After working like a loon for 3 months i decided to treat myself to a biolite. It was ordered on the Tuesday night from the USA and arrived at the front door 10.30am on Friday but then with a $50 delivery charge i think thats to be expected 
I had to pay customs charges of £17.50 so not too bad. I was in the woods this weekend so havent had chance to play until now.
I was going to do a video review but then there are already youtube videos of people lighting it etc so decided i would focus on usability and charging performance
I collected some wood on last nights dog walk and set up the BBQ test bed.
its a doddle to put together and weighs about a kilo. I dropped in some lit birch bark and threw some small stuff on top. Once it was going a little i stacked some bigger stuff in, turned the fan on low, and it really started to motor
Next i whacked the fan on high and plugged in my iphone 4. The charging indicator came on immediately. Time check was 8:19am and battery state was 38%.
I then filled my MSR kettle and put that on. The pot diameter of the MSR is 4.5 inches and i wouldnt want to go any lower than that for stability on the pot stand. Talking of the pot stand, its a very clever design. the three shallow sections shape the flame and if you line up your handles with one of the raised areas you dont get heat directly on the handle. I didnt time the boil as im not bothered by these stats but it was rapid.
After making a brew i continued to feed wood with the fan on high. It is greedy on the high fan setting and smaller pieces of wood are devoured in quick order. turning the fan back to low makes the stove behave a more like a naturally aspirated wood gasifier. The jetting is not as concentrated and fuel burns longer. I do think i over filled it though You need to pay attention when having flames licking that high. If the wind blows the wrong way you could end up heating the orange housing which is plastic. It did give off a lot of heat though. Smoke was pretty much non existent. when standing back from the stove, all i could see was a heat haze.
I continued to feed wood periodically (didnt stand over it) with the fan on low until 9:19 when i unplugged the phone. I burned pretty much all of the wood in the first pic and the phone battery went to 71%. I figure that performance is plenty to keep me topped off
I also put my hand flat underneath the stove and there was no noticable heat so its not likely to cause scorching.
All in all im pretty happy with it. Although its heavy this will be off set by not having to carry my usual charging pack and associated guff which weighs about 500g.
I left it to cool down and tipped out the residual ash which was not much for an hours burn.
I had to pay customs charges of £17.50 so not too bad. I was in the woods this weekend so havent had chance to play until now. I was going to do a video review but then there are already youtube videos of people lighting it etc so decided i would focus on usability and charging performance
I collected some wood on last nights dog walk and set up the BBQ test bed.
its a doddle to put together and weighs about a kilo. I dropped in some lit birch bark and threw some small stuff on top. Once it was going a little i stacked some bigger stuff in, turned the fan on low, and it really started to motor
Next i whacked the fan on high and plugged in my iphone 4. The charging indicator came on immediately. Time check was 8:19am and battery state was 38%.
I then filled my MSR kettle and put that on. The pot diameter of the MSR is 4.5 inches and i wouldnt want to go any lower than that for stability on the pot stand. Talking of the pot stand, its a very clever design. the three shallow sections shape the flame and if you line up your handles with one of the raised areas you dont get heat directly on the handle. I didnt time the boil as im not bothered by these stats but it was rapid.
After making a brew i continued to feed wood with the fan on high. It is greedy on the high fan setting and smaller pieces of wood are devoured in quick order. turning the fan back to low makes the stove behave a more like a naturally aspirated wood gasifier. The jetting is not as concentrated and fuel burns longer. I do think i over filled it though
You need to pay attention when having flames licking that high. If the wind blows the wrong way you could end up heating the orange housing which is plastic. It did give off a lot of heat though. Smoke was pretty much non existent. when standing back from the stove, all i could see was a heat haze.
I continued to feed wood periodically (didnt stand over it) with the fan on low until 9:19 when i unplugged the phone. I burned pretty much all of the wood in the first pic and the phone battery went to 71%. I figure that performance is plenty to keep me topped off
I also put my hand flat underneath the stove and there was no noticable heat so its not likely to cause scorching.
All in all im pretty happy with it. Although its heavy this will be off set by not having to carry my usual charging pack and associated guff which weighs about 500g.
I left it to cool down and tipped out the residual ash which was not much for an hours burn.
Last edited:
brilliant.
