REVIEW: Camp Chef Mountaineer 2 Burner Stove

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There comes a time when your not-so-serious hobby crosses the line into serious territory. You’ll know exactly when that happens. There’s this inner push to keep learning, and keep progressing forward. Cooking is one of those things. One day, you’re making spaghetti from a jar, and the next you’re in a kitchen for a few days prepping all of Thanksgiving dinner. There’s a moment in between those two meals that you realize that this for fun hunt to create delicious food could be more than just, well, for fun. Maybe it’s trying to perfect your first steak, or maybe you wanted to impress someone and try your hand at Gordan Ramsey’s beef Wellington recipe. It really doesn’t matter --the inner fire has been stoked.

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Camp cooking is a whole different game, but the same thoughts apply. On one trip, you’re boiling water to put into a dehydrated food bag, another trip you’ve burnt hot dogs on a pan, and, finally, you get to the point where you realize that you want to take your outdoor adventures to the next level --and this means good quality food cooked from scratch (or as close to it as camping possible). This is the moment when a little pocket rocket, or JetBoil, stove just won’t do. What you really want is BTU. All of the BTUs. What you desire is the pure bred twin-turbo, two nitrous bottles (the big ones!) of peak performance. The all aluminum Camp Chef Mountaineer is just that.

The stove has everything you need to cook wonderful meals outside. It has a three-way windscreen, matchless ignition, a hose that connects to, what I call, the big-boy 5-to-20lb propane bottles, and power controls that go from a searing blast furnace to a gentle simmer.

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Who is this made for

Like any hobby, don’t expect to be able to jump into professional level equipment without having a solid understanding of its fundamentals --it’s never the paint brush that makes artists great. This is a stove where you need to have real confidence in your abilities in the kitchen. You can easily burn off the seasoning of your cast iron pan if you left it alone at full blast. As the great Stan Lee said, “with great power, comes great responsibility.” But with that power, and the knowledge of how to use it, comes delicious food while camping.

This is a stove that’s made for those people that take cooking seriously, know what they’re doing in the kitchen, but want to take their hobby to the outdoors.

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Pros:

  • Can boil a giant pot of water in less than 10 minutes

  • Can also be brought to a very gentle simmer

  • Able to put an incredible sear on any protein

  • Able to add wok hei (breath of the wok) into saute’d vegetables, noodles

  • It looks incredible

  • Easy to clean (Take some all purpose cleaner to it, and spray it all down with the garden hose once you’re home)

Cons:

  • Price

  • It’s far too big

  • Knobs are finicky to dial in to the desired heat. Cannot be learned through muscle memory. you have to look at the flame as you’re adjusting the knobs.

  • The aluminum around the knobs can get hot to the touch after long periods of cooking

  • Very propane thirsty

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TL;DR:

This stove will burn all your food if you’re not careful. But, if you’re comfortable in the kitchen, the beast can be tamed to create incredible dishes in whatever kitchen back drop you so desire.

If you desire this stove, but don’t want to put down the extra chunk of cash, or afraid of burning your food, the Camp Chef’s Everest 2x is an incredible alternative. It’s cheaper, smaller, the burners put out the same 20,000 BTUs, and the knobs have much finer and more nuanced adjustments.

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