10" Outback Oven or Coleman camp oven?

[HPMG]

I would like to step it up and do some baking in camp this year, I have narrowed it down to these two ovens. Does anybody have any experience with or opinions on either one?


Yeah, I know....I should be using a dutch oven, but I just don't want to deal with charcoal.

[BoscoBoater]

The Coleman ovens work do work fairly well, but I find that you have to monitor the flame pretty close to keep a steady temperature. They also collapse into a nice small flat square for easy packing.

[teletoes]

Most of the river baking I've seen happens in dutch ovens using charcoal for fuel.

[bobbuilds]

We kayakers bake on the river all the time, I never saw the oven. That sounds impressive though, baking on the river. mmm brownies. good luck to you, never thought i'd see the day.....

[Osprey]

No experience with the coleman but used to use the Outback when backpacking all the time. It does work well, pizza, cake, biscuits, etc. Problem for rafting to me would be the size and time. It takes awhile and really only makes enough for a couple people at a time. You also need a stove with very good temp control and a certain setup to get it to work right. Like he said with the Coleman, you have to monitor it pretty close. If there are only a couple of you, I'd say go for it. With a bunch of people I'd breakout the charcoal.

[El Flaco]

I have a Coleman oven. It is kind of cheap and bends easily, but works passably for it's size. The only thing I use it for is to fire up a couple of pans of pillsbury cinnamon rolls for early morning before I get into the ranch-style breakfast once everyone wakes up.

It's pretty good for those rolls; not sure how it would do for more extravagant dinners. I have an assortment of dutch ovens that I use for dinners.

[HPMG]

I'm not cooking for a large group, mostly just my family. Pizza, Biscuits and maybe a cobbler are about all I will be making...nothing too large so I assumed a 10" Outback Oven would be similar to a 10" DO but without the depth.

The problem with charcoal locally is that the forests restrict fires/charcoal use about halfway through summer because of fire danger, but you can use gas stoves all year.

I think I'll give the Outback a try....and when I need more volume, I'll break down and buy an aluminum DO.

Thanks!

[Chip]

Tested the Outback ovens (10 and 12-inch as I recall) for a book and used them on river trips. They're best suited to backpacking stoves. I'm not sure they'd work well with a steel-cased campstove with a full width grill. They're somewhat fussy to set up and monitor. Good for pizza, cinnamon rolls, flatbreads, ciabatta and that sort of thing. The pan included also doubles as a lightweight skillet and there's a circular plastic cutting board.

If you have a Coleman, Primus, or Partner stove, the basic box type, the Coleman camp oven might be a better choice.

[HPMG]

It will be used on both a box stove, and a Coleman Expedition 2 burner (bought after reading your reviews, and love it!) I assume it will not work well on the box stove because the heat shield/insulator needs to drop below the bottom of the stove cooking surface?

[yakrafter]

No experience with outback, but I used the coleman as my main stove in my cabin for over a year...actually that was well over a decade ago, and I no longer have it, so if you have a source or link, that would be great.Got mine a Wal-Mart, but have not seen them since. Folds up nice. Thermometer on the front.

I used it almost every day. Yeah, you have to pay attention to what you are doing, but that is called baking.

Not what you asked, but I have had very good luck with taking foil wrapped casarole dishes and putting them on the grill, rotating often, with the firepan lid placed above to make a 1/2 closed oven (the real trick). Anything you can make in a pan will work. Make it at home, wrap it in foil, vac seal it and voila. Can be cook or just reheat. Toast some bread on the side.

Yo.