Campingaz Camping Chef 092781

Author's product rating:   

Durability	Good
Style	OK
Value for Money	Good
Ease of Use	very good
Weight	very light

Advantages:	Works really well, lightweight and easy to set up .
Disadvantages:	The grill is a disappointment .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Having planned a short one week camping trip last April in order to try out the new Soul Pad tent we’d been given for Christmas by my extremely generous in-laws, [thank you! thank you! thank you!], my husband and I decided we’d take the opportunity to try out some new gear as well… therefore, having browsed through hundreds of online shops for the best deal, we settled on the Campingaz Camping Chef stove found at Amazon.

With a price tag wavering between £40.00 and £60.00 at most online shops, and coming in even more expensive in high street shops, I was amazed and well chuffed to come across the stove on special at Amazon for only £25.95! With one week left to go until payday, I crossed my fingers hoping that I wouldn’t miss the sale… alas, when payday came along, the stove had gone up to £49.95! I was gutted. Once again browsing online camping and caravan shops, I used a few price comparison sites… and zilch. We were in March, just a few weeks until out planned trip. Finally, realising that it was now or never, I went back to Amazon, and low and behold… it was on sale again. Not as low as it had been in February, but I was willing to part with the additional ten pounds without too much fuss… although I did send Amazon an e-mail complaining that they should put an end date on their sales. I didn’t get a response, but then again, this is Amazon therefore I wasn’t actually expecting one.

Back to the stove. I received it just a few days after placing my order… £35.95 with free postage. I have to say at this point that my initial reaction to the stove was; “Is that it?!” I’d spent weeks browsing online shops, using price comparison sites… I’d even sent a letter of complaint to Amazon… and all for what? A camping stove that weighed in at a somewhat flimsy 5.8kg – anti-climactic, to say the least.

Anyway... after watching my husband set it up on the kitchen table, I stepped back and studied it for a moment or two in silence. It wasn’t much to look at. A lid coloured a somewhat noxious-looking blue was lifted in order to display shiny new grills, three black plastic knobs protruded from the front of the stove, the centre knob reserved for the grill, and the whole thing was supported by metal feet that cradled a bottom tray that held the grill pan/toaster. Hmmm… not much to look at.

Well, looks aren’t everything I told myself, so, after dismantling it [takes only a minute] we put it back inside its box [no, it didn’t come with a carry case – nor with an adapter for that matter… both were sold separately] and waited for the big day to arrive.

Finally, the day of our vacation arrived, we bundled everything up and set off on our short trip… not 20 miles from home! Well, I did say this wasn’t a ‘real’ vacation, it was simply a ‘try-out’ for our new canvas tent. I will, incidentally, be writing reviews for the Soul Pad and the camping site we used… meanwhile, I want to tackle the stove.

Lucky for us, our trip landed smack on the hottest and driest week of April… not ideal, really, because a canvas tent, for those who aren’t aware, needs a good soaking in order to swell up the canvas so that it becomes water-tight. Needless to say that it didn’t rain, therefore our ‘real’ camping trip, scheduled for September, could end up being slightly damp.

That first evening, having put up the tent and set up camp, we took the stove out of its box and placed it on a picnic table supplied by the site. It wasn’t particularly windy, which was a good thing because I’d forgotten to purchase the metal wind-guards that are supposed to be placed around the stove in order to keep the wind from messing with the flames. For our first meal, I had purchased a decidedly ‘iffy’ tin of Branston’s Macaroni & Cheese [this was to prove to my husband that I could eat tinned stuff if I set my mind to it]… I really must write a review on that because it was absolutely disgusting. I couldn’t even pawn it off on the dog! What does that say for a tin of macaroni when a bum licking pooch would rather continue licking his bum than eat the macaroni?! Yep… not good.

Anyway… I emptied the contents of the tin into a small pot, and placed two pieces of bread on the supplied grill [which comes with the stove] in order to try the toasting capabilities of the Campingaz stove. At that point, with the macaroni being heated in a small pot on one burner, the kettle using up the other burner in order to boil water, I was just about to slide the grill into position when my husband stopped me; “The instructions say you can’t use the grill and stove burners at the same time.” Hmmm… dilemma… okay, I figured I’d heat up the macaroni, boil the water and then grill the toast… after all, how long could it possibly take to toast bread? The answer is… extremely long! By the time I’d managed to grill the two slices of bread, the macaroni had become cold and stodgy and my coffee, which I’d prepared just after the water had boiled, had a film across the top of it with a few gnats doing backstrokes!

The thing is, the grill sounded like a good idea, but it isn’t. First of all, the small element used to grill the bread, or whatever food you might want grilled, is much smaller than the grill pan, meaning that the heat is only really focused on a small portion of the food placed under the grill. I had to constantly re-arrange my bread so that it toasted evenly… which it never did, not even after a week of practice… not to mention the fact that it took approximately 15 minutes to toast two slices of bread on that first non-windy day. The next few days, the wind having kicked in, toasting bread turned into a nightmare with us trying to shelter the flames from the wind as best we could. At that point, we both decided that a wind-guard was a necessity… as was a proper camping stove toaster, the type you place on the top of the burner and holds four slices of bread! Don’t get me wrong, we still intend to use the grill for cheese toasties and the like, but not for toast… and definitely not when we’re in a rush to eat.

As for the burners and their capacity to actually heat up and cook food within a reasonable amount of time… I have to admit, although begrudgingly, that I was impressed. Campingaz boasts that you can boil a kettle of water in 7 minutes… yep, you can. My only complaint is that, unlike other double-burner stoves with grills, the Campingaz stove wasn’t designed with a built-on wind-guard like other stoves in the same price range. The grill area is left wide open to the wind, and that’s a definite no-no as far as I’m concerned. I do wonder if this was done on purpose so that we’d be forced to purchase a separate wind-guard.

Another point I would like to make is that the Campingaz adapter, sold separately, only works with Campingaz cylinders… which are much more expensive than other gas cylinders. My suggestion as that you purchase a normal adapter, which we did, and use regular propane or butane cylinders that DON’T sport the ‘Campingaz’ logo.

All in all, a really good stove that possesses a really bad grilling capability.

For those interested, Amazon is presently selling the Campingaz Camping Chef for £35.71 with free delivery.

Product Features:
Power: Stove = 2 x 2,300 Watt / Grill = 1,100 Watt
Gas Consumption: Stove = 2 x 170 g/h, Grill = 80 g/h
Weight: 5.8 kg
Dimensions: L52.5cm x W31cm x H22cm
Boil Time: 7 minutes
Autonomy: Stove + Grill = 6h30/Stove
Energy: R904, R907, Butane or Propane
Adapter Not Included

** Important: Grill cannot be used at the same time as the stove.**