What’s the one thing that always makes the joy of a fire less joyful, well if for you its smoke in your face, I have a solution. Solo Stove sent me stove to have a play with, and I’m rather impressed by what they sent…

What’s in the Box…

What did they send? Well They sent me a Solo Stove Bonfire 2.0.

I received two large boxes from Daniel at Solo Stove, one contained the Bonfire 2.0 and the other some tools. I was filled with that giddy excitement of new kit to play with, so without hesitation I set too opening the boxes, staring with the bonfire.

The packaging is strong, with a mix of foam to protect from knocks, and a foam bag to stop it getting scratched. Inside the box along with the Bonfire 2.0 was a carry bag and a Bonfire Stand.

On first looking at the Bonfire 2.0 you would be forgiven for saying it looks like the inside of your washing machine, and to be fair, it kind of does. It comes in 4 parts, well pieces, the first piece is the cylinder, the next part is the removable ash pan, a fire grate and a ring that sits in the top to direct the fire in and upwards which is there to aid with the clean burn you get. All of these parts are made from high quality 304 Stainless Steel, which is one of the reasons Solo Stove are able to offer a Lifetime Guarantee! All these are set off with the nice touch of the company logo stamped into the fire grate.

So with that out of the box, it was time for the tools. These consisted of a poker and pair of tongs, which are rather long. In addition to these there was a set of 4 “sticks” these are screw together double prongs for cooking. Again made from high quality stainless steel.

The tongs and poker are a little un-wielding, at first I was very much of the mindset that they were a little to long to be useful, they don’t break down in the same way the “sticks” do, however I will go on later to explain how wrong I was.

So to the sticks, these come in a rather fancy roll up bag, each one is in two parts and you simply screw them together and you’re away. Looking at their website someone is roasting marshmallows with them, however I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, hot metal and your mouth isn’t something that should really come together. This said, they were rather good for the sausages, but I will get to that later.

On first inspection this is definitely not a lightweight option, you will need a car or have a fixed camp. I made good use of it a Bushmoot 2023 and so did a number of other people when I went to retrieve it later one evening after some rather nice live music.

Let there be fire…

The first time lighting it and yes this isn’t my first time with fire so getting it going was easy, however I think if you’ve never lit a fire before and you follow the instructions you’ll have no issues at all. You simply make a small fire in the centre, then add more wood. Yes you still need to start small and work your way up, however this is done much quicker than a simple open fire.

I was quite shocked at the heat that came up out of this thing and as you can see there isn’t really any smoke. Try and get it going to quickly, and you do increase the amount of smoke it produces as I found out. So best way is to take is steady, I got it going with a couple of cotton wool balls and as you can see some small sticks about ½ inch thick, after about 5 minute I was adding some bigger stuff and then it was away.

Now this type of fire really comes into its own as the sun sets, we were joined by a few other campers at Bushmoot, and in true camping form one chair led to another and another, before long there was about 10 of us sat around chatting and enjoying the flames, and these really are pretty flames.

Don’t get me wrong though, the Bonfire 2.0 isn’t just for the dark, one of the early afternoons at Bushmoot a musical duo came to entertain us, and they really did entertain, I wouldn’t have put a cello and an electric guitar together, but it really worked. Anyway this isn’t about the music its about fire, and what better way to showcase the Bonfire 2.0, other than to have it front and centre for all to see.

I got it going and after the band had finished a number of people migrated over to the Bonfire to take a closer look. I did my best to not sound like a salesman, however I couldn’t help but praise it. As it was lit I left it there with a pile of wood, now this wood wasn’t the most dry, but it still managed to burn very cleanly for the whole evening. As I said before I returned to collect it before heading to bed and as there were a few people sitting round enjoying the flames, I left it there and collected it the following morning.

Now this is where the fire stand comes in to its own, according to Solo Stove you can put the Bonfire 2.0 on your decking without causing damage as long as you use the stand, now I wasn’t too sure about this and the stand is only about 5cm deep, but they say you can so I thought it’s on grass, I will take a look in morning and see what mark its left behind. I walked over to it that morning, picked up the stove to assess the charring, and to my amazement, the grass was still green and damp! How this is possible is beyond me, however that stainless steel ring with holes in clearly did the job.

Now this stand doesn’t come with the Bonfire 2.0 it is an accessory, however I would very much recommend that you get one too, oh and when you’re packing your stove back into its bag, this stand sits nicely inside the belly of the stove.

