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Hi All,

I have just bought a Campingaz Camping Chef cooker, and got the gas cylinder for it.  I understand that the gas in the cylinders is butane rather than the propane/butane mix I am used to in the other cylinders I used to use.  I also understand that butane freezes at about 4 degrees.

I just wondered what happens when it freezes.  We are never really camping ( or at least not cooking ) at this temperature so it is not a problem.  I am just a bit unsure if it becomes dangerous when it freezes, as it will be stored in the garage all through the winter.

It's not quite technically correct to say that it "freezes" as freezing is when something turns from liquid to solid. What happens is that it becomes too cold to turn from liquid into gas and the result is it won't leave the bottle to supply the appliance with gas.

It doesn't become dangerous and will be ok in your garage over winter.

Are you saying that at 4 degrees butane does not have the energy to become a gas?

Of course it is actually the boiling point we are talking about, not the freezing point. The actual boiling point of butane is -0.5 C, i.e. slightly below the freezing point of water, at 4 C it is getting close to that and will gas slightly, but not as efficiently as it did at say 20 C.

The boiling point of propane is much lower, at -42.1 C, so it is much better at turning into gas at low temperatures around 0 C than butane is.

The main advantage of using butane is that the canisters are smaller and lighter than their propane equivalent, so unless you are a cold weather camper, using butane saves on storage space in the car and weight. 

tazz