When it comes to cooking over fire, the practice is really not rocket science. The Solo Stove proves there’s no better fuel for camp cooking than a handful of sticks.
While there is debate among archeologists, human beings started cooking on fire around 1 million years ago. Camping stoves, meanwhile, are all over the map as far as their ease of use and effectiveness.
What surprised us most about the light and compact Solo Stove was how quickly and efficiently it burned a small amount of bio-fuel. The best part of the Solo Stove is you don’t have to carry fuel.
We set a small bundle of wood shavings at the bottom of a stack of twigs. With the stove’s roughly 4-inch opening on the Solo Stove Lite, the sticks have to remain small in order to fit. But once the tinder was lit and especially when the pot was placed on top, the fire drew like magic and a high flame burned within two minutes.
After five minutes the 20 ounces of water began to simmer without having to refuel. We then popped a few more twigs into the mini-furnace and had our pot to a rolling boil in 10 minutes.
After 20 minutes the fire smoldered with such extreme heat it hardly needed refueling. At the end nearly every piece of wood was burned. That’s because the Solo Stove incorporates a secondary combustion for a more complete, efficient and cleaner burn.
One thing to keep in mind is that even after a single cooking, the bottom surface of the pot and much of the side was blackened with soot, which is no problem but can be messy.
Other than that we were extremely thrilled with the Solo Stove and would highly recommend it. The Solo Stove comes in three sizes from $70 to $110.
