Wood Fuel Firepit/Stove

NikonRon

Adventurer
For $100.00 I'd just bite the bullet and buy one, more work in that little stove than you think. Ron
 

verdesardog

Explorer
There is a science to small wood burning stoves...I have made a couple of wood gas stoves. The design will be totally determined but the intended use. Some can be very efficient, using less fuel and emitting less toxic combustion by products. Most of third world cooking is done over wood or other fire. I have one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/161783011521?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true

It never really gets into the gassifier stage but it does burn nice and hot and fuel can be replaced as it burns. It's better than just an open cooking fire. It will make a 12 cup pot of perked coffee in two refuelings.
 

Ragman

Active member
Seems very similar to the larger Solo Stove Campfire. It is hard to tell actual size from pictures. I have the Solo Stove (and there are other gasifiers) and it works well. Be aware any cooking on it with result in sooty pans to wash if you don't take precautions.

This being all stainless looks nice and being able to burn pellets sounds reasonable as I am sure you could burn other biomass as well. Pellet loads probably burn longer.
 

bbaker22

New member
I have a couple different wood-burning stoves. A Kelly Kettle, which is mostly limited to water boiling, and a Solo Stove Campfire, which is a bit more versatile (and easier to use).

I like the concept of a safe contained wood fire, with no need to bring fuel, endless fuel (assuming your are in a forest type area), not using fossil fuels, dealing with canisters, etc. Definitely a good choice for the apocalypse. :) The downsides are the screwing around with finding/prepping wood, constantly feeding the fire, and the soot on the pots/pans.

Here is the link to info on the various Solo Stoves, which seem to be really well designed and built stoves. I picked up the Solo Stove Campfire with the 2 pot set for 109, when it was on sale. Not too bad, but way more expensive than the ebay Chinese stove linked above...

https://www.solostove.com/

BTW, I just ordered that ebay stove from China just for the heck of it. It'll be interesting to compare with my Solo Stove.
 
Last edited:

SilverBob

New member
Greetings,

I'm the creator of the Hot-Pot. Thanks for your interest in our product. Since I'm not a Sponsor on this site, I don't know how much I can say about it but maybe I can answer a couple questions.

If you want too make your own Hot-Pot, just go to Walmart and buy the following stock pots:
#553412467 Mainstay 16 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $11.94
#552022569 Mainstay 12 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $8.94

Make sure you get the ones with the stainless lids, not the glass lids. The ring that holds the inner pot is made out of the lid from the larger pot. You'll need a way to cut the center out of the lid to fit snugly around the inner pot. Slide it up till it stops against the handles. Now drill 24 equally spaced 9/16" holes just below the ring. I have a pile of pots with different sizes and numbers of holes that I tried during the development of the Hot-Pot, but the configuration I just described seems to give the best/brightest flame.

When I was making my prototypes, I just cut the slots in the bottom of the inner pot with a hand held plasma cutter. The hand made slots work just as well as the CNC cut ones, but they didn't look uniform or professional enough to sell to the public. Cut slots as close together as you can, but try not to break through to adjacent slots as this will ruin the integrity of the bottom and allow pellets to fall through. The air holes in the outer pot are not critical, as long as they add up to at least 6 square inches of area. They can be drilled, plasma cut, or whatever you want. Keep the bottoms of the holes about 2" above the bottom of the pot so the ashes that fall through will be contained in the outer pot.

The flame concentrator ring is not super-critical. Just make it overhang the inner pot about an inch to inch and a half. This ring helps with the chimney effect and makes the flame more consistent.

That should be all you need to know. Yes, it's a fair amount of work to save a hundred bucks, but if you're anything like me, the satisfaction of making something yourself is worth quite a bit.

As far as cooking goes, a Hot-Pot makes plenty of heat, but as Ragman mentioned, soot build-up makes quite a mess on your cookware. I don't cook over campfires for that reason. If you are used to dealing with the soot, there's no reason you couldn't cook over a Hot-Pot.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me and I'll answer as best I can.

