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The Hot Water And Cooking Problem
Blog Date 21 Sep 2026
Grrrrrrrrr!
We can send a man to the moon and we now have computers smarter than... well... anyone it seems. But we still ride around on glorified balloons that can go pop at any time, and we still cannot solve the problem of being able to heat things up with something small enough to carry on a motorcycle. Pfffffffffft.
Way way way back in 2005 (you do realise that's 21 years ago) I was but a young pup, a mere 33 years of age. I was planning my first ever expedition abroad to Spain. I was greener than grass and blummin' terrified.
I desired to have with me a means of heating water to make tea (and possibly heat up food substances). I had seen Campingaz gas canister type camping stoves for eons, as well as several other brands offering various similar solutions. They were cheap enough but they all came with one big problem - sourcing the canisters. It's not too bad in the UK I thought, it's easy when you speak the language, can navigate the shopping centres, can easily ask the locals, and be on familiar ground. I was terrified by the notion of trying to find Campingaz or similar gas canisters in a foreign country. As such I did my research.
Coleman make a petrol powered stove. I will HAVE to buy petrol in Spain I thought, might as well drain a bit of that off and cook with that. What a great idea!! They're not cheap though, back then I seem to recall it cost me about £85 but I dug into the coffers and got one. I used the Coleman Dual Fuel 533 stove for the best part of 20 years. And in those 20 years it did indeed heat many many meals and boil the water for uncountable brews. But it was always a faff, right from the beginning.
From 2005 to 2025 the stove was making brews and giving grief.
You fill it up with petrol, inevitably without any means of knowing how much is in there you spill a little. You pump it up then light it. It may light like a rip-roaring furnace akin to a blow torch. It may light the remaining vapours from you just filling it (not ideal in the tent). It may hiss then light in an impressive ball of yellow flame that removes your fringe and eyebrows. It may not light at all.
If ignition is achieved it may produce a hot, tight blue flame just as it should, perfectly. It may be a yellowy soot filled flame that turns your pan black and barely cooks. It make flicker between perfectly blue then sooty. It make make a "tssss, tssss, tssss" noise as the flame pulses and fades.
When it is in a good mood and producing the tight blue flame it is hotter than hell itself. You can boil a pan of water swiftly, you can also burn food in moments in thin camping pans. There is a valve for adjustment but it's more twitchy than the throttle of a Husqvarna 501 at low revs. If you leave it turned down for any time it'll flame out and be smoky the next time you use it.
It wasn't averse to leaking a little, depending on it's mood, which way the wind was blowing, and the alignment of the celestial bodies. The top box would reek of petrol along with anything else within. It even had the odd dribble in the tent too, terrifying me and leading to me trying to cook outside in the wind and rain. It was not good at this nor did this induce happiness and joy in my heart.
As time went on it got ever more finicky, to the point where it became barely usable. Searching the internet it seems the "generator" (the brass tube that runs through the flame and preheats the petrol) can become troublesome. Another £40 is lost purchasing a new one. Fitting the new one is fiddly and should only be done by someone with the patience of a saint and 30 years of mechanical experience. Only a minor and temporary improvement is seen.
Last year after regrowing my eyebrows several times and running out of ScotchBrite pads to remove the soot from my pans... I gave up. Sadly. Petrol is the ideal fuel, if I don't have any with me cooking is the least of my concerns. Alas burning petrol seems to be a complex and convoluted process prone to failure.
I look at Trangia stoves, they use alcohol or meths, readily available apparently but to be honest I have never purchased the stuff so I don't know that as a fact. I watch a few videos about them. Apparently it can take 10 mins to boil water and the flame is practically invisible - making it all to easy to set fire to the tent.
I look at other petrol stoves. There's scant options and those that are available are costly, and share the same troublesome technology as the Coleman. They do at least have a separate bottle for the petrol, making filling and stowing somewhat easier though.
Campingaz's simple stoves are cheap to buy (£17). Sod it. Almost every backpacker and many motorcycle campers have variations on the same theme, and they seem happy enough. I will have a go at the gas canister method, see what happens. The kit works and it works well. It lights easily with a clicker on the side (no more routing around for lighters). The flame is tight, clean, reliable, and effective. The flame adjustment works without crapping out. So far you might call me impressed, but my fears of sourcing "out in the field" remain.
Campingaz - it works but not without side effects.
The first problem is the quite large (for a motorcycle) canisters (my system uses 400g CV300 Plus canisters) burn off their contents quicker than I'd hope. At £9 each (in a 4-pack from Argos) it feels costly. Admittedly with fuel prices what they are it's probably not as bad as it feels, but still.
Secondarily - sourcing the canisters. Urgh. Sheez.
The Campingaz canisters themselves proudly guide you to a website. Here you can find your location and a map will show you all their wonderful stockists close to you! How wonderful, how easy, how terribly terribly convenient. Nope. Rather than riding to your destination you are now making a detour to some random town centre complete with one way system and overfilled parking. Once parked you stumble into a shop, struggle to find the gas canister location... and then realise they don't have your canister in stock, nor any other suitable size and fitment from Coleman or JetBoil or OEX...
Repeat with any nearby shops, then repeat in a nearby town. I have not done this abroad yet but I can imagine doing this in a foreign country is frankly enough to make one seething with such anger that you could cook your meal and make your brew using your own forehead.
