Gear Review: Coleman 424 Dual Fuel Stove

We’ve had our Coleman 424 Dual Fuel Stove for years. Mostly because a few years ago it quit working. We changed out the generator but that didn’t help. I was working at REI at the time, and I found a Coleman combination grill/stove at a garage sale for something like $20. So the 424 ended up in the shed with all the other gear we never use but won’t get rid of for some reason.

The combo grill/stove runs on propane. Specifically, those small propane canisters. We’ve used this grill for a couple of years now, and I like it. It works great, it’s reliable and easy to use. But the propane canister thing has always been a hangup.

See, those propane canisters aren’t recyclable. And you never get all the propane out of them. Once they get too low, the stove won’t work anymore. So they get tossed before they’re totally empty. What a waste!

We didn’t want to contribute to landfills like that, so we pulled out the 424 again. We replaced the generator (again) and on our deck at home, Michael got it to work just fine. So we took it along on the trip.

We also brought a backup – our MSR Dragonfly backpacking stove.

We needed it. I finally named the 424 “Vera, the World’s Most Temperamental Stove.” You practically had to sweet-talk Vera to get her to work. Sometimes we’d put a pot on the burner just so that we didn’t have to look at the orange wall of flames coming off it. Usually we’d eventually get a nice blue flame from Vera. But not always. So the bottoms of the two pans we cook with have a nice, thick layer of soot on them.

Look, it’s not just us! I found a great website by a Dutch couple who’ve been traveling in their Land Cruiser since 2003: LandCruisingAdventure.com. I found a whole post where Coen talks about his and Karin-Marijke’s adventures with their 424:

“I will admit that the Coleman stove isn’t like a normal propane or camping gas where you turn the knob and have a regulated flame. After preheating the generator, getting your flame to burn nicely with blue flames (instead of orange) requires the right pressure. And while altitude and fuel quality have great affects on the blueness of your flame, once you get to know your stove well, I find it not that hard to manage (Karin-Marijke doesn’t entirely agree with me on this issue).”

Sounds kinda familiar…

Anyway, we plan on sticking with the 424 because of the fuel it burns. It runs best on white gas, and you can find that at just about any outdoor store, Wal-Mart, and the occasional gas station. White gas burns at high altitudes, low temperatures, you name it. And the true beauty of this stove is that it actually will run on regular gasoline too (hence the “dual fuel” in the name). So it can go anywhere.

I guess I’ll just have to learn to work with Vera.