UKH

Having ditched the camper van and gone all in on the mega family camping tent I'm after a double hob burner for our summer hols. What do people recommend?

• I'm assuming a gas bottle is the way to go?
• Camping gaz/coleman/outwell/cadac

Any hints/tips etc much appreciated. I've gone from buying the lightest camping stuff to buying big, heavy and durable. 

Thanks in advance.....

If you want something that will last forever and be as powerful as a gas hob at home, a Foker (don't accept imitations) cast iron double burner on Calor propane.  Heavy but very robust and powerful.  No grill though.  About 80 quid if I recall.  They do work on butane too if a little less powerfully.

Otherwise, most of the fairly bog standard butane double-burner-and-grill things are similar to one another.  If you don't go abroad often I'd go Calor, if you do then Gaz as you can get it anywhere.  The actual stoves will support either, just swap the regulator.

Don't buy the ones with the small canisters you insert into the stove, they go through them like there's no tomorrow and have a habit of exploding.  A cylinder is the way to go for "heavyweight" family camping.

I've climbed a lot with a uni club who use two of the aforementioned Foker things, and they seem to do the job. Slow for cooking massive group meals, but for family-size cooking I imagine they'd be perfect. I suspect they'll outlive the club (and the entire human race, as things are going). They're also great for stopping the ground sheet of the average big tent from billowing in named storms (though only to a point, and it's upsettingly impressive seeing the wind lift a weighty lump of cast iron from the ground).

We've got a pretty inexpensive 2 burner plus grill jobby, which we use with Gaz. Had it 10 years plus, both family and club 7se.

What has really worked well is we got one with attachable legs, with an under cooker shelf (where the pots live) and two sticky out metal mesh side shelves which are so useful when cooking.

We have a (very) old camping Gaz stove with double burner and 'grill' that I inherited. The burners are fine but the grill is utterly rubbish and struggles with toast, never mind complex foods like bacon.

I'd second the comment above about going for heavy weight gas cylinders that get exchanged for refills. Work out cheaper in the long run and less rubbish to landfill. 

Two trangias?

Be honest- have you ever fed a family of 4+ for an extended holiday (ie more than 3 or 4 days) with this set up? If you have fair play to you but I couldn’t be bothered.

Ubiquitous camping gaz double burner ‘chef’ or whatever it’s called plus the smallest calor butane bottle for me. Camping gaz bottles a lot more portable but can be a pain in the arse to source if you run out mid trip. Worth having a regulator for both types packed no matter which you use 

We actually run two Gaz cylinders, so no risk of running out and can get a refill when convenient to us. More initial outlay but let's us shop around on price for refills and run cylinders to almost empty. 

We use Fokers in Scouts and they are utterly bombproof. Don’t drop one on your toe, it bloody hurts! 
For my own car camping trips, I’ve got a stove with 2 burners & a grill that folds down into a case the size of a large briefcase & connects to a propane bottle. Not sure who mine is made by (the sticker fell off), but they are pretty widely available at GoOutdoors etc. 

THIS https://www.calorgas-heaters.co.uk/camping-stoves/two-burner-camping-stoves...

looks like a step up?

I like the grill feature.  Ok for toast or nachos plus it effectively gives you a third hot spot on the top.

I think the fundamental problem lies in trying to cook bacon in a toaster 😁

How big is your family and how big is your car? When I was kid we went for three week holidays in Spain camping, but because a big family frame tent then were so heavy my dad always used a trailer. We also had a two burner calor gas grill that had its own metal 'wire' stand that also had shelves on it to keep food. I seem to remember it looked liked a small version of the larder at home - god only knows what sort of food stuffs my mum was pack - the entire spice rack maybe? Anyway, it was just a huge amount of stuff and I remember it taking the best part of day to set up the tent when we got there and take it down again and pack before driving back north!

