SC - Coleman oven

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

I bought a Coleman oven a while back, and at a camping event this 
weekend I got to try it out.  It's the kind that is a collapsible metal box 
which sits over a burner of a propane stove.  I only used it once, and 
that was to make some biscuits.  Judging by the thermometer in the 
door, I could not get the oven as hot as the 425 F that the recipe called 
for.  It would only get up to 400, even though I had the burner on full 
blast.  When I checked the biscuits at the minimum cooking time, they 
were a touch too brown on top and scorched on the bottom.  (And just 
fine in the middle.)

My lord spoke to some gentles at the fireside who said that the door 
thermometer is unreliable and that one needs to put an oven 
thermometer inside.  Has anyone else found this to be true?  And can I 
count on the door thermometer to be consistently unreliable; ie., will it 
always read 50 degrees higher or lower than reality?  If I know that it's 
just offset by a certain amount, that's easy to correct for.


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net