Just wondering if anyone has seen such a thing. By “large propane cylinders”, I mean the sort you use in an outdoor gas grill. We have a tiny thing that sits on the propane cylinders we have around for camping.
Obviously I’m hoping we won’t be out of power for all that long with the upcoming Unpleasantness… but in case we are, it’d be nice to be able to heat the canned foods. Could try it on the grill but that’s misbehaving - wouldn’t light up last time we tried.
Don’t worry, this would not be used indoors, outdoors only, not even in the opened-up garage, etc.
Related question: All the safety precautions say not to even STORE those large propane tanks inside - but I’m leery of leaving them outside in a hurricane!! Think they’d be OK in the garage as long as we don’t have cars going in and out and, yanno, doing their internal combustion thing nearby?
Forgot to mention: have tried googling for such a stove but haven’t had any luck. My google-fu is weak today.
A BBQ? Or something like a Colemanstove? Look in camping gear, there’s all kinds of useful and bizarre stuff to turn campgrounds into homes!
Wow. They even have a propane coffee maker and a propane toaster oven.
You can buy propane lots of things- some groups of Amish/Mennonites use propane powered devices because they don’t want electricity - things like propane refrigerators, for example
Coleman stove would be my answer. You can hook them up to all sizes of propane canisters, and they are very efficient at heating food in emergency situation. Google “propane camp stove” for other options.
Dewey - that propane oven is a marvel! We cook biscuits and cakes out in the field with one of those, and it works great.
I’m familiar with those Coleman stoves - we owned one, many years ago, but gave it away when we moved. Obviously right now I’m wishing we still had it :).
We have the PerfectFlow 1 Burner Stove they show (the kind that sits right on the small propane cylinder we have for our lantern). Which will be better than nothing, if it comes down to that.
Actually I did finally find something at Amazon - no photos, but it sure looks like it would attach to the gas-grill’s cylinders. Doesn’t appear that any local stores sell these, though.
It’s not the season - but the turkey deep fryer we got for Xmas one year is basically a propane burner on a stand. As a bonus, it came with two large pots and a strainer - so it’s almost minimal cooking kit in a box.
Google “Cajun cooker” to find those. A good one can melt lead. Not real handy for reheating canned food, but great if you are making soup for 15.
Mama - what you have there is a Cajun Cooker minus the legs. It will hook up to any propane canister.
Those are also really excellent for Asian cooking, or anything that requires a bunch of heat. My Thai aunt complained for years about how little heat her stove made and how she was never really able to get the results she wanted. My uncle bought one of those Cajun burners and built a custom cart for it, and I am happy to say it makes the best Thai food I have ever had.
If I were you, Mama Zappa, I’d call my local Sears or (Bass Pro Shop, if you’ve got one) and ask what they have in the way of “propane camp stoves.” Sears has a ton of different ones on their website like this one or this more expensive kind with a stand, but you’re obviously looking for something you can buy in a store. I don’t know where you are, so I can’t check store availability for you myself.
So long as you install the correct orifices, most basic gas ranges can run on a barbecue cylinder. At the Ren Faire, we had a couple stoves cooking just as if they were on natural gas at home. You may not be able to have all four burners and the oven blasting away, but for normal moderate cooking, it works. The problem we ran into is the newer BBQ tanks have excess flow cutoffs - our solution to that was to to run the stoves off a forklift cylinder that had no such safety devices.