BushBuddy Back Packing Stove

[jca21]

Hello everyone, long time lurker first time poster. figured i'd throw something up on here.

Well... long story short, i got my severance pay from work and decided to blow it on a bush buddy stove and a ib cookset from brunton.

For those of you who are not familiar with the bush buddy, it is a wood burning stove which works on the principal of wood gasification.

Here are the manufacturer's specifications on the bush buddy stove:
Specs are:

Can boil 1 liter of water in 8-10 minutes
(will take longer under adverse conditions)

Weight: 5.1 ounces

Size: 4 1/4" diameter by 3 3/4" high

Price: $105 CAD

Image from the Bush Buddy Website (http://www.bushbuddy.ca/indexs.html)

I purchased the IB (stands for Itty Bitty) Cookset to go along with my bush buddy stove. My other GSI pot is not meant to be used on open fires and this pot was a great deal so i decided to pick it up anyways.

Here are the specs for the IB cookset:

Construction:
Hard anodized aluminum

Set:
Pot: 1.36qt / 1.3L
Pot: 0.84qt / 800ml

Packed:
5.2" x 4.5"
(13.2 x 11.4cm)

Weight:
9.4oz / 270g

Price: $35 CAD

So i decided to spend the morning at the lake before heading up to campus and being cooped up in the library cranking out research papers.

A shot of the lake.

i did some thumpin on the trail for a while till i found a nice secluded area where i could set up my stove and have some hot trail coffee in peace.

the log was a nice bench to sit on and i setup my gear on the opposite side on the ground.

Heres a picture of my cookset with my bark river fox river next to it for a comparison:

Heres a shot of my cookset un packed. The stove nests very nicely inside the pot and i keep the stove in a large ziploc bag to avoid getting the inside of my pot sooty.

Heres a shot of my pot, stove, and the amount of wood i had gathered as today's fuel supply.

Close up shot of the wood. Its actually not that much wood, mostly some sticks i gathered that were already on the ground and i broke into hand width size pieces.

Heres a shot of my stove with the stand setup ready to go.

This is what the stove looks like fully setup with the pot ontop.

more to come...

 

[jca21]

There was alot of snow on the ground and the wood i had picked up wasnt exactly bone dry so i pulled out one of my coghlan's fire sticks and broke it up into 4 smaller pieces.

The reason i did this was so that i could build a little log cabin inside my pot to get my fire going.

Its actually easy to get the stove lit as your hand can fit inside the stove no problem. I just took a lighter to the sticks and away it went.

I threw in a couple sticks and soon the stove was alight and roaring.

With the pot on top i sat back and watched the flames in the stove. Kind of nice actually, there was a little smoke coming from the stove but not too much that it was noticeable or that it bothered me.

Some action shots of the stove.

Notice the little flame jets coming out of the holes lining the inside of the stove?

this is actually wood gas and oxygen mixing together to create an efficient burn.

All in all i'm very satisfied with my purchase. Other then the price and the fact that your gear gets sooty i have no complaints. The fact that i need no longer carry fuel with me such as isobutane canisters or alcohol is a god send. Not only is it somewhat carbon neutral to burn wood, but i dont have to lug canisters or bottles of alcohol in and out of the woods with me on trips.

You dont even need to carry and axe or saw as the stove just runs on twigs and pine cones or whatever other wood debris u can find.

Thanks for lookin

JC

 

[Pignut]

Nice review and pictures, thanks for taking the time

 

[jca21]

thank you. glad you enjoyed them

 

[MartinK9]

Great Pictures there jca and welcome to the Forum

 

[jca21]

Great Pictures there jca and welcome to the Forum

thanks for the welcome.

 

[DavidJT]

Hi JC
Looks like a good bit of kit and a beautiful location. Thanks for the interesting review, and welcome to the forum!

 

[jca21]

Hi JC
Looks like a good bit of kit and a beautiful location. Thanks for the interesting review, and welcome to the forum!

thanks dude, its a lake near my university.

makes studying or writing term papers all the harder

 

[Shewie]

Nice review JC

 

[AJB]

I enjoyed that, thank you - love the knife too!

 

[jca21]

thanks for the warm welcomes.

AJB, the knife is a fox river from bark river knife and tool in natural micarta. it has red liners with hollow pins and i gotta say its my favorite bush knife. i gave the leather sheath a treating in obenaufs and the thing is almost like kydex

cheers

 

[woodstock]

Hi great pics of the BB in action I bought one last year just interested on how much you paid for one in Canada I paid £43 shipped to the uk and I must say it is one of the best bits of kit I have bought.

 

[Wilderbeast]

looks good.........but the words posh hobo stove spring to mind!!

 

[Glosfisher]

That lake looks suspiciously like Buntzen Lake just north of Port Moody, BC. jca21 you go to SFU, perchance?

 

[Kerne]

Welcome to BCUK. I am an ardent Bushbuddy fan as well (see here)
andnow prefer to pack it than a thermos, even on a daywalk.

 

[hanzo]

Thanks for a great review, jca21.

 

[outdoorowain]

Where can you buy one in uk?

 

[Toadflax]

You can't buy the Bushbuddy in the UK (except as an import, which may be subject to import duty), but you can buy a clone (the Bushcooker) from www.backpackinglight.co.uk (I have no connection with them other than as a satisfied customer). I believe that the clone is an official authorised clone manufactured by a Dutch company.

I got one a couple of months ago and am still getting to grips with it. When it runs well, it is good, but my main niggle is that it does seem to need almost continual attention in order to keep it burning properly. I may just need to learn more about how it works and how to use it, but it certainly doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that you can light and then leave alone, even for a few minutes.

However, it is fuel efficient and requires very little, easy to gather fuel - really just a handful of small dry twigs.


Geoff

 

[jca21]

thanks for the welcome guys.

@woodstock: i got mine for 115CAD with shipping.

@wilderbeast: yeap, it is the taj mahal of hobo stoves

@glosfisher: yes sir that is definetly buntzen lake. and yeah i go to sfu. 4th year student

@kerne: yeah i definetly carry it on all my day hikes. its much better to have hot brew than warm brew from my thermos

@outdoorowain: you can order it from the bush buddy website but it would be shipped from canada. as toadflax stated you can order a clone from the uk.

 

[Jay.in.the.woods]

I also have the bushcooker from backpackinglight and i'm very pleased with it burns better than any hobo stove and i've made loads.