This is a portable & lightweight butane stove that can be taken camping, caravanning, picnicking or used at home. This product is for outdoor use and now includes 2 overpressure sensors that will stop the flow of gas, if an over pressure situation is detected by the sensors
Dual overpressure safety sensors
Portable & lightweight
Includes a hard carry case
Buy another one and return with the old receipt?
A bit of fraud never goes astray…
If it really matters, just take your old receipt and ask for a refund of the difference and avoid the legal complications.
What legal complications?
@SnoozeAndLose: Being criminally charged with fraud.
If you're buying a product and returning it with another receipt you're being dishonest which constitutes fraud.
Unlikely to be charged but still, why risk it over 5 bucks.
@FicklePickle: The risk is minimal and the reward is $5.
As there is nothing to prove if the item returned purchased is new or old.
Does the reciept have a serial number? Batch number?
I bought one a couple of weeks ago too.
It's your typical cheapo portable stove. This one unfortunately has a fixed trivet - my old one had a removable trivet so it was easy to clean after use because you could just throw it in with the dishes. This one you'll just have to wipe down separately.
I had the same gasmate one….till it exploded at the beach one day.
Also festiva brand $15 at woolworths
Which is better of the two?
Gasmate
Plus Bunnings return policy is easier than Woolworths
Probably both made in the same factory
How many BTU?
It's 7 MJ/h which is ~6,635 BTU/h.
I have one, works great.
DO these use a standard BBQ gas bottle?
You'll need to be more specific as there are several standards. The most common BBQ gas bottle I can think of is the ~8.5kg LPG ones and this won't work with that as it's a butane cooker.
Butane cartridge.
Cheap and plentiful
OK thanks all.
Had one of these and after a few uses it started burning like crap, pure orange flame and left soot all over the bottom of pans. Tossed it and bought a dual burner LPG stove. Less convenient but much better overall IMO.
If you are going to get one please pay very close attention to the safety instructions enclosed in the box, these can and do go bang when misused. Of particular note is the restriction on pan sizes - using a pan that is too large can cause the gas canister to heat up and potentially explode or vent its contents. If you're using it and the gas canister does get hot then you are doing something very wrong as the can will naturally chill itself if being used correctly.
Convenient video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2acME3pz1Y
Thanks for the video. Very helpful.
What's the problem with pre 2015 cookers?
Cheap price, but beware these things can be extremely dangerous. I think they might even be banned in some states, but not certain on that.
I thought they were in the process of being phased out/banned everywhere, apparently not.
I think people are taking the use of it too lightly. It is a portable cooking stove and should be treated with the same / or more precautions as any other ‘gas’ stove.
I agree though for those who are less-informed or naive it can be quite dangerous.
They did get recalled a few years ago. Problem when used with large frying pans.
All good these days.
They were dangerous prior to 2016 when the standards were updated. Now it should be impossible to overheat a cartridge by using an oversized frying pan. The cartridges are now designed so they'll vent instead of blow up, and the gas flow is interrupted if the cartridge becomes too hot.
This burner looks like it has a ring to block some of the wind from blowing out the flame. A better design if one wants to use one of these burners outdoors.
Before attempting any of the following advice, please check the clamping force of your stove with a butane-can inserted. The clamp is rarely loose when closed, but it needs to be just a little bit tighter than you expect. As always, please use your senses and avoid brute forcing anything involving a can of flammable gas.
These are often made cheaply and therefore the standards can be quite iffy.
One thing I noticed while using them in the past, is the clamp / spring assembly which holds the butane-can in does a pretty poor job of compressing the butane-can tip enough / applying the proper pressure.
What happens is it is a few millimetres too loose, and this results in either poor pressure on the butane-can tip (where the fuel exits the can) resulting in limited fuel being released into the stove, and in an even worse scenario, the seal is poor & fuel is slowly leaking and accumulating around the area where it is connected.
My advice is to find something a few millimetres thick (start with 1-2mm) & the same size as the bottom of the butane-can, and place it at the tail end of the clamp (where the bottom of the can goes) and close the clamp (it should be a solid ‘lock’ feeling when pulling the lever). With a bit of testing, you will find out the appropriate thickness required as the clamp should be closable all-the-way, with a firm locking action. With this we were always able to get a solid flame and get the most out of the butane refills.
And equally important is when you are finished using the stove, unlock the clamp and slide butane-can back away from the connection (it can stay in the stove just make sure the butane-can nozzle is separated from the stove fuel connection).
This prevents any fuel leakage, however minor it may be, from the compressed tip.
Note: When the stove flame is set to max, the flame should be blue (means good fuel flow).
But what if the dual overpressure sensors were to fail?
I have one for 10 years,still going strong.
Used one of these as my only cooking stove for 8 months. Far exceeded my expectations. Still better for cooking fish and steak than the new induction. Would be expensive to run, but supercheap Autos $5 loyalty credit kept the stove running!
How did you manage to cook steak on 6000 BTUs without stewing it? Most natural gas home stoves are 10000BTU.
I have no idea how they do the ratings, but I can guarantee you this little gas stove will incinerate a steak if you run it at max. Also, see Janko's comment below. When we moved in the house only had an electric halogen cook top (absolute rubbish). This is far superior. The new induction is faster, but it doesn't cook as consistent as the gas top. It also seems to ruin pans with 'hotspots'.
I bought the exact same one few months ago and had to return it poor quality. The flame started pretty strong but after 10 mins continuous cooking on full load, it gets very low and even worse once the butane bottle goes pass 50%, the flame goes very low that makes it almost impossible to cook properly!! Not sure if I was just unlucky or it happened to all portable butane stove! I bought a new one from the local Korean shop and couldn't be happier!!
We had similar experience, first thought it was out-of-date butane-can. Then we bought brand-new ones (checked use-by-date) and same thing happened.
Read my comment above as it was the solution. Even the old butane-can worked perfectly after.
I always use a Iwatani 15,000 BTU/h model in preference to my 4 burner ceramic cooktop. Much prefer it, but major grip is that it's just too powerful. The "Simmer" setting is way too hot and I have to precisely set the flame to where it's just about to extinguish (by sight) to do most of my cooking.
So for anyone discouraged by the 6,600 BTU/h model shown here, I wouldn't be unless you do a lot of large wok cooking.
Iwatani bargains please :)
Gona love butane stoves, anyone see more deals post it here
Where can I get cheap butane gas cartridges?
Kmart, local Asian grocery
Related question, I've got some old butane canisters which have started rusting a bit and I'm keen to get rid of them, what's the safest way? How do you dispose of them or do you hook them up in a safe spot outdoors and run the stove until empty?
Could someone give an estimate of how much gas they'd consume for cooking different things?
For example, boiling water, cooking eggs, medium steak, chicken Pad Thai, butter chicken etc.
I reckon if all I cooked on it was 1 medium steak per night, I'd go for about 7-10 days on a Bunnings Gasmate can (just over a $1 each).
Thanks. So I suppose it at least competes with cost of running an electric stove.
For me One refill is enough for cooking 5 to 7 days, 2 to 3 meals per day
Just bought one last week at a loss of $5.05. Pretty solid item, and does the job better than I expected.