The Outdoor Adventure Giving you tips, tricks & recommendations to help make adventuring in the Outdoors fun, safe & exciting for you and your kids.
Alright, for those of you who live in areas where wood heating is common, you know the benefit of a good, efficient wood stove. Well… all those who pay heating bills (be it electric, gas, wood or pellet or ???) appreciate an efficient stove. Even backpacking we appreciate it. That’s what floats our boat.
There is an old saying, “White man builds big fire, stands back. Indian builds little fire, huddles close”. The point is, you want to get the job done, and while the more pyrotechnical minded like big fires, the less work, the better.
Now if you combine those principles (efficiency, price and purpose) you have the high efficiency wood backpacking stove. Think of it as a wood stove with an afterburner… yes like a jet, but no, not that fast. You add extra air at the top of the fire to burn any left over gasses. With only a handful of twigs you can boil a few cups of water and in the end, there is hardly anything leftover, just a bit of charcoal. And all you need is 2 tin cans!
In reality its purpose is to cook food. at 3200M (10 500 feet) I have boiled 2 cups of water in 8 minutes and 4 (1 liter) in 13.5.
What are the benefits?
For longer trips you don’t have to bring your own fuel, making it lighter than conventional stoves, especially on long trips.
It needs hardly any fuel (1 handful). Much less wood than a conventional fire.
What are the downsides?
Slightly longer to boil water than with an alcohol stove.
Slightly heavier than an alcohol stove.
It relies on finding dry fuel.
Take a look at the video for a how to:
