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- Mar 14, 2009
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I've recently obtained two new woodburning backpacking stoves, and thought the W&SS crew would like to see a review.
The first, the BushBuddy Ultra, is a small, simple to use stove that uses wood gasification to ensure a nearly complete burn of your fuel. It's very compact and light, but does require lots of attention to keep feeding fuel to keep the fire going.
The second stove, the Caldera Cone Ti-Tri Inferno ULC Sidewinder (that's a mouthful), is a slightly more complex setup, that gives you a variety of great options. I'll try to break down the individual parts of the name - Caldera Cone is the general type of stove, and there are many CC models. Inferno refers to an upside-down cone insert which allows the stove to work as a wood burner with wood gasification for secondary, more efficient combustion. ULC refers to a Caldera Cone that's small enough to wrap up and store inside your pot. And last but not least, Sidewinder refers to a ULC model that's specifically designed to be placed sideways inside of a wider pot, to provide a larger stove for your buck. The Sidewinder is designed to work with alcohol, esbit tabs, and wood - I'll just be discussing the wood burning feature.
Both stoves can, using just a handful of sticks found on the ground, boil two cups of water in well under ten minutes. They are a bit more finicky to keep lit than a larger fire, but well worth the effort when you can get a nice fire with minimal fuel and heat up your meal nearly as fast as you could using a jetboil or other canister stove - except without the hassle or weight of carrying fuel bottles.
I couldn't wait for my next day in the woods to try them out, so I gathered some sticks and set to work on putting them to the test out on the patio. I'll mix some thoughts in with the pictures, then summarize what I thought of each at the end...
Both stoves are designed to nest inside specific pots. The Bushbuddy, on the left, fits into standard 900ish mL tall pots. The specific pot shown is a 1L REI TiWare pasta pot. We end up making a lot of ramen on the trail, so the strainer lid was appealing. The Sidewinder Ti-Tri, on the right, nests inside of a 1.3L TiWare pot. As you can tell, it's quite a bit larger. The Bushbuddy setup is definitely more compact. Score one for the BB here. The only flip side to that is that we can cook more with the larger pot, and since we generally only carry one stove for the two of us, it can be handy to have the higher capacity.
Here are the stoves nested inside. Ignore the pink banadana - it will soon be replaced with a manlier color, but it's all that was handy, and is necessary to ensure that the Sidewinder doesn't scratch the nonstick coating in the pot. The Sidewinder, unlike most ULC Caldera Cone versions, is designed to be rolled up and stored SIDEWAYS in the pot. The standard ULC's stand upright. Since it goes sideways, that means the Sidewinder is able to be both tall and wide when assembled, making it nearly as large as a full size Caldera Cone, while still being compact enough to store nested in the pot. The BushBuddy, of course, is simple to nest into appropriately sized pots.
And here are the stoves ready to be assembled - a dead simple process for the Bushbuddy, which just involves flipping over the pot stand, and a more complicated one for the Ti-Tri. The Inferno system consists of multiple parts - a two part mesh stand for the bottom to allow air flow under the wood, an inner cone, which is assembled upside-down and allows air flow up the sides for gasification, and an outer cone which serves as a pot stand and windscreen. There's also a simple piece that sits under the stove to prevent scarring from the fire.
Here I'm using a couple of Spyderco blades to get the stoves ready to light. For both of them, I've left the pot stands off while lighting, to give me more room to work. Here you can really start to see the advantage of rolling your stove up to fit it inside your pot. The Sidewinder on the right has a LOT more fuel capacity than the BushBuddy - you can see just how much wood you can fit inside of that Inferno cone. The prepared tinders are cotton balls dipped in candle wax. They take a spark fast, and burn a long time, making fire starting in these slightly finicky little stoves much easier.
And here I've lit the stoves then added the pot stands. The BushBuddy was lit first, which explains the larger flames. Again, you can see how much more fuel the Sidewinder can hold.
I placed two cups of water onto the two stoves simultaneously, while each had similar levels of flame going. You can see that the larger opening of the Sidewinder makes it easier to load fuel, but the Sidewinder also doesn't need fuel added nearly as often since it's got such a big volume compared to the BushBuddy. You can also see here the difference in stability - the BushBuddy sits up much higher on a narrower base. Furthermore, the outer cone of the Sidewinder acts as a windscreen, while the BushBuddy's performance greatly suffers if there is an unblocked wind.
