- Joined
- Jun 11, 2009
- Messages
- 291
Hi everybody,
Finding out about hobo stoves on this forum I instantly liked the concept. They are efficient, friendly to the environment (CO2 neutral) and pack down to a relatively small size. Plus, and to me this is a big plus, they work like a real little campfire, including collecting and processing wood, the smell, the look and all the atmosphere and comfort that comes with a campfire, just in a smaller size.
There are many makers for these stoves and most of them seem to work really well (even the simple, original idea of a modified tin can will work if done properly). I decided to buy the Kuenzi "Magic-Flame Next-Generation" for several reasons. (Just the mandatory remark: I am not in any way related to a seller or the maker of this product and of course payed the full price for it.) I think there are very nice alternatives out there as well, but sadly I couldn't buy all of them, and so I eventually had to decide for one!
(All the information and specs on this stove can be found on the manufacturers website: http://www.kuenzi.com/ ) The stove is made in Switzerland and has a life long guarantee.
This is the stuff I carried with me. You can see the stove in the middle of the bottom line, resting on the little bag made of heavy cotton duck it comes with. (Just because we're on bladeforums: the small knife is a Koster Woodlore PSK Blank in 1095 wrapped with paracord. The large knife is my own design allround knife which I had custom made by the german maker Juergen Schanz. I thought I might need it for processing thicker pieces of wood, but it turned out I didn't as I only used smaller branches for the stove.)
Also in the picture you can see flint and steel (which I didn't use to start the fire, it just happens to be in the picture). The yellow disks on the aluminum foil are cotton pads soaked in beeswax that I use as a fire starter. This is not my idea, I read it somewhere. The brown piece on the left beside the large knife is a tinder fungus which I just found this day, it was too wet to be used.
The great thing about the stove is, that it has no loose parts: all four walls plus the perforated base floor are connected by joints. The stove is completely collapsible. All of it is made of high quality stainless steel. It also comes with two U shaped bent steel sticks that can be pushed through little holes in the sides of the stove in different configurations. This allows to use smaller containers like cups as well as converting the stove to a tiny grill. There are also configurations that will let you use burners in it.
Another great thing about this stove is that you can use it in three sizes: Entirely folded out as seen above (maximum volume), folded out to a triangle (medium volume, for smaller pots (less fuel needed)), and in the smallest configuration for use with a cup or similar (very little resources required). Note that if you use one of the smaller modifications, there is no bottom base and the fire will burn directly on the surface the stove stands on.
Looking for firewood I found a dead tree with dry twigs and branches. I was really pleased and surprised how dry the wood was since it had rained for a couple of days and everything was rather damp or even wet. I am not sure if this wood is very good for fires, the tree is a larch if I am not mistaken. It burnt very well, with quite some crackling noises though. I just broke off some Branches with my hands in gloves, so the knives stayed in their sheaths.
I chose this place to test out the stove and placed it on a spot where I had cleared out some of the grass on the ground before. I have to admit I should have cleared out a larger space to prevent the grass nearby from catching fire. The place is somehow in our backyard though and it was very wet as mentioned before, so I decided to leave the set up like it was. When I am in the bush the next time I will do a better job. (Just to let you know: the grass around the stove dried out within 20-30 minutes and occasionally something caught fire. So it would definitely be better to clear out a larger space.)
I used my Koster Woodlore to make a couple of feathersticks to light the fire. I simply broke the branches of the larch I had gathered before with my hands to the proper sizes.
To start the fire I began with the wax-soaked cotton pad, put the feathersticks on top of it, afterwards some thin branches and then the thicker ones. It was very easy to light the fire that way and already in the beginning I could see how the stack-effect did its magic and quickly lit every little piece in the stove.
Of course I wanted to see if the stove fulfills its promise to be efficient for boiling and cooking. For the test I used a pot of water, I forgot to measure how much water it was, guesstimating something around 1,5 litres. The pot is a usual stainless steel pot, as the temperatures can get very high with this stove (up to 1000°C under exceptional circumstances, this information is taken from the website of the stove). Using Alloy or coated pots/pans could be problematic regarding those temperatures. After around 10 minutes the water boiled heavily. I am sure this can be done quicker, as I used some wet hardwood (beech) during the process of boiling the water. This will have slowed down things but even the wet sticks start to dry out relatively quickly and eventually catch fire. Just sitting beside the stove and occasionally "feeding" it with sticks is a highly enjoyable experience in my opinion! You can feed the sticks into the stove through the lowered rim on all four sides of the stove.
When the water was boiled I took away the pot and used the stove as a little firepit. Of course it works great like that as well, and it makes for a very cozy small and easily maintainable fire with a very low and billable risk. The wood evenly burns down to a nice ember and eventually produces a very small amount of grey ashes. After roughly 30 minutes of using the stove i was surprised to find only about 2 - 3 spoons of ashes. After a few minutes the stove cools down and - voila - you even got a free heat anodising! I put the stove into its cotton pouch when it was still very warm and realized that it functions like a pocket hand warmer for around 10 minutes.
It was so much fun to use this stove that I went out the next day to light it again. It was windy on the second day but everything worked out as well as on the first day. I am very happy with my new stove and am looking forward to hiking and camping with it in the future. I never liked hauling around bottles with gas or other fuels and this little stove is more than just the solution to that. Now I am looking for a nice set of pots and pans and I am ready to go.
