Stove advice please

[Roe Ring]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a small stove set up for light use, i.e. brewing up and perhaps an overnight stay. Having read a number of posts on stove choice, I am more confused than ever. My thoughts so far are:

Triangia meths burner - small and can be used in any number of bought and home made stoves.

Woodlore Honey Stove - Accepts the Triangia burner but also takes solid fuel for when I forget to pack the meths it will happen! Also folds down small/flat

Stainless mug - needs no explanation

I can always add other stuff at a later date, billys mess tins etc.

Does this sound practical? are there any alternatives to the Honey stove?

Thanks in advance.

RR

 

[resnikov]

I am in the same quandary as yourself.

Your idea does sound pratical.

I have been looking at the honey stove and aslo the crusadar cup cooking system. My thinking being the crusadar has plastic cup, metal cup and water bottle in so get that first then get a honey stove latter.
Then you can use the metal cup with the honey stove aswell.

You could look at a Kelly Kettle, never used one so cannot comment on how good they are.

 

[mace242]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a small stove set up for light use, i.e. brewing up and perhaps an overnight stay. Having read a number of posts on stove choice, I am more confused than ever. My thoughts so far are:

Triangia meths burner - small and can be used in any number of bought and home made stoves.

Woodlore Honey Stove - Accepts the Triangia burner but also takes solid fuel for when I forget to pack the meths it will happen! Also folds down small/flat

Stainless mug - needs no explanation

I can always add other stuff at a later date, billys mess tins etc.

Does this sound practical? are there any alternatives to the Honey stove?

Thanks in advance.

RR

Why not make your own hobo stove and use that with a meths burner or burn stuff in it. It's what I do and a load of others on here too. Do a search and you'll see plenty of tips.

 

[spiritwalker]

swiss volcano stove all of the above with the mug and water bottle for a tenner :-D
can use twigs, hexi and meths (not so easy but doable)

 

[Melonfish]

i'm just about ready to switch to a hobo myself, just need my billy can and i'm good to go. but i started with the military trang and i rate it highly

 

[Roe Ring]

I've looked at the crusader and like the completeness of the set and its size but I would prefer something that'll burn wood too. I could go for the Crusader steel mug with plastic bottle, mug and pouch though.

I had thought of using a camelback bladder to store and transport water. They seem strong and are able to mould themselves to the space left in the rucksack. Has anyone tried this? do they taint the water after a while?

I've seen some inspirational hobo stoves on this site and I'm sorely tempted to give it a go. I might even have a go at making a flat pack type honey stove. The military traing looks good too.

Cheers

RR

 

[Shewie]

A meths burner and the Honey is a good setup, gives you options for when you can't have a fire plus it folds flat unlike most hobbo stoves.

 

[Roe Ring]

Cheers Rich, thats what I'm thinking.

 

[shovel reccy]

hi. i think you r on the rite track . crusader,waterbottle and honey stove are the best set up. we dont need to have open fires all the time and the honey set up is a good substitute for that, being able to give you that same feeling of a open fire and not leaving an ugly scar on the earth whitch we see all the time in the woods, and i would like to say its kids leaving thease scars all the time but its not true you just need to look on you tube to see bush crafters building fires far to big and you just no that they wont make that go away. rite back to the point. dump the plastick mug that comes with the crusader set up,get a meths burner.dont worry about boill times; im in no rush and enjoy.that and a 12cm zebra pot is all i carry and i think the perfect set up all the best.

I am in the same quandary as yourself.

Your idea does sound pratical.

I have been looking at the honey stove and aslo the crusadar cup cooking system. My thinking being the crusadar has plastic cup, metal cup and water bottle in so get that first then get a honey stove latter.
Then you can use the metal cup with the honey stove aswell.

You could look at a Kelly Kettle, never used one so cannot comment on how good they are.

 

[rik_uk3]

Hi Roe Ring

If you limit yourself to woodland camping then a Honey stove fits the bill, if you want to go to more open places you need a liquid fuel/gas/alcohol stove really. I don't know your background or where you go camping (Snowdonia?) but to be honest a small gas stove does a good job for simple food over a weekend.

 

[Ogri the trog]

........ I might even have a go at making a flat pack type honey stove.

