Wood gas or hobo

[Polecatsteve]

I was just wondering what everyone's preference is when it comes to cooking. Obviously there is an open fire but when it's not required, what do you use?

I have a small crusader cup / trangia burner setup for a brew but for food I use my hobo stove. I prefer hot embers to Meths for food. Simply because I like making a small fire and gathering natural fuel. However are wood has stoves much better than DIY hobo stoves?

 

[petrochemicals]

From my experience of fires, if your burning a small mass you get a lot of smoke with a standard fire, where as a protected one keeps the heat much better. I know they're meant to burn all the smoke, but nothings perfect. I also understand the slow top down burn, but with non unifrom fuel it's a fire

 

[Bishop]

I recently converted over to Wild Stove's wood gasifier jobby and would say it's not really a question of if a hobo stove is better but rather there's a difference in the way camp life revolves each type of setup.

There always seemed to be a lot of faffing about with hobo stoves demanding almost constant one twig at a time attention to keep them in that sweet spot between providing useful heat and smoking like a smudge pot. By contrast the gasifier stove operation does not require constant watching just load, light and leave as it runs through its predictable burn cycle first belching flames that would bring a smile to any Pyromaniac or group of lads in need of fast brew before settling down to a level more suitable for cooking. Total run time averages of about 40-50 minutes per fill depending on fuel quality/density (there's a video of one still boiling water after an hour using wood pellets/cat-litter). Now the downside.. Unlike a hobo stove a Wild Stove's gasifier burns from the top down so dumping fresh twigs etc no matter how dry onto hot coals messes the airflow up and it will smoke badly till the chimney wall gets hot and airflow is increased, this can take ages. You can try throwing a flaming vaso-cotton ball at it to kickstart the top-down ignition process and kill the smoke but I've found it better to just tip the hot coals out then put them back on top of the fresh fuel... yeah I know that's faffing about lol

 

[Fin]

I recently converted over to Wild Stove's wood gasifier jobby and would say it's not really a question of if a hobo stove is better but rather there's a difference in the way camp life revolves each type of setup.

There always seemed to be a lot of faffing about with hobo stoves demanding almost constant one twig at a time attention to keep them in that sweet spot between providing useful heat and smoking like a smudge pot. By contrast the gasifier stove operation does not require constant watching just load, light and leave as it runs through its predictable burn cycle first belching flames that would bring a smile to any Pyromaniac or group of lads in need of fast brew before settling down to a level more suitable for cooking. Total run time averages of about 40-50 minutes per fill depending on fuel quality/density (there's a video of one still boiling water after an hour using wood pellets/cat-litter). Now the downside.. Unlike a hobo stove a Wild Stove's gasifier burns from the top down so dumping fresh twigs etc no matter how dry onto hot coals messes the airflow up and it will smoke badly till the chimney wall gets hot and airflow is increased, this can take ages. You can try throwing a flaming vaso-cotton ball at it to kickstart the top-down ignition process and kill the smoke but I've found it better to just tip the hot coals out then put them back on top of the fresh fuel... yeah I know that's faffing about lol

+1 on this. Except...

...It is possible to do a top down burn on a hobo as well (the Ikea drainer lends itself well to this).

Like something else, I can't think of at the moment! size matters - some teeny twig stoves can never get enough air to sustain the burn and, like Bishop says, the fire requires constant attention to maintain the fuel, heat, oxygen ratio.

My experience? I used to use an original Bushbuddy - but now use a Ti Emberlit, for solo use, and a folding firebox for vehicle/ multi person camping. Why? I found that the advantages of the flat pack design outweighed the burn efficiency of the Bushbuddy, and the emberlit's rocket stove-like feed system means that, even for such a small stove, attending the fire is much less than either the Bushbuddy, the Ikea or the folding firebox. I typically pack the Emberlit for a top down burn and as it starts to burn all the fuel, I start to feed large sticks into the front 'door'. It does eventually get clogged with ash as the floor isn't perforated (the firebox gives the best solution of a perforated floor and a removable ash pan) but all of these things are a compromise compared to the campfire.