Coghlan's Camp Stove Toaster

Nothing beats having toast in the morning with your eggs (pun intended). What is not great though is having a product that rusts within the first week you own it and something that falls apart while you are cooking.

There are a lot of collapsible camp toasters out there that are not only lightweight but very durable, but at the expense of being costly. I saw this Coghlan's Toaster for under $4 dollars and thought I hit the jackpot and saved myself $16 from buying it versus those on the market for around $20 bucks. I was SOOOOO Wrong!!!!

                                      Coghlan's Camp Stove Toaster

I wanted to begin by saying I am an avid cook with over 40 years experience. When it comes to cooking and cookware and utensils, I am very critical in my reviews and it is time to take the gloves off.

The Coghlan's Camp Stove Toaster did not meet my expectations for a camp toaster. The design is very flimsy and falls apart easily when moving around or flipping bread to toast the other side. The camp toaster uses thin bent metal poles that are suppose to overlap one another and fit in holes on the heating plate to secure the poles to the toaster assembly.

Within the very first week after I washed this camp toaster to remove any factory oil that may be on it the toaster began to rust. This is the pinnacle of signs that this toaster was cheaply made.  

Within minutes of trying to assemble this camp toaster I noticed several design flaws. The thin metal supporting poles for the toast would collapse on its own whenever I moved it or as soon as I put bread on to it. I took four garbage ties and removed the plastic portion from the ties and used them to secure the contraption by tying the garbage ties to each of the supporting poles for the toaster. With each of the supporting poles attached to one another by these garbage ties, I was finally able to actually use this camp toaster for the purpose it was intended for. I also apply Pam spray on the entire toaster and supporting poles to prevent further rusting, which so far has worked.

                                                         Conclusion 

This purchase was obviously not a good one. Despite being able to jury rig a solution to Coghlan's design flaw, both the toaster foundation and the supporting poles  both rusted. In all honesty it is not worth the risk getting tetanus from being cut by a rusty piece of metal and having to go to the doctor and fork out 20 times the cost of this product in medical care

                                                           Specs 

• Wt. 8.5 oz 241 g
• 9 in. diameter (23 cm diameter)

Background

I started cooking with my father when I was 6 years old making doughnuts from scratch. By 10 years of age I was baking bread on my own. My camping endeavors also began at the age of six and I have been cooking and camping ever since.

So it will be of no surprise to my readers that I am very knowledgeable of cooking and camp gear so when I tell you that this is a piece of crap and not worth your money and poses health risks to you if you buy it, I hope you listen.

There are numerous versions of this Camp toaster from other manufacturers on Amazon that are far more durable and that do not rust within the 1st week of owning them. I implore you to seek other camp toasters out versus buying this Coghlan's one.

I gave it 2 stars versus 0 stars for 2 reasons:

1) Due to me being able to make it stand up without falling using common garbage ties that 90 % or more of the USA households have an abundance of in their kitchen.

2) That I was able to prevent further rusting by using pan spray on the entire toaster after each use and before putting it into storage.

This thing kills me...my wife loves toast and someone gave it to us as a gift. It seemed really cool at first, make some toast in the morning yada yada and we took it on an overnight with us to test it out.

When we got it it was flat. I opened it and began the toasting process. It fit right on top of my MSR PocketRocket with ease! And toasted the bread fine! We were happy. Be careful though because it is hot once you're done.

Here is the problem, you can't fold the darn thing down flat again!!!!!! I have tried everything I can think of!!!! So, it is now lumpy. If I can figure it out again it may join the equipment. Cool idea, bad puzzle.

I would skip it. There are so many camping gadgets and this did not meet its goal.

Ours was new in the box from a thrift store. I put it on the gas burner in our camper and it smoked heavily (that coating you took off) and it was smoking but not heating the bread. I took it outside and used a pan with butter...my typical toast method when we camp.

Background

We camp a lot