Using butane?

iveofione

iveofione

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For several years I have been using Gas One butane that I buy in 12 packs from Amazon. Today I wanted to order more and possibly avoid the upcoming tariffs before they arrive. To my surprise it is no longer being shipped by Amazon but by a host of other outfits that I have never heard of. It is risky to order from these unknown suppliers as you never know if the product will actually be delivered or not. I decided to roll the dice and see if the fly-by-night supplier will actually ship it. If not, I am only out $33 and will be wiser for the experience. If they do ship as advertised I will order another 12 pack immediately as I sense that prices are going way up soon. A 12 pack lasts me about a year so it would be nice to have about 30 months worth on hand. The 12 pack worked out to $2.69 apiece, in the stores individual cans can run $4-$6 apiece. I saw one ad this morning for a 4 pack at over $28!

Just a heads up for you guys that use butane stoves or Kovea Cupid heaters. Plan ahead to have this stuff on hand as I think almost all of it is made in Korea.
 
iveofione said:
For several years I have been using Gas One butane that I buy in 12 packs from Amazon. Today I wanted to order more and possibly avoid the upcoming tariffs before they arrive. To my surprise it is no longer being shipped by Amazon but by a host of other outfits that I have never heard of. It is risky to order from these unknown suppliers as you never know if the product will actually be delivered or not. I decided to roll the dice and see if the fly-by-night supplier will actually ship it. If not, I am only out $33 and will be wiser for the experience. If they do ship as advertised I will order another 12 pack immediately as I sense that prices are going way up soon. A 12 pack lasts me about a year so it would be nice to have about 30 months worth on hand. The 12 pack worked out to $2.69 apiece, in the stores individual cans can run $4-$6 apiece. I saw one ad this morning for a 4 pack at over $28!

Just a heads up for you guys that use butane stoves or Kovea Cupid heaters. Plan ahead to have this stuff on hand as I think almost all of it is made in Korea.
Click to expand...
Is this for your Iwatani? (Hope I spelled that right)
 
I use one of the butane stoves on my boat when it's too hot to use the main diesel stove. The cheapest I found the butane cartridges was at an Asian grocery store in Silverdale ($2/can, and the stoves were $20!). This was in 2022 so prices are probably higher today. I haven't tried any other such stores but suspect they'd be a good place to look -YMMV.
 
Yes, I cook with the Iwatani every day and of course on all of my camping trips so I like to have fuel on hand. In addition to the Iwatani I also use a Duxtop induction plate and haven't turned on the glass cooktop stove in several years. I have a Nuwave induction plate in the Casa also which can operate at 600, 900 or 1300W and is perfect for use with either of my power stations. With lots of solar and a new DC to DC charger in the Casa I won't be needing much butane anyway, I can make more electricity than I can use!
 
iveofione said:
For several years I have been using Gas One butane that I buy in 12 packs from Amazon. Today I wanted to order more and possibly avoid the upcoming tariffs before they arrive. To my surprise it is no longer being shipped by Amazon but by a host of other outfits that I have never heard of. It is risky to order from these unknown suppliers as you never know if the product will actually be delivered or not. I decided to roll the dice and see if the fly-by-night supplier will actually ship it. If not, I am only out $33 and will be wiser for the experience. If they do ship as advertised I will order another 12 pack immediately as I sense that prices are going way up soon. A 12 pack lasts me about a year so it would be nice to have about 30 months worth on hand. The 12 pack worked out to $2.69 apiece, in the stores individual cans can run $4-$6 apiece. I saw one ad this morning for a 4 pack at over $28!

Just a heads up for you guys that use butane stoves or Kovea Cupid heaters. Plan ahead to have this stuff on hand as I think almost all of it is made in Korea.
Click to expand...
Are you saying you're ordering through Amazon but it's being fulfilled by a third party?