Cheers!
SilverBob
 

Offroadmuch

Explorer
IMG_3199.jpg

After doing a lot of research and building and experimentation I found it is a lot of work to make a decent wood burning stove. The one shown is a 4x4" steel pipe cut at a 45* angle and welded together with some 2" wide steel stock cut for the pot holder on top. I learned this: Wood fire cooking can be slow. Keeping the fire just right takes work. Cooking more than one item adds a lot of time to meal prep. Pans get covered in black smoke residue. A simple 2 burner colememan stove is MUCH easier and cleaner. You can buy a valve on ebay to refil the green coleman fuel cans off of a 5 gallon propane tank and it becomes very cost effective.
-I am glad I have a wood burning stove just to have. As noted it will be very convenient for the upcoming post apocalyptic life we are hearing so much about. Also, google kellykettleusa.com, great tool, have one of these and it is great for cooking and boiling. The wood pellets sound interesting, never tried those. Just my opinions. Good luck.
 
Greetings,

I'm the creator of the Hot-Pot. Thanks for your interest in our product. Since I'm not a Sponsor on this site, I don't know how much I can say about it but maybe I can answer a couple questions.

If you want too make your own Hot-Pot, just go to Walmart and buy the following stock pots:
#553412467 Mainstay 16 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $11.94
#552022569 Mainstay 12 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $8.94

Make sure you get the ones with the stainless lids, not the glass lids. The ring that holds the inner pot is made out of the lid from the larger pot. You'll need a way to cut the center out of the lid to fit snugly around the inner pot. Slide it up till it stops against the handles. Now drill 24 equally spaced 9/16" holes just below the ring. I have a pile of pots with different sizes and numbers of holes that I tried during the development of the Hot-Pot, but the configuration I just described seems to give the best/brightest flame.

When I was making my prototypes, I just cut the slots in the bottom of the inner pot with a hand held plasma cutter. The hand made slots work just as well as the CNC cut ones, but they didn't look uniform or professional enough to sell to the public. Cut slots as close together as you can, but try not to break through to adjacent slots as this will ruin the integrity of the bottom and allow pellets to fall through. The air holes in the outer pot are not critical, as long as they add up to at least 6 square inches of area. They can be drilled, plasma cut, or whatever you want. Keep the bottoms of the holes about 2" above the bottom of the pot so the ashes that fall through will be contained in the outer pot.

The flame concentrator ring is not super-critical. Just make it overhang the inner pot about an inch to inch and a half. This ring helps with the chimney effect and makes the flame more consistent.

That should be all you need to know. Yes, it's a fair amount of work to save a hundred bucks, but if you're anything like me, the satisfaction of making something yourself is worth quite a bit.

As far as cooking goes, a Hot-Pot makes plenty of heat, but as Ragman mentioned, soot build-up makes quite a mess on your cookware. I don't cook over campfires for that reason. If you are used to dealing with the soot, there's no reason you couldn't cook over a Hot-Pot.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me and I'll answer as best I can.

Cheers!
SilverBob

drinks.gif
 

workerdrone

Part time fulltimer
I've been using an original Sierra zip stove for at least a dozen years, it's pretty awesome - battery powered forced air backpacking stove, cranks out a lot of heat and burns whatever detritus you find on the ground. I still have white gas backpacking stoves like MSR dragonfly but once I got that Sierra I pretty much stopped using them.

LED headlamp, zip stove, solar AA battery charger - never run out of light or stove fuel as long as you want to stay out :ylsmoke:
 

RedF

Adventurer
Greetings,

I'm the creator of the Hot-Pot. Thanks for your interest in our product. Since I'm not a Sponsor on this site, I don't know how much I can say about it but maybe I can answer a couple questions.

If you want too make your own Hot-Pot, just go to Walmart and buy the following stock pots:
#553412467 Mainstay 16 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $11.94
#552022569 Mainstay 12 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $8.94

Make sure you get the ones with the stainless lids, not the glass lids. The ring that holds the inner pot is made out of the lid from the larger pot. You'll need a way to cut the center out of the lid to fit snugly around the inner pot. Slide it up till it stops against the handles. Now drill 24 equally spaced 9/16" holes just below the ring. I have a pile of pots with different sizes and numbers of holes that I tried during the development of the Hot-Pot, but the configuration I just described seems to give the best/brightest flame.

When I was making my prototypes, I just cut the slots in the bottom of the inner pot with a hand held plasma cutter. The hand made slots work just as well as the CNC cut ones, but they didn't look uniform or professional enough to sell to the public. Cut slots as close together as you can, but try not to break through to adjacent slots as this will ruin the integrity of the bottom and allow pellets to fall through. The air holes in the outer pot are not critical, as long as they add up to at least 6 square inches of area. They can be drilled, plasma cut, or whatever you want. Keep the bottoms of the holes about 2" above the bottom of the pot so the ashes that fall through will be contained in the outer pot.