While doing my best to keep both stoves well fed, the Sidewinder was the first to bring two cups to a boil. This was hardly a scientific test, and the comparison would have to be repeated many times to get more meaningful results.
And it wasn't much longer, less than a minute, until both were boiling well. I was just about out of fuel at this point, but both stoves burned down to just a little bit of ash, with not much waste at all. Four cups of boiling water on a handful of semi-green sticks wasn't half bad.
So here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of each:
Caldera Cone Sidewinder ULC Ti-Tri Inferno
Pros: Huge firebox, very stable, does a good job dealing with wind. You don't have to feed it often and can get a pretty impressive fire going.
Cons: Takes more time to assemble, lots of parts to keep track of, pretty likely to get soot on your hands while disassembling all the various pieces. It's also quite a bit bulkier than the BushBuddy. It's also a minor pet peeve, but the naming scheme of the Caldera Cones is a bit excessive, and it would help to have a shorter model name to refer to this thing.
BushBuddy Ultra
Pros: Dead simple to assemble, packs very compact, easy to keep the soot off you and your gear.
Cons: Less stable than the Sidewinder, requires more constant attention to keep the flame going, susceptible to wind.
I like both stoves a lot, and I can see a use for both - the BushBuddy is great for slapping it together quickly and getting your boil on. It's compact and fast. The Sidewinder, on the other hand, is easier to keep your fire going, deals better with wind, but will be more of a hassle to take down and put together, plus eating up more of your pack space. For fast moving backpacking, where you don't plan to spend much time in camp, the BushBuddy seems like the better choice, and for times where you might spend more time sitting around camp, the Sidewinder would rule the day. The Sidewinder firebox is actually large enough to make a decently respectable little fire for roasting marshmallows or warming your hands.
Of the two, I find myself leaning towards the Sidewinder for most of my uses, but I have no plans to get rid of the BushBuddy, as its dead simple setup will be very convenient when I don't have the patience to fuss with setting up my stove.
Both are awesome, and they give you the chance to burn little sticks
The first, the BushBuddy Ultra, is a small, simple to use stove that uses wood gasification to ensure a nearly complete burn of your fuel. It's very compact and light, but does require lots of attention to keep feeding fuel to keep the fire going.
The second stove, the Caldera Cone Ti-Tri Inferno ULC Sidewinder (that's a mouthful), is a slightly more complex setup, that gives you a variety of great options. I'll try to break down the individual parts of the name - Caldera Cone is the general type of stove, and there are many CC models. Inferno refers to an upside-down cone insert which allows the stove to work as a wood burner with wood gasification for secondary, more efficient combustion. ULC refers to a Caldera Cone that's small enough to wrap up and store inside your pot. And last but not least, Sidewinder refers to a ULC model that's specifically designed to be placed sideways inside of a wider pot, to provide a larger stove for your buck. The Sidewinder is designed to work with alcohol, esbit tabs, and wood - I'll just be discussing the wood burning feature.
Both stoves can, using just a handful of sticks found on the ground, boil two cups of water in well under ten minutes. They are a bit more finicky to keep lit than a larger fire, but well worth the effort when you can get a nice fire with minimal fuel and heat up your meal nearly as fast as you could using a jetboil or other canister stove - except without the hassle or weight of carrying fuel bottles.
I couldn't wait for my next day in the woods to try them out, so I gathered some sticks and set to work on putting them to the test out on the patio. I'll mix some thoughts in with the pictures, then summarize what I thought of each at the end...
Both stoves are designed to nest inside specific pots. The Bushbuddy, on the left, fits into standard 900ish mL tall pots. The specific pot shown is a 1L REI TiWare pasta pot. We end up making a lot of ramen on the trail, so the strainer lid was appealing. The Sidewinder Ti-Tri, on the right, nests inside of a 1.3L TiWare pot. As you can tell, it's quite a bit larger. The Bushbuddy setup is definitely more compact. Score one for the BB here. The only flip side to that is that we can cook more with the larger pot, and since we generally only carry one stove for the two of us, it can be handy to have the higher capacity.
