The wood fire stove thread

[TheBrownDog]

Just taken delivery of a cheap Lixada one off Amazon to see if I like it. Backyard tests prove I do. You really can boil water and cook on the buggers, and I rather like the faff of keeping it going. And once your meal is done, you have a fire to gaze into. Super.

So it's coming on my next few bivvies, though I will also take a little meths stove to make breakfast and breaking down camp easier.

So who's got what?

Ben, if you're out there, over on the bargain thread you mentioned one you rate. Can't remember the name of it but it was rather spendy.

And who carries what to make sure you can get the fire going? I'm reasonably capable at burning things, but what's the gig if everything you might find to burn is damp. Tricks of the trade?

[Jurassic pusher]

According to my Dad, he used to tell me this all the time when I was a nipper, that the fine paper like bark of Silver Birch trees would burn as kindling even if it was wet, hopefully that would get it going and maybe help with burning damp wood?

[redefined_cycles]

I get concerned that I'd end up inadvertently causing a forest/pennines fire.granted that they seem to be slightly off the ground etc... aeait eagerly for thos thread todevelop though

[Lazarus]

for me its either one of those or a meths stove and i prefer the less faff of a meths stove [ i used to carry dome dry tinder- cotton wool etc. An inner tube patch will start a fire when everything is wet but its environmentally awful.

Unlikely to cause a forest fire with one of those as its contained and not very large- even if knocked over it would be easy to stamp out.

[lune ranger]

I have a Folding Firebox which I rate very highly. It gets used almost every week at the forest school.
I wouldn't take it bikepacking in a month of Sunday's though as it ways something like a kilo, more with all the accessories.
I've also used a Honey which works very well and is almost bikepacking light. Bit of a faff to slot together though.

[Bearbonesnorm]

I've written a few things about them over on the blog - you'll need to do a bit of searching.

https://bearbonesbikepacking.blogspot.com/

[lune ranger]

In terms of fire starting, as above really. Carrying some form of reliable tinder is your safest option. A couple of hexy blocks is a good idea once you get a small burn going in a contained stove like that you can pretty much burn any old wet or rotten stuff. Just go for pencil thin twigs and you'll be laughing

[frogatthefarriers]

On my February bivvy I forgot to pack any fuel and had to light a stick fire to cook my dinner. I'd eaten a couple of Baby Bels and still had the wax shells. These I rolled around a piece of tissue and made a candle which easily lit my little fire.

[benp1]

It's a hangover from my bushcrafting days - wood burners

I have 3 that I can remember, might have a 4th somewhere
Pocket stove ti - like a small honey stove. Used with meths, wood or esbit
Bushbuddy - the original wood gasification stove. Fits inside an MSR titan kettle or snow peak 900. Can use the top as a support for a meths stove
Emberlit ul - titanium flat pack wood burner. Will take a proper pot of water on it, very robust. Light enough to take as a just in case. Should use this more really. Last used to make lunch with the kids in the forest in around 2017!

I have a big Dutch oven that'll cook for a big group, weighs absolutely loads! Epically good food cooked in this thing.

Take the pocket bellows with you too

I make firefighters at home. Cotton wool balls with vaseline inside, wrapped in a rubber band. Light quick and burn for a while. If the wood is wet you can shave down to the dry stuff inside but in practice its hassle. I take meths generally!

[Fat tyre kicker]

Anybody using the m kettle, I fancy one of these, seem ideal for brew or noodle duties ?

[Bearbonesnorm]

Anybody using the m kettle, I fancy one of these, seem ideal for brew or noodle duties ?

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13770&p=170102&hili ... le#p170102

[Bearbonesnorm]

https://bearbonesbikepacking.blogspot.c ... ested.html

https://bearbonesbikepacking.blogspot.c ... t-tea.html

https://bearbonesbikepacking.blogspot.c ... wable.html

[u02sgb]

Interesting thanks Stu. The DIY one looks like it might be a project if I can get some free time. Kids might quite like lunch made over that one day.

How do you feel about using these, given the LNT ideal? I'd expect you can probably clear a small area of dirt and cover it up afterwards?

[Bearbonesnorm]

How do you feel about using these, given the LNT ideal?

I've no problem with wood stoves at all. If used sensibly they leave nothing behind and they work much better with small twigs and such so the chances of anyone damaging trees to fuel one is very unlikely. I really do think that for those who 'can't live' without having a fire, woodstoves are the perfect compromise ... and they're actually efficient to cook on, unlike an open campfire

[Mart]

Top Tip : to start a fire - Doritos are a good kindling

[RIP]

One has to ask how you discovered that random factoid! . Was there some horrible mistake with the party snacks, birthday candles and celebratory brandies?

[TheBrownDog]

Top Tip : to start a fire - Doritos are a good kindling

This is spectacularly true. Get a pack of Doritos. Set fire to a corner. And stand back. Burns for months.

[TheBrownDog]

Stu, cheers for the links. It's always going to be more of a faff if things are damp, but there also always seems to be a way.

Ben, yep, I tried some cotton wool balls and Vaseline and my God does that burn well. Bit of a messy faff to make though so a small bottle of meths to get things going if the available fuel is wet is the way I reckon. I'd be carrying meths anyway to make breakfast easier.

