I picked up a Coleman Max about six months ago when Walmart had them on clearance - thanks to whatever member tipped me off in this forum. Anyway, I was in a hurry that day and didn't wander from the Clearance section back to Sporting Goods, so I never bought any propane canisters for it. Skip to six months later and Sandy is rolling in. I popped back over to Walmart to pick up another couple cases of water and figured I'd grab a few canisters in case I lost power and the utility company needed to shut off the gas. Of course they were sold out. No problem, I have a couple flats of Sterno and a folding camp stove to use with them, and I have an alcohol stove as well, so not like I was completely unprepared.

Anyway, I grabbed a few canisters tonight, but realize I have no idea how much burn time to expect from each canister, and thus I don't know how many to store. Also, what is the shelf life for the canisters?

A one pound cylinder of propane contains approx 22,000 BTU-hours.

Look at the manual that came with your stove and see how many BTU's it outputs per hour at a defined setting.

They will prolly only spec at max heat output so you can extrapolate the BTU's and hours run time from that.

If there are no leaks, those 1lb propane bottles could last forever.

As far as run time, it depends on how high you set your burners on the stove.

Ive been able to get 10-15 meals on my propane grill with a 1lber.

Thanks guys.

This is the stove

Looks like max output is 5,000 BTU.

I think I paid about $50 for it on clearance.

So if a tank has 22,000 BTU, I should get a little more than four hours per canister on maximum burn?

Eggsactly.

When i camped in CA for 3 months I used coleman (not max) propane stove to cook with 5-7 times a week.   A 1# propane can lasted me about 3 weeks of making pasta, canned stew, soups, etc.  10-20 minutes a meal. The weather wasn't frigid, and was at sea level so the pressure in the tanks was good.   Also to note that I wasn't having to boil water to drink so I didn't use LP for that.



 
 

Forget the canisters.  Pick up an adapter hose that fits a larger propane bottle.  They make some smaller 9lb tanks and you can fill them at your local propane dealer.