That is normal and really common if that's the case. In fact a lot of packages, being delivered by an alternate shivery company, never see an Amazon warehouse. I had several accounts that sold on Amazon, but did all the Amazon processing at their location. Amazon supplied them a thermal printer and Prime tape and boxes. Was funny if package was returned, it would not go to Amazon, but UPS clerks would put a label over old one going back to my customer (rather than the return address on label).
 
iveofione said:
at 10:13 I got a notice that my order had been shipped!
Click to expand...
A lot of times, the notice just means that they created a shipping label and the actual shipment might happen that same day or some later date.
 
I ordered this stuff on January 22 and received it on January 29, not bad considering the time year and UPS refusal to come up my road in the snow. It was exactly as ordered so today I wanted to order more but found that it had gone up by about $3.00 since I last ordered. Looking around for a better deal I found a 12 pack at Walmart for $7.48 off and ordered 12 cans for under $30 including tax and shipping. That brings the unit price down to around $2.50 and gives me a couple of years supply on hand. Since I cook with it every day I want a lot on hand before SHTF.

There seems to be a lot of confusion between butane and propane for camping. To simplify things, butane just doesn't work at temps below 31 degrees. Below that it can't vaporize so it is not useful in real cold weather. In contrast, propane needs to drop below -40 degrees before it fails to vaporize. Since I no longer camp in freezing weather my Iwatani stove is perfect for all of my needs. Iwatani includes a heat diffuser in their models that extends their range by bleeding some heat away from the burner area and running it along the canister to keep it warm. I don't know if the cheap knockoffs are doing this yet but it is another good reason to buy Iwatani instead of an imitation.
 
Ive,

Based on your reports I bought an Iwatani stove about a year ago and used it last summer. It's everything you said it was. My favorite camping stove by far. So when you posted about the good deal on Amazon, I also ordered another case of fuel. I only use it when camping, so I may have hoarded a lifetime supply of fuel canisters by now. Thanks much for your market research!
 
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I, too, bought an Iwatani stove on Ive's recommendation. It's great when I don't want or need my 2-burner Camp Chef.
 
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More butane news. I have the little Kovea Cupid butane heater and have not been happy with it although most every review I read praises it highly. Mine gives off fumes and after years of almost daily use I have never smelled anything out of my Iwatani butane stove. And yes, it is used often in the Casa where fumes would show up in an instant if they were there.
So I am doing research on other butane heaters in hopes of finding one that burns as clean as the Iwatani stove. I came across one called the Naturehike 3 in 1 portable heater and stove that is apparently new on the market. Reviews are very sketchy at this point but it is an interesting product that has a footprint just a bit smaller than the Cupid. Calling it a stove is just wrong although it can heat things if given enough time. Any good stove would heat about 10x faster and make far better use of the fuel. But as just a heater it appears that it will burn longer than the Cupid because the flame can be turned down lower with 3 heat levels instead of the 2 found on the Cupid. Heat output is about the same as the Cupid, perhaps a bit higher. It is made in China whereas the Kovea Cupid is made in Korea. Naturehike is around $104 on Amazon, the Cupid about $90.

Another new entry into the butane heaters market is another Chinese product called The First Penguin Heater. It seems that it is even newer to market than the Naturehike and I see a trend here already of Chinese butane heaters becoming as prevalent as every other knock off product on the market. The usual progression is for one product to leapfrog the previous one with improvements on each iteration and eventually flooding the market with clones. This might already be underway as the Penguin claims a much longer burn time than the Naturehike which claims a longer burn time than the Cupid. At about $90 the Penguin has already lowered prices and on the surface it appears to be equal or better than the competition but so far few reviews. Penguin does not recommend cooking on their unit and I think that is sage advice.

With warm weather coming there is little need to rush out and buy any of these but I will keep my eye on the market and expect some real upgrades by next fall. Hopefully by then I can buy the latest and greatest and replace the one that is giving off fumes.

Keep in mind that butane powered stuff is just wonderful until it freezes but won't function below about 31 degrees unless you keep the canisters warm. When I was winter mountaineering back in the 60's I carried a butane stove but always kept it in my sleeping bag at night, it always worked without the hassle of a white gas stove.
 
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