And on the subject of scorching the earth, I'll be packing a few square inches of tin foil to put under the stove. It'll reflect the heat, and protect what's under it.

[lune ranger]

...so a small bottle of meths to get things going if the available fuel is wet is the way I reckon. I'd be carrying meths anyway to make breakfast easier.

Meths is a very poor fire starter. It'll burn off without setting the wet wood on fire.
Better some hexy/esbit blocks, a quarter of a block would most probably do the job.

[TheBrownDog]

Meths is a very poor fire starter. It'll burn off without setting the wet wood on fire.

It does produce a satisfying flare up though ... perhaps best kept for the meths stove. I've got a few packets of BBQ fire starters in my shed and will pack on of those in a plastic bag. Might try the vaseline/cotton wool balls again too.

[Fat tyre kicker]

Cheers for the links Stu

[Borderer]

We carry a Honey Stove and use it for our only cooking in 99% of our trips. The only time we take our 22g meths stove is for very short ie one night trips to somewhere that cooking outside would be tricky. The meths stove was ideal for the Secret Howff recently, or cooking in the porch of a tent in the rain, but apart from that the woodburner wins every time.

If you added all the nights we have used it for our sole cooking device it would probably add up to around 9 months in total so far. In all that time we have only once failed to find anything to burn - on a grassy plain in Portugal - on that occasion we used our firestarting cubes as fuel and they worked fine - I think it was something like 4 cubes to boil a 600ml pot of water if I remember correctly.

The firestarter cubes we use are the natural brown ones, not the white stinky petrol ones. The brown ones are very lightweight and do the job well. We also carry a few bits of paper and some candle wax to get things going. Wax is the secret weapon - it really gets a fire going, especially if the wood is damp. On longer trips we save all our till receipts, leaflets and the like to burn. We have also found that abundant amounts of candle wax is washed up on beaches - it will take about 3 minutes tops to locate some, so we always have that accelerant available if near the coast. Carrying the paper and wax together in the same bag results in waxed paper after a few miles of rough riding. This makes the paper burn even better. If you are in a bothy you will often find 'dead' tea lights and these are great to put in the base of the stove to kick things off a bit. There is enough wax there to burn once the fire is all around it, but not enough to burn from the wick only.

I bought the Honey stove because I really wanted to have the wire grill that goes on top and it was the only stove to offer this. I thought it would be nice to bbq sausages and the like. Once I used it though I found it to be useless and it stays at home now. You can't get enough heat out of the embers of twigs to bbq anything on it. We use two Ti tent pegs across the top as a pot rest. If I was buying one again I would do what the OP has done and get a stove off eBay or Amazon for a fiver.

I initially worried that we would get told off for using it in campsites, but no one ever has. I always try to raise it up on something in those sort of situations. In the past when we have been out in the wilds with it in very dry weather I have used it in the middle of the gravel track in order to minimise fire risk.

It's a great piece of kit and we have had many fine evenings sitting round our wee fire. I wouldn't be without it now. Putting it together can be a bit of a faff - especially as it will be coated in soot. I have been looking at the ones on eBay that are hinged but when I ordered one to try it recently it was huge and weighed half a kilo! So that went back.

[RIP]

Very interesting post that B, ta for the trouble. Impressed by your commitment to wood. Some creative stuff going on there with starters, noted. Have used "Fire Logs" (£1 for large log) before as starter - chop small lumps off and one log lasts centuries. You've pushed me to go and dig out my Ti Honey and start using it again. What bag do you keep it in when travelling (re soot etc). I suppose tiny downside is weight compared to 22g meths, although Ti helps. Other problem going all-in with wood is I'd have to get some new riding buddies - I'm already 'holding up' gas users with my relaxed meths setup, gawd knows what'd happen if I extracted a Honey at breakfast. Still, never quite understood this morning rush business .

[Borderer]

It just goes in a thin placcy bag inside the case it came in, the sort you get veg in at the supermarket. The difficulty with meths for us is that we go away on long trips. This means we would constantly be having to buy and carry a big bottle of meths (big by bikepacking standards anyway). A 500ml bottle of meths will weigh half a kilo, so the woodburner wins easily there as it is half the weight. The meths stoves are weight-effective if you have a 100ml bottle that you can refill when you get home but not for the sort of long trips we do.

Airlines are also a bit twitchy about meths so you can't take it with you and have to air out the stove for 24 hours beforehand. Not having to go searching for meths on day 1 in a new country is definitely a plus point for the woodburner.

[benp1]

Meths is simpler and quicker than wood I find, which is why I switched

My Emberlit UL is 201g including in the little pouch that stops things getting sooty. my pocket stove ti is 80g including a folding windshield and little pouch. But the emberlit is a proper bit of kit, will take a few kilos on top without buckling and allows bigger sticks to be placed in it and just fed in bit by bit. Pricey though!

Hmmm, now also wondering if I should take my Emberlit on my next trip

Just checked my kit spreadsheet - my bushbuddy is 175g. it's the original stove that the solo stove in stuart's review above was cloned from. For what it's worth, my pocket stove is also the Ti version of the one stuart reviewed