Need a Stove for Camp or RV Cooking? The Camp Chef Pro 14 Could Be A Contender

Camp Chef Pro 14 (aka Pro 60X) is a powerful, versatile gas stove for camp and RV cooking

This review covers the Camp Chef Pro 14 (2-burner) stove and two of its optional, companion accessories: the BBQ Grill Box and the Pizza Oven. The target audience for these products is car campers and RV owners like myself, although there is no reason why this cooker couldn’t be used as the main outdoor cooker in a home setting. It would also work well for tailgaters if the size and weight aren’t a concern.

Camp Chef Pro 14 folds up into a compact volume, setting it apart from many other outdoor stovetop-style cookers. It also accommodates attachable grill surfaces and a pizza oven, making this a full-featured outdoor cooking system, enhancing its appeal. There is a griddle surface available that I did not receive for testing.

The Basic Stovetop

The two-burner stove is the main part of the package. Its top surface (32.25” x 13.75”, 82 cm x 35 cm) supports two heavy pots or pans. The grate over the burners is not meant to be a cooking surface itself; rather it provides a platform for the various modules Camp Chef offers. The top surface is shielded on three sides by a wind-blocking fence that snaps into place.

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The stove is propane-powered and features two independent 30,000 BTU cast aluminum burners. Each burner measures 6” (15 cm) in diameter, and they are separated by 16” (40 cm) of empty space, leaving plenty of room for large skillets or Dutch ovens. The burners have piezoelectric igniters activated by turning the control knobs.

The stoves includes two folding shelves (14.25” x 15.5”, 36 cm x 39 cm) on the right and left sides that fold over the cooking surface while stored.

Each shelf is rated to support 20 lb./9 kg. Camp Chef Pro 14 is supported by four legs that fold up for storage. Handles on the right and left sides make for easy lifting. When set up, the handles double as supports for the red side shelves. Each leg also has a threaded tip, so the unit can be leveled and made steady.

While it is stable, this is not a lightweight cooker. With the wind fence, it weighs 45 lbs. (20.4 kg.), not including the LP tank.

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BBQ Grill Box Module

When ready to grill, grab the optional BBQ Grill Box and set it on the stovetop. The grill box comes in two sizes: one burner or two. The former takes up one of the burners, leaving the other free to use with a pot or a pan. The latter takes up the full width of the stovetop, fitting neatly on top.

The grill box is a clamshell arrangement with cooking grates that rest on the bottom half. The grates are made of enameled cast iron and are easily removable. A metal heat diffuser sits below the grates and has a shallow V-shape running from left to right and front to back, covering the bottom completely. The diffuser sits above the burners, and includes slots that allow hot air to flow from the burner to the food. The diffuser spreads out the heat from the burners and prevents grease and gunk from falling onto the burners below. The design does not include a grease trap or grease channel. Grease sits on top of the diffuser and eventually burns away. Flare-ups are a problem if you’re cooking fatty foods.

The grill box has a hinged lid so you can set it up to do two-zone cooking: light one burner for the hot side, leave the other burner off for the cool side, and close the lid for low and slow cooking.

A dial-type “heat indicator” is mounted in the middle of the lid. The problem with these “thermometers” is that they are rarely accurate, and they give you the temperature at the very top of the cooking environment, not the place where the food is being heated. We recommend ignoring them and using a wired or a wireless digital thermometer to determine the real temperature. More on this later. (Editor’s note: Bill McGrath is AmazingRibs.com’s thermometer expert.)

The two-burner grill box itself weighs in at 38 lbs. (17 kg.). There are two latches that allow you to lock the top and bottom together when moving the appliance around.

That top cover also includes a handle that allows you to open the box and work with the food. What it lacks are side handles to pick up and move the grill box assembly.

Pizza Time

Craving some homemade or frozen pizza? No problem; get the optional one-burner pizza oven that uses one half of the stovetop or the optional two-burner that uses the full width. Remove the BBQ grill box, if installed, and plop the pizza oven in its place.

