Following my recent Wales trip I decided to look into upgrading my Bistro Butane powered stoves to something that will give better performance in cooler conditions. Don't get me wrong my two Bistro stoves have given me excellent service and so long as you always have a spare cylinder either in your pocket or laid next to a lit stove keeping it warm you could keep swapping them out when the one in use gets to cold to work efficiently. For the first time ever though on this trip I had only two cylinders and one of these was pretty much empty and of no use in the swapping process! After getting home I decided to have a look at my options for improving my cooking efficiency in colder conditions and have bought a Coleman Perfectflow 2 burner propane stove to have a play with. Now the little propane cylinders that this stove uses are not the cheapest at about £9 each and are only twice the size of the butane cylinders that I currently use that cost about £2.50 each. I hope that the Propane cylinders will be slightly more efficient at cooking than the Butane ones and hence will give slightly better endurance than twice that of the Butane ones. I have looked into running it from off of a 3.9Kg CalorGas Propane cylinder as I already have one and they are less than £15 for a re-fill. A bit cumbersome to carry though just for a weekend away and so I shall probably stick with using the smaller Coleman ones. I then stumble over the fact that in America it seems to be very common practice to re-fill the disposable Propane cylinders from a larger Propane cylinder with a whole array of advice and adapters available to this end.
This is a link to an adaptor for sale with a video of how to use it.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261057532314?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
And here is a place selling an whole array of adapters and gas fittings that are of great interest.
http://www.propaneproducts.com/catalog/all-mr.-heater-parts-fittings-hoses-37-1.html
But this has to be my favourite link with a lot of discussion both positive and negative at the bottom.
http://www.navagear.com/2009/08/27/how-to-refill-disposable-propane-cylinders/
im very tempted to set myself up to do this and wondered what you lot think about doing this and if infact any of you already do?
This is a link to an adaptor for sale with a video of how to use it.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261057532314?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
And here is a place selling an whole array of adapters and gas fittings that are of great interest.
http://www.propaneproducts.com/catalog/all-mr.-heater-parts-fittings-hoses-37-1.html
But this has to be my favourite link with a lot of discussion both positive and negative at the bottom.
http://www.navagear.com/2009/08/27/how-to-refill-disposable-propane-cylinders/
im very tempted to set myself up to do this and wondered what you lot think about doing this and if infact any of you already do?