GEAR | Primus Onja Double Burner Portable Stove – Review
What we tested
Primus Onja double camping stove
Powered by Primus 100 g, 230 g or 450 g canister gas
Stockists
- €129.95 from Primus Buy it here
- Check Price On Amazon.co.uk
The lowdown
The first thing that struck us about the Onja stove was the design. It’s so sleek and hip looking, I didn’t know if I wanted to just sit and stare at it, or actually cook on it.
Open the straps, and remove the thick oak chopping board to start cooking on the Onja. Pull the legs apart to create a wide, stable cooking surface, then turn it onto one side to screw in your gas canster underneath (you will need 2 if you want to cook on both burners).
The smallest 100g gas canister available for the Onja is shown in the picture above, and costs around £3.50; available from outdoors shops like Go Outdoors and Decathlon. We’ve been told that this kind of gas will operate at a lower temperature from the long, thin aerosol gas canisters we’ve used in the past.
The gas is easy to attach with the screw in threads, and once secure, you’re ready to start cooking. We only had a small lighter with us, so lighting the stove did require some pretty quick reflexes; we’d recommend using long matches or a long lighter designed for starting BBQs and fires.
Thanks to the design, once in use, the burners are partially shielded from the wind, and we found that our breakfast bacon and eggs cooked pretty quickly outdoors on a fairly windy morning, with the stove in an exposed area on top of a table.
Despite the stove being quite narrow, we felt it did an excellent job of heating the pan and cooking our food, performing perhaps slightly better than our old briefcase style single burner stove.
The verdict
The Primus Onja stove is beautifully designed and quite unlike any camping stove we’ve come across so far. It’s simple and intuitive to use and highly portable too, which makes it ideal for camping, picnics and days out at the beach. It’s smaller than some other double burner stoves we’ve seen which makes it a practical choice, especially if you are limited on space.
Our only gripe was with the cooking surface. We used our usual camping pan and a large based frying pan on the stove, and whilst both fitted despite being larger than typical camping-specific pans, I did find that the frying pan had a tendency to slide on the surface slightly.
This meant that when stirring or turning food over, it was necessary to keep one hand on the handle, to hold it steady and stop it toppling off.
Summary
- Beautiful minimalist design
- Easy to use and practical
- The lack of auto-ignition may put some off
- Wooden board that clips to the top is a nice touch and doubles up as a chopping/serving board
- Handy shoulder carry strap
- Watch out for pans shifting slightly on the narrow grill top
- Gas is more expensive than common aerosol style gas that can be easily picked up at any supermarket
- Compact size double burner
Thank you to Primus who provided the Onja stove for us to review. We were not paid to write this review.
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