Have fun outdoors and take care,
l.
Finding out about hobo stoves on this forum I instantly liked the concept. They are efficient, friendly to the environment (CO2 neutral) and pack down to a relatively small size. Plus, and to me this is a big plus, they work like a real little campfire, including collecting and processing wood, the smell, the look and all the atmosphere and comfort that comes with a campfire, just in a smaller size.
There are many makers for these stoves and most of them seem to work really well (even the simple, original idea of a modified tin can will work if done properly). I decided to buy the Kuenzi "Magic-Flame Next-Generation" for several reasons. (Just the mandatory remark: I am not in any way related to a seller or the maker of this product and of course payed the full price for it.) I think there are very nice alternatives out there as well, but sadly I couldn't buy all of them, and so I eventually had to decide for one!
(All the information and specs on this stove can be found on the manufacturers website: http://www.kuenzi.com/ ) The stove is made in Switzerland and has a life long guarantee.This is the stuff I carried with me. You can see the stove in the middle of the bottom line, resting on the little bag made of heavy cotton duck it comes with. (Just because we're on bladeforums: the small knife is a Koster Woodlore PSK Blank in 1095 wrapped with paracord. The large knife is my own design allround knife which I had custom made by the german maker Juergen Schanz. I thought I might need it for processing thicker pieces of wood, but it turned out I didn't as I only used smaller branches for the stove.)
Also in the picture you can see flint and steel (which I didn't use to start the fire, it just happens to be in the picture). The yellow disks on the aluminum foil are cotton pads soaked in beeswax that I use as a fire starter. This is not my idea, I read it somewhere. The brown piece on the left beside the large knife is a tinder fungus which I just found this day, it was too wet to be used.
The great thing about the stove is, that it has no loose parts: all four walls plus the perforated base floor are connected by joints. The stove is completely collapsible. All of it is made of high quality stainless steel. It also comes with two U shaped bent steel sticks that can be pushed through little holes in the sides of the stove in different configurations. This allows to use smaller containers like cups as well as converting the stove to a tiny grill. There are also configurations that will let you use burners in it.
Another great thing about this stove is that you can use it in three sizes: Entirely folded out as seen above (maximum volume), folded out to a triangle (medium volume, for smaller pots (less fuel needed)), and in the smallest configuration for use with a cup or similar (very little resources required). Note that if you use one of the smaller modifications, there is no bottom base and the fire will burn directly on the surface the stove stands on.
Looking for firewood I found a dead tree with dry twigs and branches. I was really pleased and surprised how dry the wood was since it had rained for a couple of days and everything was rather damp or even wet. I am not sure if this wood is very good for fires, the tree is a larch if I am not mistaken. It burnt very well, with quite some crackling noises though. I just broke off some Branches with my hands in gloves, so the knives stayed in their sheaths.
I chose this place to test out the stove and placed it on a spot where I had cleared out some of the grass on the ground before. I have to admit I should have cleared out a larger space to prevent the grass nearby from catching fire. The place is somehow in our backyard though and it was very wet as mentioned before, so I decided to leave the set up like it was. When I am in the bush the next time I will do a better job. (Just to let you know: the grass around the stove dried out within 20-30 minutes and occasionally something caught fire. So it would definitely be better to clear out a larger space.)
I used my Koster Woodlore to make a couple of feathersticks to light the fire. I simply broke the branches of the larch I had gathered before with my hands to the proper sizes.
To start the fire I began with the wax-soaked cotton pad, put the feathersticks on top of it, afterwards some thin branches and then the thicker ones. It was very easy to light the fire that way and already in the beginning I could see how the stack-effect did its magic and quickly lit every little piece in the stove.
Of course I wanted to see if the stove fulfills its promise to be efficient for boiling and cooking. For the test I used a pot of water, I forgot to measure how much water it was, guesstimating something around 1,5 litres. The pot is a usual stainless steel pot, as the temperatures can get very high with this stove (up to 1000°C under exceptional circumstances, this information is taken from the website of the stove). Using Alloy or coated pots/pans could be problematic regarding those temperatures. After around 10 minutes the water boiled heavily. I am sure this can be done quicker, as I used some wet hardwood (beech) during the process of boiling the water. This will have slowed down things but even the wet sticks start to dry out relatively quickly and eventually catch fire. Just sitting beside the stove and occasionally "feeding" it with sticks is a highly enjoyable experience in my opinion! You can feed the sticks into the stove through the lowered rim on all four sides of the stove.
When the water was boiled I took away the pot and used the stove as a little firepit. Of course it works great like that as well, and it makes for a very cozy small and easily maintainable fire with a very low and billable risk. The wood evenly burns down to a nice ember and eventually produces a very small amount of grey ashes. After roughly 30 minutes of using the stove i was surprised to find only about 2 - 3 spoons of ashes. After a few minutes the stove cools down and - voila - you even got a free heat anodising!
I put the stove into its cotton pouch when it was still very warm and realized that it functions like a pocket hand warmer for around 10 minutes.
It was so much fun to use this stove that I went out the next day to light it again. It was windy on the second day but everything worked out as well as on the first day. I am very happy with my new stove and am looking forward to hiking and camping with it in the future. I never liked hauling around bottles with gas or other fuels and this little stove is more than just the solution to that. Now I am looking for a nice set of pots and pans and I am ready to go.
Have fun outdoors and take care,
l.
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