Stanley Camp Percolator Review: I Bought & Tested It

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The Stanley Camp Percolator is a high quality, stainless steel (Type 18/8) camping percolator from a trusted brand (Stanley). It comes with a lifetime warranty, removable silicone grip, gives you pretty good versatility in terms of capacity (3-6 cups) and is user-friendly.

However, the Stanley Percolator being shipped to customers with missing parts seems to be a pretty common issue. Also, it has a narrow base (the lid is wider than the base!) and a long cylindrical design, so the brew time is a little longer, and it’s not great with uneven surfaces.

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Check out the Stanley Percolator:

Here’s what we’ll discuss here:

• Unboxing
• In the Box
• Specifications
• How to Use

Unboxing

The Stanley Camp Percolator came in nothing other than a thin Amazon plastic packaging. It was disappointing that the percolator wasn’t better protected.

In the Box

In the box, you get the Stanley stainless steel coffee pot, a stem with a base, a filter basket, a perking knob, and a removable silicone grip. I was supposed to get a spreader that goes on top of the filter basket too, but I think they missed it out.

Specifications

These are my personal measurements of the Stanley Camp 6-Cup Percolator:

• Length from handle to spout, about 8 inches or 20 cm.
• Length of handle, about 4.25 inches or 11 cm.
• Diameter of lid, about 4.5 inches or 11 cm.
• Diameter of base, 4 inches or 10 cm.
• Height from base to perking knob, 8.5 inches or 22 cm.
• Weight, 560 grams or 19.8 ounces.
• Made in: China.

How to Use

There were no official instructions that came with this Stanley Camp Percolator, so if you’re interested, here’s how I make my own percolator coffee. For me, I use 6 ounces of water for 1 cup of coffee. I grind my medium roast coffee into a coarse grind, I use 10 or 11 grams of grounds for 1 cup of coffee, and I pour it into the filter basket.

Next, I place the stem, filter basket and spreader into the coffee pot. Since Stanley didn’t give me a spreader, I just used the spreader from my Farberware Percolator; it fits perfectly. After, close the lid, and place the Stanley Percolator on the stove without the silicone grip. My personal preference is to bring the water to a boil on medium heat, and when it starts boiling, you can see the water perking in the transparent knob on the very top of the percolator.

After, I usually lower the heat slightly to medium low heat, and wait about 7 minutes, before turning off the heat entirely.

Then, I let the Stanley Camp Percolator sit for a few extra minutes to allow the water in the filter basket to drain out and the grounds in the coffee to settle at the bottom, before pouring it out to drink.

This is just how I do it and how I use all my percolators, but feel free to do whatever suits you best.

And here’s how I tested the Stanley Camp Percolator.

• Brew Time
• Capacity
• Ease of Use
• Ease of Clean Up
• Quality

You can also find all the test results in this section.

Brew Time

For brew time, I looked at the time to first perk, which is the amount of time it takes for the water to start boiling.

At a 3-cup capacity, or 18 ounces, it took the Stanley Camp Percolator 7 minutes and 45 seconds for the water to boil.

And at a 6-cup capacity, or 36 ounces, it took 10 minutes.

These are estimates and can change depending on different factors like the temperature of your water, the surrounding temperature, the amount of heat you use, and stuff like that. I used tap water at room temperature, and brought it to a boil on medium heat.

After the water started boiling, I let the coffee percolate for about 7 minutes on medium-low heat.

Capacity

This Stanley Camp Percolator is marketed as a 6-cup coffee percolator, which I found to be pretty accurate if each cup is 6 ounces. When I put in 36 ounces of water, it was just below the spout holes. Here’s what it looked like:

With this amount though, it almost boiled over, so I would not recommend putting in more water. I was still able to let my 6 cups of coffee percolate for 7 minutes though.

On the other extreme, what is the minimum capacity?

When I tried brewing just 1 cup of coffee, or 6 ounces, my “brew” turned out to be just water with some grounds. This is because there wasn’t enough water to go up the stem and spread over the grounds. My 11 grams of coffee grounds were hardly used. When I tried brewing 2 cups of coffee, or 12 ounces, the brew tasted diluted.

So, minimum capacity for my Stanley Percolator is 3 cups, or 18 ounces. It works perfectly and brews a real tasty coffee.

Basically, the Stanley Percolator is good for brewing a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 6 cups of coffee.

As for the filter basket, when I filled it to the brim, maximum capacity is about 80 grams, or 2.8 ounces of coarse coffee grounds, with a small gap for the spreader to fit on top. This is more than enough for the maximum of 6 cups of coffee.

The Stanley Percolator only comes in this capacity, there are no other smaller or bigger options.

Ease of Use

The Stanley Camp Percolator has 2 markings on the outside of the coffee pot, and you can see it clearly from the inside as well.