I've never been arsed with all that with my family. I guess the first camping trips we did when my two older kids were little were driving from Finland to England for summer holiday there, so we generally stayed only one night at a campsite - except one in Denmark where we would stay for two and visit Legoland for a day! So lightweight kit worked well. Since the family has grown to five of us we have bought a bigger family tent with inner tents and so on. But it still packs into a sort of suitcase sized bag and we can get it up in maybe 20 minutes so you can use it for just a night. For years I've had one of those single burner butane stoves that pack into a plastic 'briefcase'. They are stable, easy to use and the butane cartridges seem easily available everywhere. Camping Gaz make them but non-brand ones seem super reliable and cost little, I've seen them in Aldi and BM bargains in recent years. I sometimes chuck in a little backpacking stove like my Pocket Rocket and canister for that too. Occasionally you might want to boil water for spaghetti whilst frying up the bolognese ingredients, or I use a little stove to make my morning coffee when no one else wants one.

By keeping things relatively lightweight like that in recent years we've done 'touring' trips staying for a night or a few days before moving on, or last year when we couldn't decide where to go so booked a site for a week in the Dordogne then a site a few hours away in the Massif central for another week, with five us in the car and all the camping (and some climbing!) gear packed in the boot of the car and a small roofbox. Maybe a twin burner stove wouldn't really add to that, but I guess you need a rechargeable gas bottle for it? And maybe a stand too? I guess it all adds up.

TLR - those butane one burner stoves for less than twenty quid that come in a plastic briefcase I've found work well for my family camping holidays.

P.S. I don't know if it law but it seems that on many French and Spanish campsites now many people have separate kitchen tents, because I suppose the fire risk is serious camping inside the main tent?

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated. We are a family of four (7 & 4) in a Ford Focus with a Roofbox. Our "family camping" will be weekends as well as a full week in one place. We have small tents and I have various canister stoves for when we want to go "lightwieght" but canisters and cartridges seem very wasteful when we are "family camping" and weight is not/less of an issue. We've just bought a big Decathlon 6 man tent as a week in the lakes in the rain will be a lot more enjoyable with a bit of "indoor" dry space.

I'm now flip flopping between the Foker or a camping Gaz two burner off a bottle style. We shall see.

Thanks again.

Wow! I can't imagine cracking out a roast chicken with roasties on a campsite, thought it would make you the envy of everyone!

I was in Jackson's  of Old Arley this morning  and  spotted this deal

https://www.jacksonsofoldarley.co.uk/campingaz-camping-kitchen-2.html

We've  used a simple 2 burner cooker for years

If you want toast, get one of these folding toasters

https://www.towsure.com/camp-toaster

Do not get a toaster  like this!

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/15899140/hi-gear-folding-toaster-4-slice-15899...

This type were invented by the gas companies to increase sales

I'm in the same boat as you, albeit our car is bigger and kids younger.

Thus far we have used a primus primus primetech (cartridge) stove, or an Origo alcohol stove.

What I'm thinkin' is getting a small gas grill with a sideburner/stove... and perhaps a cheapo one pot induction stove (when we have electricity at the camping grounds etc.).

or look into "converting" the primus one to run from big gas bottles.

I have a fairly small car; so I just use two Primus Omnifuels. Space efficient, fuel is cheap, already got them for alpine stuff, fairly stable and controllable. Like them more than my double gas burner (some old primus model).

We do a basic two-burner camping gas thing with a cylinder, and that has been fine for us as long as it is not too windy. We have a fancy cooker unit to put it on, but don't bother with that now and just have it on the table. 

It helps to have a decent, powerful camping stove and canister on the side as well for when it is needed, or when you want oomph for one small thing.

The beauty of the one we got (possibly SunGas) was the cooker 'unit' is actually just legs and shelves bolted directly to the cooker body, so it packs up small (the cooker with legs and shelves is no bulkier than the cooker on its own)

Thanks to all the info, we ended up going with a Cadac 2 Plus 2 Deluxe (quite the name). I'm not sure that it was deluxe, but it is a well built and robust cooker. Just had our first proper use, 5 days family camping, and it's been excellent. Surprisingly good burners (knocks the socks of the double burner hob in the old camper van) and the supplied griddle plate/flat pate work surprisingly well, so well that our camping dinner repertoire is going to be much expanded next trip. Current set up is using the Cadac double gas canister attachment so we had it hooked up to 2off 500g Coleman canisters due to packing restrictions. Can obviously run off Camping Gaz/Calor as required.

All in all, a big thumbs up.