Trangia 25 Storm Cooker, since 1951

Packed, the Trangia 25 is a squat aluminium drum about 22 centimetres across and ten high, held shut by a strap. Opened, it becomes a kitchen. A perforated lower windshield stands on the ground and holds a small brass spirit burner; the upper windshield sits on it, carries the pot and shields the flame on every side. Two saucepans of one and a half and one and three-quarter litres nest inside, a frying pan serves as their lid, and a single gripping handle fits them all.

Trangia 25 Storm Cooker: "Trangia Stormkök — för friluftsliv året runt" ("Trangia spiritstove — for camplife all the year round"): a bilingual poster showing the storm cooker with its pan handle, above hunters, rowers, skiers and campers. — "Trangia Stormkök — för friluftsliv året runt" ("Trangia spiritstove — for camplife all the year round"): a bilingual poster showing the storm cooker with its pan handle, above hunters, rowers, skiers and campers. *Poster, undated.* via EBS Adventure

It was made by a firm of pot-makers. Trangia was founded in 1925 in Trångsviken, a village in Jämtland in northern Sweden, making aluminium cookware for farmhouses. When Sweden's holiday reform of 1938 gave people time to camp, John E. Jonsson and his sons turned to stoves, and the company dates the first Trangia, burner, pot and windshield as one system, to 1951. In its own archive the set appears on a supplement to the 1950 catalogue as Stormkök Nr 25, the storm cooker, weighing 800 grams.

Trangia 25 Storm Cooker: The current Trangia 25-1 UL: windshield, burner stand, two pans, frying pan, handle, spirit burner and strap, as shown by the maker. — The current Trangia 25-1 UL: windshield, burner stand, two pans, frying pan, handle, spirit burner and strap, as shown by the maker. *Maker photograph, current.* via trangia.se

The list of parts on that page is the list of parts today: a frying pan of 22 centimetres, pots of one and a half and one and three-quarter litres, an upper and a lower windshield, a spirit burner, a handle that doubles as tongs, and a strap. By 1957 the burner had gained a way of turning the flame down, and a smaller model, the 27, had appeared. Since then the changes have been to materials, with non-stick, hard-anodised and steel-lined pans, and the option of a gas burner.

The stoves are still made in Trångsviken, where the company moved into a new factory in 1978 and says some of its machines date from the 1950s. The appeal has not changed much either. The fuel is cheap and found almost everywhere, the burner has no moving parts, and the whole kitchen packs into the space of one pot.

Timeline

1951 First made · Claimed Trangia 25 Storm Cooker enters production in Trångsviken, Sweden.

1957 Designed The catalogue lists the 25 with a simmer arrangement on the burner, alongside the new, smaller 27.

1978 Production A new factory opens in Trångsviken, where the stoves are still made.

2021 Production Over half a million stoves and mess tins leave the Trångsviken plant in a single year.

Milestones as we found them, not as we've checked them.

The date

One source supports this year. Treat it as the maker's claim.

Trangia's own history says that in 1951 the company launched the first prototype of the Trangia stove, a complete cooking system of burner, pot and windshield, and Swedish Wikipedia gives 1951 for the stove. English Wikipedia instead says the model 25 was introduced in the 1950 catalogue; the page it cites, in Trangia's scanned archive, is headed 'Supplement to catalogue 1/1950' and is not itself dated, and the stove is missing from that catalogue's 1950 price list, so the supplement may have been issued in 1950 or later. The later year is used. Every source traces to the maker, hence claimed.

Why it still counts

One product. Spirit stoves and windshield cook sets are a type, but the Trangia 25 is one numbered design from the firm that made it, sold under its own name and number since the early 1950s; the many current sets (25-1 UL, 25-3 UL, Duossal, non-stick, with or without kettle) are material and accessory options on the one design, and the maker labels the plain aluminium 25-1 UL 'the original version'.

The same object. The supplement to the 1950 catalogue lists the Stormkök Nr 25 as a 22 cm frying pan, pots of 1½ and 1¾ litres, an upper and a lower windshield, a spirit burner, a handle doubling as tongs and a strap; the set sold today is two saucepans of 1.5 and 1.75 litres, a 22 cm frying pan, an upper and lower windshield, burner, handle and strap. Coated and steel-clad pans and an optional gas burner are material changes.

The production run. No source records a period when the 25 was not made; it appears in the 1957 catalogue and the maker says it is still made in Trångsviken.

Trangia 25 Storm Cooker

Timeline

From the archive

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