They don’t tell you how many cups of coffee this is, but here’s what I measured myself. The bottom marking measures about 17 ounces, which is slightly less than 3 cups. The top marking measures 34 ounces, which is slightly less than 6 cups. For 36 ounces, that’s the water level right below the spout holes (pictured above).

What I love most about this Stanley Percolator is this genius removable silicone grip, so you have the option of using this over an open flame or campfire if you want to, without having to worry about the handle melting.

Even on stovetops, silicone handles can get warm if use a bigger fire. So, even though I always use my percolators only on stovetops, I still find this incredibly useful. I also remove the silicone grip before washing, so it makes cleaning up that much easier.

The silicone grip is heat-resistant and removable, so it’s always cool to the touch. The handle is very generously sized, so even if you have bigger hands, you probably don’t have to worry about these 2 steel plates holding the handle to the coffee pot.

The Stanley Percolator comes with a transparent perking knob, so you can tell when the water starts boiling, and also the color of your coffee.

I thought that the base is pretty small and narrow, but thankfully my burner is not big and fit nicely under the base of the Stanley Percolator.

If your stove’s burner is too big, it won’t fit and the flame will go up the sides instead of the base, so you might want to take note of the dimensions of your stove’s burner and the base of this Stanley Percolator, which is about 4 inches. It’s not super wobbly on the stove if you place it right, but it’s definitely the least stable of all my camping percolators because of the small base. So, it’s probably not great for uneven surfaces as well.

The lid of the Stanley Percolator is not a tight fit, so I would recommend holding it down when pouring out the coffee.

Lastly, because I used a coarse grind, only a minimal amount of grounds got into my last cup of coffee. If you find grinds in your coffee, you can either wet the filter basket or use coffee filter paper to line the basket.

Clean Up

To clean up, just toss the grounds, remove the silicone grip, and run water through all the components of the Stanley Camp Percolator. They can be taken apart easily for a good washing. I found that percolating water is more effective at getting rid of the coffee bean oils. It’s also dishwasher safe.

Quality

The Stanley Camp coffee pot and lid are made of Type 18/8 stainless steel, which is food-grade, and is BPA-free. The finish on both the outside and the inside is great, and I don’t see much staining after the past few weeks of use.

The stem (pause), and filter basket are made of the same stainless steel as the pot, and they’re pretty sturdy, though they do rattle about inside the Stanley coffee pot when I shake it gently.

The perking knob is made of plastic with a 2 mm thickness, and it attaches and detaches easily from the lid. 

The removable silicone grip is pretty thick, very flexible, and super comfortable to hold. It’s also easy to attach and detach this from the inner metal handle. The inner metal handle is also high-quality and firmly welded to the Stanley coffee pot.

After a few weeks of using this, the lid of my Stanley Camp Percolator is still intact. It looks welded pretty well to me. I also did not notice any rust, and the plastic knob is still in great shape.

As with all their products, Stanley provides a lifetime warranty on this.

Overall, quality of the Stanley Camp Percolator is great, and the only thing I was disappointed about was that I was missing the spreader. This missing parts issue seems to be pretty common. But I guess it’s not a big issue for me because I’m covered by Stanley’s lifetime warranty, so I’m just going to send it back and get a new one.

For pros:

• I think the biggest benefit is being covered by a lifetime warranty from a trusted brand, which is Stanley.
• The removable silicone grip is genius and provides a lot of versatility.
• The stainless steel build is high quality and has a good finish.
• The capacity is accurate, which is rare for percolators, and I could brew a minimum of 3 cups and a maximum of 6 cups of coffee.
• It’s also user-friendly and feature-rich, with the cup-level markings, removable handle, and perking knob.

As for cons:

• The Stanley Camp Percolator having missing parts seems to be a pretty common issue. For me, I was missing the spreader.
• Also, because of the narrow base, the brew time is slightly longer than all my other percolators, it’s not suitable for bigger burners, and it’s also the least stable of all my percolators.

Would I recommend the Stanley Camp Stainless Steel 6-Cup Percolator?

Overall, I was very impressed with the Stanley Percolator. The stainless steel build is high-quality, and it’s really feature-rich with the removable silicone grip, cup level markings and transparent perking knob.

I was a little disappointed though, by the not-so-great packaging and the missing spreader, but this can be easily resolved at no extra cost with Stanley’s awesome lifetime guarantee. I saw a few other reviews that had this issue of missing parts as well, so I would say don’t buy this if you’re in a rush to get a camping percolator to use ASAP, in case yours comes with missing parts as well.

But otherwise, I love Stanley, I have a lot of their products, all of which are high quality and I’ve been using them for years. This Stanley Camp Percolator is no different in terms of being a quality product, and I would definitely recommend it.

How does the Stanley Percolator stack up against other popular camping percolators though? To find out, you can click here: The 9 Best Camping Percolators: I Bought & Tested Them All (complete with YouTube video).

Or, check out the Stanley Percolator: