Coleman Cascade 18 Camp Stove Review: A Classic Cookset Gets a Minimalist Makeover

After a few years of using almost entirely canister, white gas, alcohol, or wood stoves, I’d forgotten the ease of just plugging a propane canister into a burner and scrambling up breakfast in a full-sized pan. That approachability is the very reason that Coleman’s Classic two-burner stoves are as popular as they are: open, plug in the propane, and get to cheffing it up.

Coleman’s Cascade 18 does forgo its predecessor’s built-in windscreens — a bold move. That shield is a large part of what has long made the old ones so easy to use. It also lowers the BTUs and goes lean with a single burner head. However, it’s a tradeoff for simplicity and better fuel economy in a smaller and lighter package. Here’s where I think this solo stove excels and where I see it fitting in camp kitchens.

In short: The Cascade 18 aims squarely at being the flex stove. For car camping, horseback camping, and paddling trips for one or two people, it’s more than enough. For larger group forays, it’s an excellent accessory stove — perfect for scrambling up the eggs while someone tends the steaks on the campsite grill. Simple, easy, and stowable, it lacks its bigger siblings’ oomph and shines most at a sale price, but is perfect for those looking for a moderate-use stove.

Looking to snag a new camp stove? Check out how the Cascade 18 compares to the rest of the options out there in GearJunkie’s Best Camping Stoves Buyer’s Guide.

Coleman Cascade 18 Camp Stove: Review

Coleman’s two-burner stoves are certified classics, and the company’s combination of two burners, a built-in igniter, a propane preference, a wind screen, and a platform more than capable of handling even heavy cast iron has been iconic since the ‘70s. 

Given decades of iteration and performance, any variation has to do something markedly different than the rest of the lineup — and that the Cascade 18 does. 

Scaling down to a single burner makes this stove far more stowable and takes up less “counter space.” However, the BTUs do take a hit here. Whereas modern two-burners pack 11,000 BTUs for each burner, the Cascade 18 offers 8,000. It’s a clear tradeoff toward energy efficiency — a plus for longer trips. 

However, that efficiency doesn’t count for much if the wind is blowing. This makes the lack of a windscreen arguably the most controversial element.

Still, folding wind screens are a dime a dozen, and the ultralight zeitgeist has touched the camping world as well. Even for car campers, lighter, slimmer, and easier to stow is in vogue. To that end, nixing the built-in windscreen, more than half the weight, and nearly half the footprint makes plenty of sense for campers in 2025.

The Testing Grounds

Before we get too far down the rabbit hole of specs and cook times, it’s worth knowing what I’ve put this little burner through over the last 4 months. In short: A few thousand miles on the road, a few hundred on “roads,” a few dozen on the water, and plenty of meals cooked around the campground and wildland fire station where I work.

The Cascade 18 was my primary stove during my moving road trip from the suburbs of Chicagoland to a fire station in the Tahoe National Forest, Calif. By my count, it’s been rattling around relatively loose in my trunk for over 3,000 miles, with nary a scratch.

The Cascade cooked me a bevy of breakfasts in cheap motels. It rustled up dinners amid sagebrush-lined two-track. During a particularly adventurous paddling trip, the Coleman kept me sane by being well-fed. After all, what to do when a trip turns dicey? Get to working on lunch.

Since touching down in Tahoe, it only occasionally rears its head — equal parts excuser and enabler of cooking out on the picnic table, instead of in our barracks’ kitchen. Nevertheless, on the rare occasions that the fires here slow down enough to get a few days off, the Coleman Cascade has certainly earned its spot as my canoeing cooktop of choice.

A Classic (And Rugged) Build

Like its predecessor, the Cascade 18 is primarily constructed from aluminized steel — essentially steel coated with aluminum. The result is a cooktop with good heat conduction and radiation and considerable corrosion resistance. It would be tough to scratch through the coating or see any significant rust.

Likewise, it sports Coleman’s same old propane connection arm. Although now the grate itself is designed to hold this arm more snugly when in storage mode. It’s a nice touch, but a necessary one due to what’s bound to be one of the most divisive changes: the omission of the classic folding wind screen. 

