I was wondering if anyone knew how much propane(cooking only) I would need for two people, two meals a day for 6 months. I already have three 20 lb propane canisters and not sure how many more to buy? My propane is conected to backyard grill. Thanks.
JT – at 14:01
There are more efficent means of cooking with propane than using a backyard grill. You may want to purchase a propane camp stove. The one I bought connects to a 20lb propane tank.
Your question is impossible to answer because I don’t know what you plan to cook. Also, I don’t have a lot of field experience in this area yet. I would suggest that you also think about getting some other means of cooking such as a sterno stove, etc.
HBB -
May I ask where you bought your propane camp stove and is it meant to be used only with a 20 lb. tank? Thanks.
If it’s any help, I BBQ almost daily during the summer. I can generally make a 20# tank last about a month to 6 weeks, cooking for two of us. I have a Charbroil Commercial grill with 3 burners, but only use two of them.
On the other hand, I don’t use it to boil water, just grilling steak, chicken or fish…
OKbirdwatcher- I have two Coleman propane camp stoves. They are designed to run either on the 1 Lb canisters of propane or can be connected to the 20 Lb barbecue tank using a special hose and adapter (optional at extra cost).
To understand your fuel consumption you need to know a few things. First, how much energy does the burner consume, second how many burners will you run per meal, third how long do you run the burners and finally how high a flame will you be running.
Since it is hard to answer all of those questions, lets try to simplify it. The burners in my Coleman stoves are (I think) rated at 9,000 BTU/hr. Since a pount of propane can provide about 24,000 BTUs, a single 1 lb canister could run one burner for 2–3 hours wide open.
But you don’t usually run a burner wide open when cooking a meal. it takes a few minutes to boil water. A few more minute to fry up something. So lets say we use a total of about 15 minutes of full throttle burner time per meal (if we try to conserve). So we can get about 10 meals per pound of propane. Thus, a 20 lb barbecue tank will give us about 200 meals if we are conservative. Call it two months on a tank.
The backyard grill will tend to have higher output burners, which means they gulp the gas all the more quickly.
So, how much propane you actually need depends both on which stove you are using and how you use it, along with just how much cooking per day you plan on doing.
But this should give you a rough ability to plan.
OKbirdwatcher – at 14:16
Here is where I got mine. It’s not fancy, but it does the job.
HBB--- I LOVE the Sportsman’s Guide. Gotta be one of the most fun catalogs I’ve ever received. Great toys inside, too!!!
HBB- So your stove has 15,000 BTU burners. That would mean about 1–1/2 hours per pound of propane at full blast.
Bronco Bill – at 14:52
REALLY great toys! There is hardly a page that deosn’t have something I want.
Eccles -
Thanks! I guessed the camp stove might require an adapter but I’ve never considered buying one until now.
Do you think the higher output burners on the grill would actually boil water and cook food faster, thus offsetting the apparent increased usage of fuel or do you think the camp stove would still be more fuel-wise choice?
I just know my DH will question why we need *yet another* cooking apparatus when we already have a gas grill;-?
OKbirdwatcher – at 14:56
A propane stove concentrates more heat in a smaller area of the pan thus heating the contents quicker. A grill is designed to heat a larger area in a uniform fashion.
I plan to experiment with my propane grill (with lid) to see if I can use it as a makeshift oven. I have a few extra fire bricks from my woodstove. I’m going to lay those on the grill to keep direct heat off the baking pan. I expect the grill will get hotter than needed even on the low setting, but I want to see if I can make cornbread or biscuits without incinerating them.
Mmmmmm! Incinerated biscuits. Urgghhhhh!
HBB - Thanks! I sure could spend some time shopping on that site (and probably will)!
HBB - If the biscuits or cornbread are a success, how ‘bout trying a loaf of your homemade bread? Would a pizza stone work in lieu of fire bricks? - don’t have any of those.
I have to figure out a good way to bake bread off-grid. A propane oven perhaps? DH would just have a fit.
It was brought up before that using a solar oven made out of a black mailbox and tinfoil may get hot enought to cook bread.
JT – at 14:01 I was wondering if anyone knew how much propane(cooking only) I would need for two people, two meals a day for 6 months.
JT, When we moved into the home we live in in 2001, there was 40# of propane in the tank. We have a six-burner convection gas oven. We cooked for a family of 5 for three years before we had to order a refill—and I cook and bake a lot. However, as others have stated, a gas grill is far less efficient. Still, I would think you could easily meet your needs with four or five canisters.
OKbirdwatcher – at 15:13 I have to figure out a good way to bake bread off-grid. A propane oven perhaps? DH would just have a fit.
I bake bread regularly in a Solar Sport oven from the Solar Oven Society. I also experimented this weekend cooking in a Dutch oven. Didn’t make bread, but had great success with other foods, and I know breadmaking could be achieved successfully.
OKbirdwatcher – at 15:13
DW would kill me if I used her Pampered Chef cookware for a fluwiki experiment! If the cornbread doesn’t catch fire I’ll try a loaf of bread next time.
I looked at propane camp ovens, but the ones I saw were pricey and not very large.
Eccles:
Yeah, those burners look like a rocket exhaust when you turn them up on high. Luckily, the burner adjustment is fairly decent.
Hillbilly Bill – at 15:51
“rocket exhaust “, “15000 BTU per burner”
Take a look at this: 35,000 BTU per burner: must be space shuttle exhaust then
Brinkmann Camping Stove:
Thanks for great input, I have ordered a new stove from link above.
anon at 15:48 -
WOW! Very interesting - 3 yrs of cooking on 40# of propane. I’ll check out the solar oven. That’s another area I haven’t learned too much about - yet…
HBB - Check out the ‘Za Grill Pizza Griller at Sportsman’s Guide. (Food and Food Prep link). If it will cook a pizza without burning it, maybe a pan of biscuits, cornbread or bread cooked on top of it would turn out OK. The heat shield being the key. I’m tempted to try it for $25.
