Buying Camper Stove Fuel on the Trail

[pangea89]

Hi all,

I'll be doing my first camino this September/October. I'll be starting in Paris and camping along the way and plan on following the Camino Frances route once I make it in to Spain.

I plan on cooking my own food along the way using my camper stove (jetboil). I'm just wondering if it's common to see isobutane/propane canisters in the supermarkets along the way?

Thanks!

 

[Dinkumdigger]

Hi all,

I'll be doing my first camino this September/October. I'll be starting in Paris and camping along the way and plan on following the Camino Frances route once I make it in to Spain.

I plan on cooking my own food along the way using my camper stove (jetboil). I'm just wondering if it's common to see isobutane/propane canisters in the supermarkets along the way?

Thanks!

You won't find gas canisters in supermarkets.
Try instead ferreterias (ironmongers) or some outdoor stores.
You may have to make do with a taller,plumbers blowtorch,size canister.
Buen Camino

 

[peregrina2000]

I walked the Levante from Valencia a few years ago. On day 3 I met two Frenchmen who had a jet boil and we walked into Santiago together. They used it only to make coffee in the morning before leaving and for their 10 am break. No matter where we were they brewed the perfect espresso on their jetboil. But they were running out after a couple of weeks and the only town where they found it was in Toledo in the Decathlon, but it is a few kms out of town.

The camino France's goes through a number of cities with Decathlon stores so you should be fine, but I wouldn't expect to find the canisters in a supermarket or your ordinary Ferreteria. Good luck!

 

[SYates]

From Paris until you hit the 'pilgrim infrastructure' of the main routes that set-up will serve you fine, after that it really will be a burden. In France you can buy those blue containers at nearly every gas station/big supermarket - after that - very difficult and frankly not really necessary.
Buen Camino, SY

 

[peregrina2000]

From Paris until you hit the 'pilgrim infrastructure' of the main routes that set-up will serve you fine, after that it really will be a burden. In France you can buy those blue containers at nearly every gas station/big supermarket - after that - very difficult and frankly not really necessary.
Buen Camino, SY

I May be totally wrong because I've never used one of these things myself. But I think the jet boil uses a special kind of gas. And I don't think it's readily available in supermarkets in Spain.

 

[Xali1970]

You could maybe invest in a multifuel stove, it can burn on any liquid fuel you can find, including diesel.

 

[Tia Valeria]

This subject raises the question of camping and fires. At campsites fine but wild camping and fires (including probably stoves) is illegal in many areas because of the wild fire risk. Please be careful and aware.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

I don't recall coming across fuel canisters along the Camino Frances but then I didn't look for them.

Gas fuel canisters come in two types: threaded, self-sealing and non-threaded self-sealing. The non-threaded are popular in Europe. One brand is Campingaz. Only a few stoves will accept both types of canisters; one is MSR's Superfly but it does not look like it works like a Jetboil. I had hoped to backpack in the Pyrennes and the limited research I did seemed to indicate that one type of canister was much more common in France and the other in Spain. Not already having a canister stove I picked up the SuperFly for flexibility. However, I did not end up using the stove in Europe so I cannot report on the availability of the two types of canisters.

Anyway, in addition to looking for the availability of canisters look into the availability of the canister that fits your stove.

Alcohol suitable for use as a fuel may be abundant along the camino. You would need a different stove (but it would likely be cheap.) It wouldn't cook as fast as your current stove.

 

[Dinkumdigger]

I've walked CF twice with a micro gas stove - screws onto the canister - and not had any trouble finding replacement canisters in ferreterias,they don't all stock them but plenty do.
Last year,in Santiago,there were 4 left in the kitchen cupboard of the albergue that I stayed in.I took one and it did me to Muxia,Fisterra and all the way back to Ribadeo.

 

[homebuilt]

You could take with you a converter to change a campingaz canister to a screw thread.

https://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.c...-technologies-puncture-cartridge-adaptor-p390

http://kovea.com/product/p-adaptor/

Better picture

http://www.lusuh.com.my/padaptor-kovea-1004

 

[homebuilt]

You could maybe invest in a multifuel stove, it can burn on any liquid fuel you can find, including diesel.

So when you have bought a fuel can at a petrol station and filled it with the minimum amount that you can buy (4 - 5 liters) and you only need half a liter what do you do with what's left? You could always buy a multifuel stove that runs on camping gas then you would not have the problem of disposing excess liquid fuel.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

You could take with you a converter to change a campingaz canister to a screw thread.

I was curious and so I did a look around for adapters and found a webpage that @pangea89 would find informative: http://cycleseven.org/markhill-edelrid-gas-adaptor The page has pictures of one in use, availability and cost of the canisters in a couple of countries and information on sizes.

 

[homebuilt]

The is also a review on YouTube

 

[Xali1970]

So when you have bought a fuel can at a petrol station and filled it with the minimum amount that you can buy (4 - 5 liters) and you only need half a liter what do you do with what's left? You could always buy a multifuel stove that runs on camping gas then you would not have the problem of disposing excess liquid fuel.