Here are the stoves nested inside. Ignore the pink banadana - it will soon be replaced with a manlier color, but it's all that was handy, and is necessary to ensure that the Sidewinder doesn't scratch the nonstick coating in the pot. The Sidewinder, unlike most ULC Caldera Cone versions, is designed to be rolled up and stored SIDEWAYS in the pot. The standard ULC's stand upright. Since it goes sideways, that means the Sidewinder is able to be both tall and wide when assembled, making it nearly as large as a full size Caldera Cone, while still being compact enough to store nested in the pot. The BushBuddy, of course, is simple to nest into appropriately sized pots.
And here are the stoves ready to be assembled - a dead simple process for the Bushbuddy, which just involves flipping over the pot stand, and a more complicated one for the Ti-Tri. The Inferno system consists of multiple parts - a two part mesh stand for the bottom to allow air flow under the wood, an inner cone, which is assembled upside-down and allows air flow up the sides for gasification, and an outer cone which serves as a pot stand and windscreen. There's also a simple piece that sits under the stove to prevent scarring from the fire.
Here I'm using a couple of Spyderco blades to get the stoves ready to light. For both of them, I've left the pot stands off while lighting, to give me more room to work. Here you can really start to see the advantage of rolling your stove up to fit it inside your pot. The Sidewinder on the right has a LOT more fuel capacity than the BushBuddy - you can see just how much wood you can fit inside of that Inferno cone. The prepared tinders are cotton balls dipped in candle wax. They take a spark fast, and burn a long time, making fire starting in these slightly finicky little stoves much easier.
And here I've lit the stoves then added the pot stands. The BushBuddy was lit first, which explains the larger flames. Again, you can see how much more fuel the Sidewinder can hold.
I placed two cups of water onto the two stoves simultaneously, while each had similar levels of flame going. You can see that the larger opening of the Sidewinder makes it easier to load fuel, but the Sidewinder also doesn't need fuel added nearly as often since it's got such a big volume compared to the BushBuddy. You can also see here the difference in stability - the BushBuddy sits up much higher on a narrower base. Furthermore, the outer cone of the Sidewinder acts as a windscreen, while the BushBuddy's performance greatly suffers if there is an unblocked wind.
While doing my best to keep both stoves well fed, the Sidewinder was the first to bring two cups to a boil. This was hardly a scientific test, and the comparison would have to be repeated many times to get more meaningful results.
And it wasn't much longer, less than a minute, until both were boiling well. I was just about out of fuel at this point, but both stoves burned down to just a little bit of ash, with not much waste at all. Four cups of boiling water on a handful of semi-green sticks wasn't half bad.
So here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of each:
Caldera Cone Sidewinder ULC Ti-Tri Inferno
Pros: Huge firebox, very stable, does a good job dealing with wind. You don't have to feed it often and can get a pretty impressive fire going.
Cons: Takes more time to assemble, lots of parts to keep track of, pretty likely to get soot on your hands while disassembling all the various pieces. It's also quite a bit bulkier than the BushBuddy. It's also a minor pet peeve, but the naming scheme of the Caldera Cones is a bit excessive, and it would help to have a shorter model name to refer to this thing.
BushBuddy Ultra
Pros: Dead simple to assemble, packs very compact, easy to keep the soot off you and your gear.
Cons: Less stable than the Sidewinder, requires more constant attention to keep the flame going, susceptible to wind.
I like both stoves a lot, and I can see a use for both - the BushBuddy is great for slapping it together quickly and getting your boil on. It's compact and fast. The Sidewinder, on the other hand, is easier to keep your fire going, deals better with wind, but will be more of a hassle to take down and put together, plus eating up more of your pack space. For fast moving backpacking, where you don't plan to spend much time in camp, the BushBuddy seems like the better choice, and for times where you might spend more time sitting around camp, the Sidewinder would rule the day. The Sidewinder firebox is actually large enough to make a decently respectable little fire for roasting marshmallows or warming your hands.
Of the two, I find myself leaning towards the Sidewinder for most of my uses, but I have no plans to get rid of the BushBuddy, as its dead simple setup will be very convenient when I don't have the patience to fuss with setting up my stove.
Both are awesome, and they give you the chance to burn little sticks
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I've been sold on multi fuel stoves that also burn wood- can really cut down on the amount of fuel needed