Cheers

RR

A nimblewill stove would be simpler to make than a replica honey!
http://www.nimblewillnomad.com/stove.htm

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[Shewie]

A nimblewill stove would be simpler to make than a replica honey!
http://www.nimblewillnomad.com/stove.htm

ATB

Ogri the trog

Cheers for the link OTT, been looking for that for a while

As a guide, I picked up a 500x500mm sheet of 0.9mm stainless for £18 from Metal Supermarket down the road.

 

[Roe Ring]

Cheers OTT, that looks quite straight forward to make. I have a pal that fabricates stuff from stainless; I'll try to sneak some off-cuts next time I'm in his workshop.

ric_uk3 - Thanks for your reply, most of my camping will be in woodland so I'm hoping a wood/meths type burn will be enough. I'm not to worried about how long it takes, as long as there's a brew at the end of it. Out of interest, did you mean a pressurised type of liquid fuel stove for more exposed locations?

Cheers

RR

 

[ged]

You're about to start out on an interesting journey...

I only use wood to heat water in my Ghillie kettle because it makes such a mess on pans, but for having loads of hot water in a short time at low cost a big Kelly/Ghillie style kettle takes some beating. There are 'wood gas' stoves which burn wood much more cleanly than just setting light to a pile of sticks in a tin but I've never used one. I've played around a bit with paint tins etc. with little success.

For cooking I use liquid fuels, mostly something similar to petrol (but not so unpleasant), usually in a pressure stove designed for petrol. I have several. Liquid fuels are much cleaner than wood. Meths is especially clean. Pressure stoves cope well in bad weather and can give a really fierce flame, but a meths flame is gentle and needs to be shielded from wind. If you can shield it from strong winds it will be fine for what you want, but some meths stoves can be difficult to control for cooking. You can make a meths stove from a couple of cans but you probably wouldn't want to try making a petrol stove. You get a bit less heat from meths than other liquid fuels, so you might need to carry a little bit more, but I don't think the difference is very significant in volume, weight or cost unless you're doing a huge amount of cooking. I haven't used gas for years except very occasionally, it's very convenient and controllable but you can't easily use it to help start a fire, and it comes in a canister and it has to stay in the canister and like the pressure stoves you have to carry the danged canister even when it's empty. Gas is susceptible to wind like meths and gives similar heat per kilo. Gas is about the most expensive of fuels, paraffin is about the cheapest apart from wood. Again this won't be usually very significant. Multifuel liquid pressure stoves will burn almost anything liquid except (usually) meths, the stoves themselves can be very expensive. Pressure stoves are less reliable and need more maintenance than other types like meths and solid fuel burners. Wood is usually free of course although in my experience it's usually wet. You can spend your entire life burning it in all sorts of interesting ways which can cost from nothing to hundreds. I've never seen the need to use solid fuels like Esbit/hexamine but some people like the convenience, simplicity, reliability and even the smell! It's on the expensive side.

All the liquid fuels can be dangerous. The meths flame can be hard to see. Gas can escape into confined spaces and cause an explosion hazard. Petrol, paraffin and similar fuels stink, and if you spill some in your pack you'll wish you'd taken meths. Coleman fuel, Aspen 4T and similar highly refined petrol substitutes aren't bad from that point of view but can be expensive.

What did I miss?

 

[spiritwalker]

pick one of these up i have 10 stoves now (ranging from gas to meths to solid fuel) and if i could go back to the start i would probably only buy this one for myself and a trangia for the family
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64102
for a tenner its light compact and very efficient ill be buying another one soon in case mine ever goes astray

 

[bivouac]

There are many Honey Stove aficionados use this website and from what i can gather it's a good multifuel stove. However...i'm the kind of chap who, whenever i put down a screwdriver while i'm putting together some flat-pack furniture can never find it again. And therein lies the problem with the Honey. In short - it comes to bits. And you can be sure that right at the most inconvenient time i will only be able to find three of the sides i need to put the thing together instead of the minimum of four. That's why i went for the Fire Spout Mini instead of the Honey. It comes in one piece, folds down flat, you can use wood as fuel and whenever you need you can use a meths burner in it too. At 400 grams it's not lightweight but life is a trade-off and it will take any amount of illtreatment. If you want to go up-market there is the Swiss Kuenzi Magic Flame, but with the exchange rate that is getting on for 90 quid.

Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice.......

 

[gsfgaz]

I love the honey stove, but lately i've been using my whitebox stove,
it's great wee bit of kit , as long as u've got a wee bit of meths ur sorted for a brew ...

 

[Ray Britton]

Roe Ring

When you say you are looking for a stove set up for LIGHT use, do you mean not very often or light in weight.

To be honest, either way you literally have hundreds of options, and this will depend on which direction you wish to buy from/go along with.

I have only been only this site for a short while now, and have noticed lots of posters seem to use the same heavy kit (often exactly the same), with a lot of it being ex military (which often mean: heavy, made by the lowest bidder, and designed to be carried in webbing, not a pack). While I am not going to discourage users from their beloved crusader cups etc, they are heavy, not the easiest to clean, and do not fit well on all stoves. Being made of steel, they also transfer the heat of their contents to the rim of the cup, so are harder to drink from than alloy/titanium, and loose their heat more quickly. That said, they are possibly seen as 'bushcrafty' so are bought by bushcrafters lol. There are of course a multitude of alloy/titanium pot/cups on the market, which will be easier to drink from, easier to clean, and will often have a wider base, so will cook your food/brew more quickly (less fuel needed). The bushcraft marker is quite small in terms of numbers of items sold when ciompared to the normal outdoor market, and items like the crusader are simply not bought by hikers/backpackers as they are seen as not good enough/too heavy.

As for stoves, there has been some good advice given so far IMHO, and yet again there is a big choice of fuel available to you. you could go along the route of: gas (butane, propane, butane/propane mix), petrol/white gas, meths, wood, esbit, hexamine etc. You will need to consider what fuel will be best to use, and if you are thinking about wood, will it be available when you camp or will you have to take it with you. You can buy a nice well made stove, which may cost lots of money, or you can just make your own. Even as a first time maker, you should be able to knock up a coke can stove in half an hour (and about five minutes once you have practiced a fair bit).

Water bottles are also in plentiful supply from a wide variety of manufacturers, and you could go along the 'bushcraft route' of buying a '58 water bottle, or you could simply use an empty lemonade bottle, which would effectively be free. The lemonade bottle (I use 500ml and 1L versions), are very light, hardly ever break (literally last for years), can be rolled up to stop them sploshing your water as you walk, or rolled up to save volume in your pack. You can place them over embers on your fire to heat the water inside (the bottle must be totally full to do this).

Sorry to not be much help, but there is a lot to consider in just choosing a cooker lol. I just wanted to point that out, as well as to just put in a quick word about military kit. I like many others on this site are ex military, and many of us know that while military kit is very strong (why why on earth do you need something that strong for a simple walk in the woods...your not at war lol), it is usually not that well designed or made (as in lacking features or modern design), and is often very heavy (as it is designed to be idiot proof, for folks who won't look after it), and usually made by the lowest bidder. This is fine if your idea of heaven is to drive one of those ultra cheap Tata cars from India, but I suspect many folks will have a more refined car, as they prefer something better designed, and modern.

Just a few thoughts

 

[Roe Ring]

Thanks for all the advice so far, its given me plenty to think about.

In terms of useage, I'm currently looking at single days out in the hills with the potential for overnight stays in the near future and perhaps 2-3 day stints as my bushcraft skills and confidence increases. The appeal of the honey stove is that it packs up into a 6" x 6" square that will fit in the top pocket of my rucksack or the pocket of my jacket. This basically means that I will be more inclined to take it with me wherever I go and therefore more inclined to stop, brew-up and take in the scenery.

I suppose at this stage, the same applies to my whole set-up. I like to travel light and it needs to be easy enough to just grab and go. Coffee, hot chocolate, sugar etc. will all be stashed in the mug which will hopefully fit inside a pouch of sorts. Meths and alchy burner also inside a pouch.


What would be the recomended civi alternative to something like the crusader mug?

Cheers again.

RR

 

[JonathanD]

I use a titanium mug. My little whitebox style stove made by Andy T fits inside that with plenty of room for brews and folding spoon.

If I need a cooking pot, the whole lot fits in a larger titanium billy...