Petrol, diesel, methylated spirits, gin, vodka, rhum, whiskey, lighter fluid, liquid barbecue lighting fluid, kerosene, lamp oil, or any flammable liquid; some have adapters for screw on gas canisters.
Re. Petrol :ask at stations before you buy, people tend to be friendly and helpful when asked politely, or donate the remainder of the minimum order to the attendant. With a litre bottle @ €1.60/L it's still cheaper than canister gas @ €2.00 for piercable ones (220g) or €10.00+ for the 500g screw on type

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

My normally used system and browser combination doesn't allow me to view youtube and a lot of other sites (please, that's not a topic for discussion.) I used a different system recently to view some of the links above and that lead me to do some more research. It will take me a bit of time to to put things together so please come back to this thread soon if you are interested in this topic.

 

[GreatDane]

I plan on cooking my own food along the way using my camper stove (jetboil). I'm just wondering if it's common to see isobutane/propane canisters in the supermarkets along the way?

Below is the contact info for the JetBoil distributor in Spain. You might be able to find out from them the best places to buy fuel on the route. I'd love to pack my Zip next trip! (but at a minimum will bring my Ultralight drip system and hope for access to a kettle. Dos or tres café con leche per stop just doesn't cut it if you are a 3 pot a day coffee addict like I am.)

SPAIN - PORTUGAL
Banola Outdoors, S.L.
Apartado 235
E20280 Hondarribia
SPAIN
p: +34 629530397
f: +34 943647293
Contact: Josean Bandres
e: banola.outdoors@gmail.com

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Warning: I may know a bit about the stove stuff below but there is more that I don't know. Consider everything below to be a starting point for your own research. And pay attention to all the safety warnings you come across.


Earlier I wrote:
Gas fuel canisters come in two types: threaded, self-sealing and non-threaded self-sealing.

Those canisters come with a collar on top and a stem in middle. But you are likely also to come across a third type, a non-sealing canister with a smooth top that gets punctured. By non-sealing I mean that once punctured by the stove the canister and the stove cannot be separated (safely) until the canister is empty. The ones that are self-sealing can be separated and the gas remains in the canister. This can be useful when hiking because space considerations and also because if the gas control value on the stove gets turned on accidentally the stove and canister are not connected you don't lose the fuel or set anything ablaze.

Here are pictures showing the tops of these three canisters:

sealing threaded:

sealing non-threaded:

non-sealing:


I think Jetboil stoves are typically of the type that screw unto the threaded canisters.

I've read that the threaded types are the most common worldwide (there are many brands) but that the non-threaded types are the most common ones in France (it appears to me with my limited research that these are mostly sold under the CampinGaz brand.) Some stoves, like MSR's Superfly, can attach to both these types. You can get an adapter that will allow a stove that normally screws into threaded canisters to attach to a non-threaded canister. Here is a picture of one:


[ Edit: The converter could be discarded to save weight if it turns out that you can easily get the threaded canisters in Spain. ]

CampinGaz also distributes canisters of the type that are punctured and it seems that they may be easy to find thoughout Europe. They are cheaper than the self-sealing canisters. A few websites have cautioned that there are safety issues with these. The Kovea/Edelrid converter that @homebuilt mentioned and linked to above will allow a connection between this kind of canister to a threaded stove. Here are those links again:
https://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.c...-technologies-puncture-cartridge-adaptor-p390
http://kovea.com/product/p-adaptor/
http://www.lusuh.com.my/padaptor-kovea-1004

[ Edit: The youtube id of the above video is pptkpueB_PQ ]

And here is a picture of a similar converter:


The initial comment/description on the youtube webpage points us to another webpage with written information for the converter: http://weekend-adventurer.blogspot.com/2014/12/puncture-canister-adapter-edelrid.html

All these canisters may come in different sizes. For connections to the collared, self-sealing types there should be no connection problem but some canisters may be too tall to have a stable platform for cooking. The puncture type of canisters may also come in different sizes but as you can see in the illustrations the converter will only fit one size of these.

I came upon a couple of other sites that are helpful.

Adventures in Stoving: http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com/
At the above site I found this page to be particularly useful: http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com/2012/01/gas-canisters-101.html

This webpage is specific to the Jetboil system and it shows how to convert other types of canisters to the Jetboil stove:
http://pedaldamnit.blogspot.com/2010/02/jetboil-personal-cooking-system-remote.html

 

[MTtoCamino]

Good info!

 

[jirit]

Years ago my wife and I travelled for a year. We took the gaz type stove and a multi fuel stove.

The former was only ideal for boiling water but only when the weather was warm, took forever on the cool autumn mornings. Don't bother trying the cook a two course dinner on a cold rainy evening.

It was a pain to dispose of the canisters and a bigger pain to find them and carry enough between places. Never again have I used this type of stove.

The multi fuel used white gas (Colemans), regular gasoline and kerosene. A real work horse, boiled water and cooked meals in a flash. Never a problem getting fuel. Never an environmental problem of disposing the canister since the stove came with its own refillable tank.

Hands down the best choice

 

[jirit]

Here is brief review of liquid multi fuel stoves.

Mine was the MSR Whisperlite International - probably the best stove on the market in its category.

http://thenextchallenge.org/liquid-multi-fuel-stoves/

 

[Evan Lacer]

Alcohol suitable for use as a fuel may be abundant along the camino. You would need a different stove (but it would likely be cheap.) It wouldn't cook as fast as your current stove.

+1. Alcohol stoves are commercially available (Trangia, Evernew, Toaks, etc.), and are inexpensive, lightweight and compact. They are slower than a Jetboil system, but silent.

It’s also quick and easy to make a simple version, no special materials or equipment required. See How to Make a Fancee Feast Stove for step-by-step instructions and video.