Been awhile since this topic was addressed. 

What do you prefer to cook over: a fire or a stove?  Assume there is no fire ban in effect, of course.  Feel free to comment below and make your case for why your preferred method/system is the best.

I used to cook over a fire 100% of the time.  Never could understand why anyone would want to pack in heavy stoves and fuel when cooking over a fire is free and saves a lot of weight in the pack.

Then I finally had to make a trip under a fire ban.  Brought along an old "green suitcase", the trusty Coleman two-burner stove.  My eyes were opened by the experience.  Yes, it was more weight and bulk in the packs but I found that cooking was much quicker and easier, plus the cleanup time was greatly reduced.  After that trip, I resoved to stay with stove cooking.  I did quickly realize that two single-burners were much lighter to pack and provided much better heat control than the old suitcase so that's what I use now (and sometimes even a 3rd for larger groups).

I still use a fire for foil-baked trout or the rare trips where I am base-camping and I bring a reflector oven, but that's about it.

I've been using a Century propane 2 burner stove for some time .  The stove weights 8 lbs and for a 5 day trip we bring 4 cylinders which get divided between our packs.  So much easier to cook due to better heat control and no black pots at the end of the trip.

About 90% stove, but there are somethings that IMHO need a fire to bring out the full flavor.
Baked/Grilled Laker would be one of them, and of course reflector oven baked goods.

We used to cook on the fire all of the time, but we used to break camp and move every day, paddle a lot farther, portage a lot longer, and do everything a lot more energetically than we do now.   ;)

There are only two of us.  One small stove is fine for our simple meals, and it is a great convenience.  If clean firewood is readily available (read that:  no pine), we will cook on the fire.  And if we feel like bothering.  But now, if we don't feel like bothering, we use the stove.  In the morning I like to get up really early and have a quick cup of coffee even before the fire is getting going anyway.

We will often build a pine fire, even with just twigs and the little stuff that accumulates around the campsite, for our morning warm-up fire, or our evening campfire to sit around and enjoy.  Toast a few marshmallows. 

I think we probably are in the 50-50 group, but more and more we are tending to do our cooking on the stove and save the fire for atmosphere.

I don't remember the big suitcase Coleman stove fondly.  Can't tell you what our little tiny stove now is called, but it is small and lightweight, you don't have to use a match to light it, and I like it a lot.  When I bake on it I use a diffuser and my small Jello-mold oven, and create some tasty treats.

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Fire....if you are getting wood and washing.

Stove....if it is me solo

Defnitely use both.  I have found that for us, typically a larger size group of 6+ people on a 8-10 day trip, fire cooking is usually preferable for the cooked meals, as the fuel required for the large one-pot meals begins to be absurd.  In one fire-ban trip with 9 people for 10 days, we burned through 2 gallons using 2 MSR Dragonfly stoves, which are pretty efficient for the task.  Much of the fuel was used on the fish fry meals and baking, but it just takes a long time to boil water for that many people (just for meals and hot drinks, not for purifying drinking water).  Plus, you have the helping hands so firewood collection, fire building/maintaining, cooking and cleaning can all be separate tasks.  However, I still prefer to bake on a stove.

For smaller crews, the convenience of a stove often wins, especially if a fire is not desired.

I'm hoping that everyone knows to apply soap to the outside of pots prior to cooking over a fire.  Do it once at the start of a trip and it forms a good black coating.  At the end of the trip, you can wash off pretty easily.

I can cook on a stove at home. I go camping to cook on a fire.

Mix. More stove/ simpler meals when solo.  More fire cooking with canoe buddy (who loves to cook and usually takes on most of it): light aluminum dutch-oven for biscuits and cornbread; light clamping grill for fish.  Have yet to find the fuel stove with good flame adjustment.  I use mainly white gas and an MSR, right now, and it seems to have two adjustments: hell for leather, or off.  Have had it apart and cleaned, but can't find any other adjustment.

Stove +90% of the time.  It's easy and quick.  I can be eating faster than I can have fire ready for cooking on.

If I have a fire going I do like to keep a pot on for tea or even just dring hot water on a cold day.

Sometimes I bring food for the fire.  Weiners or wings or ribs.

One of the things that I like best about my Brunton Optimus stove is that it came with a complete travel repair kit and tool for disassembly. If I only have one stove along this is it since it can always be fixed if it fails.