As I have mentioned before this isn’t going to fit into your backpack, and unless you resemble an Austrian body builder, you’re not taking up a mountain, however if you’ve got a base camp or just at home this fire really is the bees knees.

Dinner time…

When it comes to the tools that came with the Bonfire 2.0 these again are stainless steel and were far more useful than I thought. The day after the musical interlude I decided that dinner would be sausages, and what better test for the “sticks” than to break them out and put them to use. After a few moments they were out of there protective carry bag and screwed together, the sausages stuck on and put over the fire. As I was on my own, it’s hard to hold 4 sticks at the same time, so I made a small rack to hold them. The fire was lit and sausages introduced to the heat of the fire. Now this wasn’t a big fire at all, due to the design of the stove all the heat was concentrated up and out of the stove as you would imagine, what you don’t want though is burnt sausages, so it was slowly slowly with the wood, just enough to keep at cooking temperature. As you can see, they really did look good being cooked, tasted good too.

Tools…

I have mentioned before that this came with the tools, and whilst the “sticks” came in handy for our sausages, the poker and tongs ended up being more useful than I thought, when I first got them out of the box my initial thought was that they were a little long, however when this thing is up and running, there is no way you’re getting your hands near it. There is a slight kink in both the tongs and the poker, so when you use them your hands are actually a little lower and away from the heat. This I thought was a rather nice touch, and when using the tongs I realised that I could pull out the fire grate and the ashpan without touching them. Just like the “sticks” and the stove itself, these are again made from high quality stainless steel.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly…

As always, nothings perfect… if you try to get this going too quickly you will get smoke although it does clear when it gets up to temperature, and it does use quite a bit of wood, maybe I was just a little to excitable and kept throwing in logs, from mid afternoon until the early hours it burned through about ¾ of a barrow of wood. Now this didn’t help as I have said, I wanted to get a good strong fire going to kept adding logs. I’m sure if you are a little more conservative, it will use less.

Its big… it is 49.5cm in diameter and stands around 40cm on its stand, it also weighs in at 9kg, a little more with the stand, so fitting it into the back of a small car may be an issue with other bits of camping gear. I must admit having a landrover has its advantages…

Although I have said “nothings perfect” it is pretty close, people say that an open fire is Bushcraft TV, and I couldn’t agree more, however this fire is “Bushcraft TV on a 50inch HD TV and without a face full of smoke.

Plus points:

1. Little to no smoke
2. Very easy to light and keep going
3. Good to look at
4. Lifetime Guarantee
5. Loads of heat

Negative points:

1. It’s a big boy
2. Uses quite a bit of wood
3. It’s not cheap
4. The heat goes up, however Solo Stove do offer a reflector which directs the heat out.

How many pennies…

The Bonfire 2.0 that was sent to me on their website comes in at £244.99, which I think is rather reasonable bearing in mind the attention to detail and very solid build, I have even looked at similar options from other makers and Solo Stove out price them. As I was testing this one with the stove stand that would set you back £54.99, although this may appear pricy but looking at the fact that it didn’t even take the green out of the grass it was sat on, I think that’s a small price to pay. If you were wanting the get the tool pack, this comes in at £124.99. whilst this is rather a lot for a what they are, these are very long and keep your hands from being melted off, and I did find them rather useful too.

Final Thoughts…

I really do like it, yes it has its down points whereby its rather large and if you’re on a budget its not cheap, however you can’t take away the fact that you’re sat around a beautiful fire and it doesn’t matter which way the wind is blowing, because you won’t be getting a face full of smoke.

These have quite a following now, and they are cropping up all over social media so I would have thought this won’t be the last one that you see at your favourite camp site.

As for changes to the design, I can’t really think of any and whilst it doesn’t have any handles you can get a handle that slots inside and one end goes into one of the secondary burn holes so you can carry it around, clearly when its not burning! As I didn’t have one, and being a bushcrafter I made one from a length of wood, yes it’s not aesthetically pleasing, but it worked.

The big question here is, would I part with my hard eared money for a Bonfire 2.0 and the answer would be YES. I just love the idea of being able to sit in the garden with friends and not end up smelling of fire, yes there are people in the world who are like that.

So if you like me want a fire where you don’t end up with smoke in your face, click the link below and get yourself a Bonfire 2.0.

https://eu.solostove.com/p/solo-stove-bonfire