The Vital “Survival” Stove
By Benjamen Johnson
I love my Coleman two-burner propane stove for camping, but it’s a little bulky and I’d recommend bringing extra tanks if you don’t want to run out in the middle of cooking a meal. In contrast, a small stove like this Vital Stove from SolHuma burns whatever dry combustible fuel you have, including wood, cardboard, twigs, straw, natural fibers, or animal dung — I’m not to sure about the last one — and leaves little residue.
Easy to carry and store, this light and compact stove weighs just 1-1/2 lb and measures 5″ by 8″ by 2″ folded shut. It works well in any weather, cold or hot. The secret: an internal fan creates forge-like conditions in the base of the stove. The fan constantly stokes the fire, producing up to 20,000 BTU of heat at 1,200°F. Two AA batteries power the internal fan for about 24 hours.
Made in Canada, the asking price is $69 Canadian or about $65 US — not bad considering my Coleman two-burner stove costs $60. To justify buying one, you could even use this stove at the shop. Throw in a chunk of scrap lumber and heat a can of Pork ‘N’ Beans for lunch!
Vital Stove [SolHuma]
Vital Stove [Garrett Wade]
August 21st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I prefer the foldable pocket cooker (same basic concept) for $12:
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/cb.aspx?a=288270
August 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
There is a whole Blog devoted to biomass stoves:
http://improvedstoves.blogspot.com/
Having taught stove use to boyscouts and scouters for many years - I found that fan-assisted biomass stoves were OK in mild weather - and when your expectations about how much and how fast they could cook (boil wtare etc.) were not too demading.
I liked gasoline stoves made by folks like MSR, Primus/Optimus and others for really cold weather, mixed-fuel (butane/propane mix) for moderately cold weather - and propane stoves for mild weather and base camps.
Folks like REI and Campmor have many varieties to choose from - and small backpacking stove technology seems to improve all the time.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Looks like an improvement over the Sierra stove. The fan assist gives it a edge over stoves like the pocket cooker. The real improvement to wood burners come from inverted downdraft gasifier technology.
My personal favorite is the Swosthee stove.
You can even run vehicles with wood gas.
hXXp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG8iR5DRLpw
I’ll always have a soft spot for the simplicity of the Kelly kettle.
There has been a lot of talk about Vapore Inc. capillary action pump for small stoves. This is a white gas tech that would work with out having to be pumped up first. MSR seems to be doing something with them..
hXXp://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/features/kitsink/kitsink.html
hXXp://www.vapore.com/applications_energy_2.html
August 21st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Spam bot is most annoying not letting me post links. So this is a repost minus the links you may have found interesting.
Looks like an improvement over the Sierra stove. The fan assist gives it a edge over stoves like the pocket cooker. For another option look into woodgas.com
The real improvement to wood burners come from inverted downdraft gasifier technology.
My personal favorite is the Swosthee stove. (there would have been a link, to both a description of the swosthee and an explantion of wood gasifying stoves in general)
People have even run vehicles on wood gas.
(there would have been a youtube link here if it the spam bot didn’t censor)
I’ll always have a soft spot for the simplicity of the Kelly kettle.
There has been a lot of talk about Vapore Inc. capillary action pump. This is a white gas tech that would work with out having to be pumped up first. MSR seems to be doing something with them..
(and here I would have put some links to Vapore’s pumps page and an engineering site that had a write up on MSRs new stove and a link to Natick soldier center stove page)
August 21st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Svea makes some neat stoves which are based on designs dating back to the late 1800’s. The Svea 123 is a very simple and compact brass stove which self-pressurizes with heat from the stove–no pump to break.
For a modern compact stove setup, the Jetboil PCS is a great system which stows into an integral mug.
These are both on the compact/packable side and good for 1-2 people.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I swear by (and occasionally at) my old Primus white gas stove - no pumping, just spill a little gas in a depression on the top of the tank. The heat from burning the spilled gas gets the pressure up, and normal cooking keeps it up after that.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:29 pm
The Vapore Pump is the size of an altoid and does not require any pressurized tank. Picture a two ounce stove with the output of a modern white gas pressurized stove.
add the htp and the three w to
natick.army.mil/about/pao/05/05-27.htm
memagazine.org/backissues/membersonly/aug04/features/kitsink/kitsink.html
or google capillary force vaporizer
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I like the Trangia. Really simple and bombproof.