Kingfisher wrote on May 8^th, 2012 at 5:54pm:

One of the things that I like best about my Brunton Optimus stove is that it came with a complete travel repair kit and tool for disassembly. If I only have one stove along this is it since it can always be fixed if it fails.

Trangia!  Nothing to break.  Nothing to repair.  :D

Agree with ST.  Stove for everything except Lakers. 

My goal with cooking is quick and easy.  Just add hot water, self-made, dehydrated food.  The prep time takes place at home, not during valuable Q time.  And its delicious IMO.  Fried fish is the exception, but that too is done on the stove.  If everything goes as planned, fish will play a part in at least 3 of our 7 dinners (walleye tacos, grilled/baked trout, pike chowder)...I'm getting hungry (and off topic).

stove all the time.  I don't cook, just boil water

total weight for 12 day solo tirp = 35 ounces  add to that 2 or 3 ounces for my bowl, cup and spoon, and that's all I need.
goes up to about 50 ounces for two people
have never gone to Quetico with a group larger than 4 people - still use a stove for that if it happens.

no fuss, no muss;  no need for heavy duty saw and maybe axe for splitting wood.  I've done trips where it rained 10 out of 12 days - that makes it a fair bit harder to gather dry wood unless its split sawn logs.

Travel every day but one (or maybe 2 layover days) on a 12 day trip, so I want to be able to hit camp, set up the tent, and be eating as quickly as possible, especially if I don't get there till 7 - likewise in the morning, I want to be up and moving as soon as I can to beat the wind.  I may build a fire most nights, or not, if its not too much trouble - but if wood is scarce, or its raining, or I just don't feel like it, then no fire.  Aside from not wanting to cook over a fire, I don't have the equipment for it - except cooking fish on a stick.

We use the fire as much as possible, however, we will use a stove if we are just doing something quick in preparation of a move.  For example if we are breaking camp, most likely we will just heat water on the stove for oatmeal and coffee.  Less worry dealing with putting out the fire. 

Fire almost all of the time.  I do bring a small one burner stove in case I want quicker coffee or it is too wet to want to make a fire or too late and fire wood is scarce.
Fire in mid-summer is often too hot to stand near to cook.  I would say my fire cooks faster or as fast as a stove regarding boiling water; however trying to cook on a BWCA grate is not so easy...takes a long time to heat the grate up enough to really start cooking.  I put a flat rock under my fire to raise it closer to the grate and cut down on how big the fire has to be.  I might be the one you are cursing when you have to drag the rocks back out of the fire pit.   ;D  I also sometimes take an S hook of sturdy wire (coat hanger) and hang the pot from the grate and over the fire to get it closer to the heat.
It's nice to have a little smoke from the fire to hide in when the bugs are bad.
I don't soap my pots but I do wrap each one in a rag from an old sheet.  They still nest into a tidy package but don't make each other sooty or my pack.  When I get home I either just clean the inside and wrap in a fresh rag or if I really want them clean something like Zip-strip paint remover will take the black off pretty easily.

Stove for boiling water, making spaghetti, eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, etc.  Fire for foil-baked trout and for reflector oven for pizza and muffins.

Gathering firewood = loss of fishing time.   :thumbdown

Quote:

We use the fire as much as possible, however, we will use a stove if we are just doing something quick in preparation of a move.  For example if we are breaking camp, most likely we will just heat water on the stove for oatmeal and coffee.  Less worry dealing with putting out the fire.

Ditto.  And since most of our trips have been moving trips, this means using a stove most mornings.

On layover days and when the kids are with, we almost always have a fire both morning and evening which is then used for cooking.  Personally there are few things more enjoyable to me than the dawn experience, having a pot of cowboy coffee, and working the immediate shoreline for whatever is swimming by.

On the more serious fishing and distance trips, the stove is used on almost every meal, excluding the fishfry.  Campfires might be made later on before dark.

-YB

We, 6 of us, use both. We normally base camp. We do bring steak, ribs and venison brats to cook over fire as well as thick bacon, yummy!  Back on point, we do carry two whisperlights as the balance of meals are reconstituted.
Strange mix I know, but we eat well!

I can see where a fire would be the way to go on a trip of say a month or longer...........and I do enjoy cooking over coals and agree that foil laker on coals is the way to go.

But for me if the trip is not aggressive I will bring 2 stoves. One MSR pocket rocket which boils water like "right now" and an MSR wind pro where a wider dispersal of flame makes for less potential for burning.

I have always been one to like all the food done at the same time......hence 2 stoves.