So what next? I have 6 canisters to use up and I will - subject to them being used for short camping weekends. As for a touring setup that I believe will work in a foreign country without making my blood boil, that is still under review. I have a friend with a Trangia, I might ask him for a demonstration and look into where I can buy meths or alcohol. If they weren't so expensive I'd try the other petrol stove options, see if they've overcome the original Coleman issues.
His Boggerness recently explained to me it is possible to refill the gas canisters. Having watched a few YouTube videos on this subject it does indeed seem possible, although not *quite* as simple as it ought to be. You still need to source the gas from other admittedly much more popular, much cheaper, and readily available gas canisters. One chap strongly recommends you need accurate scales to avoid overfilling the canister too?
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Reader's Comments
nab301 said :-
It's interesting that the petrol stoves are so temperamental, is this just down to the design or is petrol quality an issue ? I've been on a couple of camping trips over the decades where a friend was cooking on a trangia, it semed ok but these were only one night trips, meths locally is available in hardware shops usually in the paint section... . Said friend graduated to mini solid fuel stoves and at one stage recently encouraged by another friend I made one and managed to boil water on a windy day in the back garden , you're depending on a supply of dry fuel (kindling) to be available locally .
No matter what fuel you use I'd invest in an insulated container at least for the initial boil , attempting to boil water from cold in an open pan has to be very inefficient.
Nigel
13/10/2026 11:02:29 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
Those solid fuel / meths gadgets have been around for decades. They used to be advertised in Exchange and Mart as did the "volcano" type devices that you filled with brushwood. See link.
The meths / solid fuel ones were completely useless. I've never used the volcano type. The best solution as always is to stay in hotels and let someone else have the hassle.
13/10/2026 11:49:29 UTC
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
Having done some further research on the petrol stoves, I recall one of them has a "rattler" thing that is a loose pin in a certain jet that is designed to rattle around when in your backpack (for walkers) and this is supposed to keep the jet free of soot. Or something like that. That SUGGESTS the problem with petrol is that it's a very sooty burn when it's not burning properly and this soot must block the jets.
I've watched a ton of videos on petrol stoves. They are 99% reviews of the stove, meaning the stove is new and fresh. Yeah, great, it works a treat. Now show it to me after it's gotten wet, when it's boiled a thousand cuppas, when it's been dropped a few times, when it's had a chance to soot-up.
I have created a VERY simple meths stove made from a tin can and cooking pan. It works and I used it on a recent trip effectively, albeit a little slowly. Methylated Spirit is nowhere near as readily available as I thought though. Yes B&Q have it and Wicks, but they charge a lot for it. It's slightly better value from Toolstation. I can buy both meths and bio-ethanol online for a much better price.
However if I'm on a trip that would still require a specific visit to town, a proper town not just a little town. I'm currently using my home made stove at home to brew up and make meals, so I can get an idea of how much fuel it uses and help calculate how much I might need per week. So far I'm estimating less than a litre per week, but my testing is not extensive. I could carry 2 litres on the bike and have the knowledge that it is possible to get more if required.
A.I. suggests I should be able to get meths from hardware stores in Europe too - A.I. is useful but it always needs fact checking though.
13/10/2026 12:41:12 UTC
ROD¹ said :-
I started using maths in a home made tuna can set up with some success, but then purchased a tangia copy for around a fiver and get better results.
The main problem is the time it takes to cook food. It's always my second job in the morning when camping. First job toilet ect then the second job,get the breakfast on. While the breakfast is cooking I can pack everything down and be ready to leave. It takes that long!
Once the breakfast is cooked I eat while the kettle is on, and then have a brew before leaving.
When there are two of you camping and you are cooking for two this cooking time becomes a real pain.
Although the alcohol stove is small and convenient for motorcycle travel, it is not as good to cook on as a camping gas system, because of the time, and to a lesser extent the control of the flame.
I am torn on the camp cooking if I ever go camping two up because I want the performance of the gas, but I will be struggling with the constraints of the motorcycle carrying capacity.
I don't think I will sell the trailer just yet..
13/10/2026 14:46:02 UTC
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
You raise an interesting point ROD. Later in the Skye trip we cook a simple pasta meal. Now I know the DIY stove can cook pasta as I've done it at home. But after cooking the pasta - without 2 stoves we then have to cook the meat and simmer the sauce while the pasta is inevitably cooling. Even with a Campingaz stove by the time the meat-n-sauce is cooked and simmered the pasta was "cool". With an alcohol stove the pasta might be cold by the time the meat-n-sauce is ready.
It's not a deal breaker but it's far from ideal.
Then as you say the idea of a quick brew or a quick meal seems impossible. It's not normally a rush for us but I still take your point.
I'm starting to think - I wonder if I could remove the top box and fit a microwave? I'm sure someone does 12v microwaves for caravans.
13/10/2026 15:28:20 UTC
ROD¹ said :-
The trick with cooking pasta is put in a flask with water and let it sit there while you are riding. This does not cook the pasta, but it softens it so it will cook more quickly.
You can run an inverter for the 12v 240v.
I think you may have a problem with the microwave wattage Vs the alternator output rather than the 12v.
13/10/2026 15:43:44 UTC
ROD¹ said :-
Oh, and with the pasta meal cook the sauce first, it can go cold while the pasta cooks, then just pour it in with the pasta after it has been drained to heat it up.
13/10/2026 15:47:58 UTC
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