The pizza appliance has a removable front door and the pizza stone inside is a 5/8” (1.6 cm) slab of cordierite ceramic that is 12” (30 cm) deep and runs the full width of the oven. You’ll need a pizza peel – a wide pizza spatula – to insert or remove the pie from the oven. The stone is held in place by two brackets and four little screws. Don’t drop those screws or you may have a tough time finding them. Don’t ask me how I know.

It is important to preheat the stone prior to inserting the pizza. On the top, you’ll find another one of those “heat indicator” dial thermometers. Don’t rely on it. We recommend using an IR thermometer to measure the temperature of the pizza stone. You can cook a pie with or without the door installed, but you’ll get more consistent interior temps with the door in place. A booklet that covers some options for making pizza comes with the unit, but you would be well advised to read our detailed recipes and techniques. You can also bake bread and cookies with this option. I made four 12” (30cm) pizzas from scratch using sourdough, and the results were excellent. It had a nice crispiness in the crust. Keep an eye on the pies; it’s easy to overcook them, especially if you have allowed the pizza stone to get too hot. Either way, the manufacturer recommends cleaning the pizza stone periodically.

Testing Notes

The Camp Chef Pro 14 is a solid piece of equipment. Yes, it’s portable, but don’t ask your grandmother to set it up. You could easily use this as your main outdoor cooking system. Fortunately, it comes mostly pre-assembled. The minor assembly left to the buyer requires only tools that most people have: a Philips screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. The buyer is strongly urged to conduct a leak test on the propane lines, something that might be beyond some users or disregarded by others. I found the instruction manuals to be somewhat lacking in clarity. There is some inconsistency in the use of terms that might be unfamiliar to many people. The diagrams weren’t sufficient, and could be confusing. Camp Chef should have a good technical writer look these over and make improvements.

I had some issues with the hardware. The BBQ grill and the pizza oven really need some handles on the sides to move them into position and to remove them. This is fairly heavy stuff, and the average person shouldn’t have to wrestle with it. I have lower back problems, and I had to be really careful when installing both the grill and the oven on the stovetop. There are also some sharp edges on parts of the pizza oven. I cut my index finger while reaching into the pizza oven to retrieve the hardware bag during final assembly. Fortunately, the edges that are normally exposed had been deburred and didn’t create a hazard.

My biggest complaint is with the BBQ Grill accessory. The design of the diffuser is such that grease fires are almost inevitable. I cooked a 1 lb. (450g.) rib eye steak using a two-zone cooking setup and the reverse sear cooking method. With a wireless meat thermometer inserted, I cooked the steak to 120°F (49°C) on the cool side, then moved it to the hot side to do the reverse sear. With the fat already softened, it flared up almost immediately, and I had to quickly move the meat away from the high heat. Closing the cover did not extinguish the flames; they shot out the back of the unit. Typically, grills are designed to divert fats and grease into a tray below the fire so they don’t ignite. With a little ingenuity, you could probably avoid the flare-ups, but I think that should have been addressed in this unit’s basic design.

Another issue is the tendency of the burners to go out when set to low. Sometimes I heard a “pop,” and saw that the burner was unlit but the flame was still burning in the venturi, the tunnel in which the propane and the air mix. I was outside using the BBQ grill box accessory, and there was a very slight breeze. Both burners had been set to the lowest setting, and they popped “off,” leaving the propane flowing, sometimes still burning inside the venturi, sometimes not. If the gas were to collect in any significant amount, re-lighting the grill could be dangerous. The instructions address the problem of lighting an extinguished flame, but not everyone reads instructions. At higher flow rates, the burners stayed lit.

During use at higher gas flow rates, the control knobs got quite hot—not so much that you’d get burned, but uncomfortably warm. Have a pot holder handy. The cast iron grill grates had enough casting roughness that they didn’t fit easily into their slots, so I had to take a file to the edges to clean them up and get them to fit. The grate that supports the pots and pans also lost its chrome plating on the first use. I realize this is cosmetic, but would the chrome grate now be vulnerable to rusting?