I bought this one - I would prefer something a bit larger but this looks pretty good overall. I haven’t taken it out of the box yet but I hope to give it a test drive this weekend.
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/school/reviews/Camping/colemanoven.html
I think some sort of heat shield is essential. I’ll let you know how my test works.
Nimbus - That’s a dandy looking oven. Please give us a report after your test drive.
TreasureIslandGal at 15:29 -
Now that’s a concept my DH would love. Low-tech, low price. And I’d bet it does work.
I haven’t tried it yet, for bread - works like a charm on ribs and beer can chicken, but couldn’t you just set up your gas grill to cook indirectly (i.e. preheat grill with all burners off, then shut off one burner). As far as how long the propane lasts, i wouldn’t know - I leave the grill on too many times overnight!!(we’re so lucky we haven’t blown up!!!)
It’s not the grill or burner, it’s the cooking implement.
You can either cook a pot of beans on a camp stove for 3 hours in a regular pot, or get a modern pressure cooker and cook that same pot of beans on a campstove in < 1 hour.
The fuel use savings is significant.
Most of my shelter in place meals are centered around one-pot pressure cooker cooking.
I prefer the Hawkins for it’s added safety lid: http://www.innoconcepts.com/hawkins.htm
BBQ grills are good for making pizza or baking bread, but not for everyday survival cooking.
OKbirdwatcher – at 16:37 anon at 15:48 - WOW! Very interesting - 3 yrs of cooking on 40# of propane. I’ll check out the solar oven. That’s another area I haven’t learned too much about - yet…
That anon at 15:48 post was me (Edna Mode). Not sure why it didn’t post my sig as I have the author field filled in. Anyway, I agree. Three years on 40# is amazing. I kept thinking we’d run out, but every time I checked, we were OK. There are probably several factors contributing to that. First, convection ovens cook much more quickly than conventional. Second, it is a commercial grade and size, so I could cook anywhere from two to four dishes at once if I had my act together. Finally, I know our burners are rated much higher than normal (not sure what though) so also cook faster (but if they’re using more fuel, that’s a tradeoff it would seem).
As for solar oven info, I am working on a PDF of info and recipes, but I have to get the OK from a couple of Web sites that I borrowed info from before I can post it. Hope to post it sometime next week.
I’ve camped 2+ weeks a year on a 1lb canister of propane.
BirdGuano at 19:16 - Never thought about using a pressure cooker. Something else to consider…and something else I don’t have :-(
OKbirdwatcher – at 19:55
You may also want to google “thermos cooker”, such as this one
I use something similar and it takes 5–10 minutes on propane stove to put it to boil, then place inner container into outer container (stainless steel thermos). Use very little fuel.
There’s thermos cooking recipes scattered on this forum.
My Brother (the one in the black sheep out fit). Once hooked up a normal gas range and oven to a 20 Lb tank (I strongly recommend againist this as he was always developing gas leaks) He was able to get about 1 month per tank, feeding a family of four. Using that I have based my supply on 1 tank a month for my two camp stoves. I have 5 tanks in storage and 1 on the grill. I have one of the coleman camping ovens (insides are small you can bake two normal loves of bread or a 9 “ double layer cake but you have to watch them) for the oven I have 48 2 pound bottles (They will last for about 5 hours on the oven. With that I have 6 months of cooking fuel and I am prepared to go to outside (open fire cooking) after that if need be.
ANON-YYZ, I researched the thermos cooker a while back and was ready to buy, but the nearly 5-quart size caused me to reconsider. I would be cooking for only 2–4 people (as far as I know) and would have preferred the smaller version (3 quart, I think) but they have discontinued that size. Would cooking smaller quantities of food in the 5-qt model affect the performance in any way? If there’s no refrigeration for leftovers, I probably wouldn’t be cooking 3 or 4 quarts of food at a time.
Guess I’m just over-analyzing it. It certainly seems to be the answer to low fuel cooking. Go ahead, convince me:)
OKbirdwatcher – at 19:55 You may also want to google “thermos cooker”, such as this one http://tinyurl.com/fnlgz
This is a very nice looking piece of equipment, but (and I may be revealing ignorance on the topic) it seems to be little more than a haybox cooker. It seems to work on the same principle. I would never spend $100+ dollars on this. If someone here knows more about haybox cooking than my basic knowledge and can point out what I’m missing, please do.
OKbirdwatcher – at 22:43
Some one mentioned “Bubba” on this forum, which is much smaller, although you have to pour boiling water over food. I am not familiar with it.
What I like about a real Thermos Cooker is you can clean the stainless steel inner pot easily, and you can put the inner pot on the stove. We use it half full, 5 minutes to boil. I am thinking in winter, cooking outdoors means we better be quick. Use it for preps like rice, beans, TVP - things that take forever to cook with a regular pot.
OKbirdwatcher – at 22:43
Forgot something. Since this is a thermos. After it’s cooked, it stays hot for hours.
ANON-YYZ and Edna Mode. Thanks to you both. More things to think about. I’m gonna sleep on it. Nite all:)
bed Bath & Beyond has a 4 quart pressure cooker for 59 bucks that reduces cooking time by 70%!
Don’t forget to add extra propane for boiling water for dishes, laundry and baths!
I would also add a bit extra in case someone is ill. Regular ole stomach flu can often mean LOTS of laundry.
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