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen car campers playing around with their Coleman stoves — trying to get them perfectly shielded. Hell, this was exactly the sight that greeted me when I was loading back up from the paddling trip where I first tested the Cascade overnight.

In addition to the diminished protection, this means that the Cascade 18 doesn’t have a storage mode that protects the burner and its components. You simply flip the grate upside down and slot in the propane intake arm. It’s a simpler process, but one that lacks a lid to keep you from losing the propane connection arm.

Still, the Coleman’s construction remains relatively bombproof. Even after months of chucking it around relatively carelessly, I’d yet to see a notable scratch, loose knob, or damaged propane intake. 

Space and Storage

The simplified construction does win major points on stowability. Compared to the 21″ x 13″ x 3.5″ footprint of their two-burner stove, the 13″ x 13″ x 3″ Cascade 18 is a far easier cooktop to stow. This may not be crucial for car campers with larger vehicles, but it was a boon for me on a number of occasions. 

On my kayaking trip, a two-burner stove simply would not have fit in my hull, between the bulkheads. Even on my road trip, my 4Runner was packed to the gills. It was hard enough finding space for me — let alone a large stove. Fortunately, I was always able to slot the small, slimmer Cascade 18 somewhere in my vehicle.  

Now, living in Forest Service barracks, where space is at a premium, I’m all the more glad for the Cascade’s slight size. It doesn’t pack down into nearly as rugged and self-contained a package as Coleman’s Cascade Classic Stove, but it always slots away easily somewhere. For someone who is only cooking for himself and perhaps a romantic partner, how much more stove could I need?

A Mild Heat

Stove output is measured in BTUs, or British Thermal Units. Your average stovetop burner produces 7,000-12,000 BTUs. Most two-burner stoves produce around 10,000-12,000 BTUs per burner, with some, like Camp Chef’s Everest 2X stove, producing up to 20,000 BTUs.

The Cascade 18’s wild card is its relatively low 8,000 BTUs. For reference, the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe, an ultralight backpacking stove, boasts 11,000 BTUs. Of course, the Cascade’s wide burner, nearly 4 inches in diameter, offers more even heating for actual cooking. At full blast, it throws flame in a ring over 6 inches wide. 

Whether cooking chili, sauteeing scrambled eggs, toasting bread, or frying fish, I noticed only a slight hotspot. Granted, I was using a wide-bottom steel pan: a Gerber ComplEAT Saute Pan. So, I had even heating and a consistently controllable cooking experience. 

Using a steel 10-inch pan indoors at around 4,000 feet of elevation, it took me around 6 minutes to boil a liter of room-temperature water. That’s a decent time, a little more than a minute behind most two-burner stoves. Additionally, ripping the stove at full blast, as I was, the Cascade boasts an impressive 2.5-hour fuel life for your average 16-ounce propane canister.

But that’s indoors. In windy conditions, with a wide and relatively low BTU burner and no built-in wind shielding, an aftermarket windscreen of some sort is a must-have. Even then, if your screen doesn’t wrap most of the way around the stove, you may well find yourself cranking the Cascade up to full throttle, chewing through its fuel advantage, still short on BTUs.

Coleman Cascade 18 Camp Stove: Conclusion

Coleman’s Cascade 18 is far from the portability of backpacking/camping crossover stoves, but it boasts plenty over most dual-burner stoves in stowability. It lacks the higher output of its predecessors, but it offers enough oomph to fry, sauté, and boil up one- to two-person meals — with considerably better fuel economy.

Over the last few months with it, I’ve found four use cases where the Cascade stood head and shoulders above the rest: paddling, cramped car camping, as an accessory stove, and for minimalist mechanized camping. 

Sometimes, simply having an extra, accessory burner makes all the difference: in communal hostel kitchens, extended-stay hotels with tiny stovetops, or for larger group trips where two burners just might not cut it (at least not without being cramped).

Lastly, of course, sometimes you just want to simplify. Pull up to a campsite 2 hours after dark, and you might just want a stove that’s simple and gets the job done. On a cold day in winter, small fiddly stoves are annoying. Wood stoves are frigid work. Canisters and alcohol aren’t very efficient. Larger propane stoves can be a hassle. 

When you want something, you can just pull out the trunk and have dinner heating in 90 seconds flat — now that’s when you’re cooking with Cascade.