The Camp Chef Pro 14 burners put out a LOT of heat, more than required for most cooking. That’s great for boiling large pots of water for pasta or a crab boil, but it’s overkill when grilling or making pizza. I found that I had to turn the gas flow to nearly the minimum for most cooking tasks, including using the grill and the pizza oven. And then the burners shutting off became a problem. Your typical cooking tasks may differ and will determine whether you find the burners too hot or not.

Pros:

• Solid, heavy materials and construction
• Grill and pizza oven require minimal assembly
• The grill and oven can reach very high temperatures
• You can do two-zone cooking with the grill box and lid in place
• Leg length is adjustable to level the appliance

Cons:

• Burners have a tendency to blow out at low heat settings
• Control knobs get quite warm
• The Grill Box and Pizza Oven lack side handles for carrying and installation
• The grill lacks a grease trap or channel to collect and drain grease
• The cast iron grates fit too snugly, requiring touch-up with a file to install
• The grates showed a little bit of warping and some very minor hints of rust
• Chrome plating on the stovetop grate burned off on first use
• The pizza oven has sharp edges that can cut fingers
• The pizza stone is hard to clean—you must remove four small screws
• The instruction manuals could use some improvement

Conclusion

Overall, I really want to like this cooker, but I’m concerned about the tendency for flare-ups and self-extinguishing burners. It’s somewhere between a nuisance and a potential hazard. I sent an e-mail to the company’s customer service department outlining my concerns, but never got any response, despite reminding them that I was reviewing their product, for AmazingRibs.com, that they sent to me for evaluation. Subsequently, AmazingRibs.com’s Director of Equipment Reviews, Max Good, sent my complaints to one of his high-level Camp Chef contacts. Here’s their response:

“The Pro 14 stove has been part of the Camp Chef lineup for over 35 years. It is the very first stove that we ever manufactured. It is Certified and CSA certified. We have sold millions of that stove design.

His concern about the venturi staying lit if the stove goes out would be news to us. We have had thousands of hours testing/thousands of hours in consumer use and never had this issue, nor has our CS team had call in concerns. Also, if this were an issue, it would not qualify for certification. I wonder if the stove Bill is testing is having a one-off issue. Or it could be stuck in a low flow mode.

This particular stove works best when cooking on medium to medium-high heat when using the grill box. The diffuser tray he spoke of dissipates the grease when it hits it. Flame-ups are natural on any grill when cooking products with high fat content, like burgers or ribeyes. Like all grills I have ever used, you have to find a sweet spot on the grill.”

Indeed, the Camp Chef Pro 14 is certified by CSA, a globally recognized third-party certification body and testing agency. Note the CSA Certification emblem on this image from the User Manual.

Note also that Camp Chef declined to explain why we got no response from their customer service.

Researching buyer reviews on the internet, we found no significant complaints of flame blow out. Perhaps the unit I have been testing isn’t working correctly, but even though Camp Chef mentioned that possibility, they made no effort to pursue an investigation. And the lack of a reply from customer service, especially on a safety issue, was unacceptable and deterred me from further action.

Be that as it may, aside from all the problems outlined above, I like the Camp Chef Pro 14 and its accessories. The stovetop puts out a prodigious amount of heat. The grill cooks well, is flexible in how it is used, and is easy enough to clean. The pizza oven works as advertised. The whole package exudes a quality build, and it looks like it will stand up to some serious cooking.

Weigh the facts and make your own decision based on your comfort level with the flaws.

Warranty

The manuals are inconsistent about the duration of the warranty, and the website does not address the issue as far as I could determine. Our Camp Chef contact tells us: “The Pro 14 carries a 1-year full warranty on all parts for material and manufacturing defects”.

We thank Camp Chef for providing a Pro 14 for this review.