The flame concentrator ring is not super-critical. Just make it overhang the inner pot about an inch to inch and a half. This ring helps with the chimney effect and makes the flame more consistent.

That should be all you need to know. Yes, it's a fair amount of work to save a hundred bucks, but if you're anything like me, the satisfaction of making something yourself is worth quite a bit.

As far as cooking goes, a Hot-Pot makes plenty of heat, but as Ragman mentioned, soot build-up makes quite a mess on your cookware. I don't cook over campfires for that reason. If you are used to dealing with the soot, there's no reason you couldn't cook over a Hot-Pot.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me and I'll answer as best I can.

Cheers!
SilverBob

Very decent of you to stop in here with genuine advice instead of a shameless plug of your own product!

View attachment 379439

After doing a lot of research and building and experimentation I found it is a lot of work to make a decent wood burning stove. The one shown is a 4x4" steel pipe cut at a 45* angle and welded together with some 2" wide steel stock cut for the pot holder on top. I learned this: Wood fire cooking can be slow. Keeping the fire just right takes work. Cooking more than one item adds a lot of time to meal prep. Pans get covered in black smoke residue. A simple 2 burner colememan stove is MUCH easier and cleaner. You can buy a valve on ebay to refil the green coleman fuel cans off of a 5 gallon propane tank and it becomes very cost effective.
-I am glad I have a wood burning stove just to have. As noted it will be very convenient for the upcoming post apocalyptic life we are hearing so much about. Also, google kellykettleusa.com, great tool, have one of these and it is great for cooking and boiling. The wood pellets sound interesting, never tried those. Just my opinions. Good luck.

I built a stove very much like that. I'm quite happy with mine, it produces a large amount of heat quickly but you are right about getting the fire just right. I'll see if I can find a pic of it.
 

ETAV8R

Founder of D.E.R.P.
Greetings,

I'm the creator of the Hot-Pot. Thanks for your interest in our product. Since I'm not a Sponsor on this site, I don't know how much I can say about it but maybe I can answer a couple questions.

If you want too make your own Hot-Pot, just go to Walmart and buy the following stock pots:
#553412467 Mainstay 16 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $11.94
#552022569 Mainstay 12 qt stainless steel stock pot with metal lid $8.94

Make sure you get the ones with the stainless lids, not the glass lids. The ring that holds the inner pot is made out of the lid from the larger pot. You'll need a way to cut the center out of the lid to fit snugly around the inner pot. Slide it up till it stops against the handles. Now drill 24 equally spaced 9/16" holes just below the ring. I have a pile of pots with different sizes and numbers of holes that I tried during the development of the Hot-Pot, but the configuration I just described seems to give the best/brightest flame.

When I was making my prototypes, I just cut the slots in the bottom of the inner pot with a hand held plasma cutter. The hand made slots work just as well as the CNC cut ones, but they didn't look uniform or professional enough to sell to the public. Cut slots as close together as you can, but try not to break through to adjacent slots as this will ruin the integrity of the bottom and allow pellets to fall through. The air holes in the outer pot are not critical, as long as they add up to at least 6 square inches of area. They can be drilled, plasma cut, or whatever you want. Keep the bottoms of the holes about 2" above the bottom of the pot so the ashes that fall through will be contained in the outer pot.

The flame concentrator ring is not super-critical. Just make it overhang the inner pot about an inch to inch and a half. This ring helps with the chimney effect and makes the flame more consistent.

That should be all you need to know. Yes, it's a fair amount of work to save a hundred bucks, but if you're anything like me, the satisfaction of making something yourself is worth quite a bit.

As far as cooking goes, a Hot-Pot makes plenty of heat, but as Ragman mentioned, soot build-up makes quite a mess on your cookware. I don't cook over campfires for that reason. If you are used to dealing with the soot, there's no reason you couldn't cook over a Hot-Pot.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me and I'll answer as best I can.

Cheers!
SilverBob

Wow how cool. Thanks for the info. Yes making something on your own and having it work out gives one a sense of pride. I was thinking about using the following but for the cost of the walmart pots that seems even better. I don't have a plasma cutter though but I'm also not worried about hot pretty the inside is.
What I was thinking about using:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product..._sfl_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
 

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