven. heaps easier to clean. Have done a few nice dinners in it now. Either that or we take one of the fold up 2 burner fold up BBQ's.

Yep, either a fold up bbq plate on the open fire, a frypan on the butane burner, or the camp oven. We did end up buying a stainless steel Cobb oven, not too bad, but bloody hard bastard of a thing to clean up. We don't use heat beads in it but seem to get better results with the coconut husks.

I have an assortment of cooking gear. From my trusty old camp oven to the new coleman gas oven. A 3 burner stove and the little butane job I keep in the storage drawers for that quick cuppa on the road.

Having a caravan gives us the ability to take heaps of cooking stuff. We were looking in the Vogue caravan (which we'll still buy if money goes right, but it ain't just yet) and it's got even more cupboard space, so the wife's going "I can put the slow cooker in here ... this there ... something else up there ...

At the moment the caravan has a 2-burner stove with a grill and it does a respectable job. It has a microwave for when we're on mains power or I pull out the genny. We also bring a grill that we picked up from K-Mart for $18 - drive the metal stake into the ground beside the campfire, mount the grill on it and swing the food over. Awesome, we cook steak, snags, bacon and lots of stuff in those foil baking containers with the foiled paper lids - my fav is campfire potatoes - sliced onions, carrots, potatoes and bacon with Worcestershire sauce, chicken stock and topped with cheese ... dammit, I'm hungry now.

This evening, we're pulling the Jackeroo oven out. Picked that up from K-Mart as well (no, I'm not a walking bloody advertisement for the store, it's just coincidence). Gas powered, it has two burners up top and it's a bloody neat little oven - chicken kiev is on the menu for tonight. Not sure if we'll do a garlic bread as well.

We sometimes bring a little charcoal BBQ along as well. We bought (from Big W - not K-Mart) one of those charcoal chimney things. Fill it with heat beads, put a couple of those firestarter matches (the really big thick ones soaked in paraffin or whatever it is) and away it goes, ready in about 30 mins and absolutely blazing hot. Only problem with the charcoal BBQ is turning it off when you're finished. If we're camped away from civilisation, we don't like wasting water on it, so it has to sit away from plants etc for quite some time while the heat beads burn out and the thing cools off.

We did buy one of those cast iron dutch oven things that you put the food in and bury in the campfire, but haven't bothered to try using it yet. I think it's probably going to rust away on us before we bother with it too, we eat pretty well normally and don't always stay in one place long enough - we really, really enjoy the journey between points and seeing things along the way, so having gear to cook a meal quickly that's easy to clean and pack away makes things much easier for us.

justdrinkbeer said:

Seasoned the camp ovens by getting them as hot as possible, washing the crap out, get them hot as possible and wipe oil in it, make sure to do the outside too.

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Yep, I season ours in the wood fired oven. Works a treat.

Bosshog said:

wood fired oven..

Click to expand...

Sneaky little plug there ha ha

Primus high output cooker (new - recently had to replace my Dad's 40 year old gas cooker, t'was a very sad day).

steel grate for sitting over open-fires.

Thermette (ecobilly) for a quick cuppa

Trangia for hiking

and an assortment of camp ovens and other stuff

d22dave said:

Sneaky little plug there ha ha

Click to expand...

Guilty as charged

For use with the 4x4 our favorite bit of camp cooking gear is our OzPig portable wood stove, no more messing around making up a fire pit, finding rocks etc etc and we still get to enjoy that wood fire. We can put a cast iron camp oven on top or a frypan and throw some spuds into the coals.

If I'm traveling by motorbike it's hard to beat the old Trangia, they're slow but you can get metho to run in them anywhere.

I have a couple of camping gas cookers for when I want something quicker but they just aren't as much fun

Just bought a Weber Baby Q, how bloody good are these things!

Done a Portugese chook, sausages and steak on it so far, I rate it very highly.

Can't wait to do more cooking on it!

Always over an open fire... Bout to buy myself a weber baby q though. Used y
Mates and it's just awesome! Had it going for ages with just the tiny gas bottle!

We bought ourselves one of those Aldi portable BBQs that look a bit like the Weber. Cost us $80 instead of the $300 that the Weber is for the base model. We did look at getting the Weber, because its burner would spread the heat around more evenly, but decided to stick with what we have because each of the extras for the Weber cost heaps.

Our Aldi BBQ came with half-grill half-plate and fold-out side tables.

The Weber comes with a grill ONLY. You can buy a plate, and you can buy side tables as well. All up, the $80 Aldi BBQ is equivalent to about $450+ of Weber.

Now, we're off camping and some idiot forgot the gas hose for the portable oven and HE WANTS CHICKEN KIEV. Wife dutifully chews him out for being addled in the brain and suggests using the Aldi BBQ as an oven by closing the lid ...

... and shortly afterwards, we ate a beautifully cooked chicken kiev.

So for $80, we can grill, fry (onions, eggs, tomatoes etc) and bake. With side tables.

The Weber might be faster and have better heat distribution, but I can wait a couple extra minutes. We also used the Aldi BBQ to drive a spit roast. Takes a little longer than coals but it was a great result.

Just checked these out!! Looks the goods! Unfortunately they don look like they still selling them..

eBay $89.00 delivered. Thanks Tony