Wood-Burning Backpacking Stove - Best Small & Large

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While camping, you’ll need a method for warming food and boiling water. A wood-burning backpacking stove is a fantastic tool for accomplishing this. This article explains the best small and large wood-burning backpacking stoves.  The primary benefit of these wood stoves is weight reduction because fuel and its container are not required to be transported. Numerous wood-burning camping stoves can be folded flat and transported in a backpack by fitting inside a bag.

Let’s examine the benefits and drawbacks of utilizing a wood-burning stove instead of an alcohol or isobutane canister stove. We’ll go into great depth about the various sorts. We’ll go through how to use them effectively to pick the right one for your particular needs.

Why Use a Camping Wood Burning Stove

Weight is a key factor when hiking. The main benefit of wood stoves is that we no longer have to bring fuel with us on every hike. A wood-burning backpacking stove is the only stove that won’t require you to pack extra fuel. You’ll bring extra canisters since you don’t want to run out.

Often it can be difficult to gauge exactly how much fuel is required, we bring any unused fuel home. Wood stove campers do not have to deal with this, as isobutane canisters or alcohol bottles hold the fuel.

Simply put, having a controlled fire when camping is pleasant. The best option is a big campfire, but a stove will be less disruptive because of its smaller size.

Disadvantages of Wood Burning Stoves

Gathering kindling: It can be difficult to locate dry wood in some places. But keep in mind that you’re not building a huge bond fire. Food can be warmed up, or a few glasses of water can be boiled with a modest amount of wood.

Limitations in parks and high altitude: Check whether tiny wood-burning backpacking stoves are permitted in the hiking area. Because they lack a shutdown valve, several locations forbid “open fires” during the fire season.

National Park Service Guidelines for fire safety

Initial lighting will be challenging due to the damp wood and strong gusts.

Water will take longer to boil since wood-burning backpacking stoves are less efficient than quid, canister, or alcohol fuels.

Different Styles of Wood Stoves

These stoves can be classified as either can stoves or folding flat stoves for camping. Both of them have advantages. Before delving deeply into can wood burners, let’s look at what wood gas is. The main distinction between the two groups of wood stoves is this.

Describe Wood Gas

Any organic material, not just wood, can produce wood gas when heated without enough oxygen to ignite. Methane, hydrogen, and other volatile chemicals escape as gas due to the heat-induced breakdown of chemical bonds in the organic material.

Can Wood Burning Backpacking Stoves

There will be two or three components to can stoves. They are double-walled cans, and the top of the outer canister receives wood gas from the interior can. Because the wood gas can be burned here instead of on the stove’s flat surface, wood can stoves are more effective than flat wood stoves.

Can stoves have a significant drawback: they take up considerably more room in your luggage. They are not designed to fold flat. They lack an accessible side area where they might keep adding wood to the fire.

There might be a little gap at the top where you can insert sticks, depending on the size of the pot you’re using. This makes it difficult since a pot or pan will need to be taken out for a short time to rekindle the fire.

Solo Stove Titan

Lightweight for carrying and one of the best.

The Solo Stove This stove has three top arms and folds up into a small size. Arms on the stove can be folded in or out to accommodate small or large cooking pots.

Ohuhu Stainless Steel Camping Backpacking Stove
2 Adjustable Heights (2.8”/3.8”) Compact, portable & lightweight. Comes with a detachable stainless-steel plate Which helps contain the firewood while it’s burning. The Ohuhu also has a windscreen.

Flat or Box Backpacking Stoves for Wood

Most wood stoves with folding styles can be folded up when not in use. This is good since a flat stove may easily slide into a dry bag if you’re concerned about getting your clothing dirty from soot or dirt. They will need to be put together before usage because they lay flat for transportation. Like your camping tent, a flat stove will be simple to assemble after you’ve used it a few times.

Cutouts for continuous wood addition are another benefit they offer over can stove in addition to saving space. No pot or pan needs to be taken out to add wood. They work better for long cooking sessions and group cooking.

As the other end of the longer piece burns away, you may push more wood into the refueling cutout. With this technique, there is no need to cut or split a branch into smaller pieces.

Cooking food or boiling water will take longer with these stoves because they are less effective than can stoves. The exact amount of water will often boil twice as quickly in a can wood-burning stove at the same outdoor temperature. Instead of five, it can take ten.

Emberlit Titanium UL

The Emberlit is classified as a heavy-duty stove.

Jetboil Flash Camping and Backpacking Stove Cooking System
For fast boiling time, nothing is faster than a Jetboil. A flat wood burning stove will boil a few cups of water in ten minutes and a Jetboil will do in two.

What If Wood Is Wet from Rain?

When choosing to use a wood-burning stove exclusively, this is a constant worry. Bring some Esbit smokeless solid fuel tablets with you if you’re in a place where it might rain. These can be used as fire starters or on their own. Each tablet only has a 4-gram weight. Utilize them inside the wood stove, which also functions as a windshield.

These tablets essentially emit no smoke and leave no residue. Use these solid fuel tablets to start campfires or in an emergency. No matter how high up you are or how cold it is, it doesn’t matter.

A lighter or a match is used to light the tables. Be aware that each little 4-gram table burns for only around five minutes. Bringing the fuel tablet closer to the water that has to boil aids in the process. To support the fuel tablet, place some twigs on top of it.

Small Backpacking Stoves for Wood

Let’s look at some portable stoves that are even smaller than the conventional wood burners used for camping. Due to their size, these stoves are also known as emergency stoves, yet a lone hiker can use them just as effectively. Even when hiking with my Jetboil, I still bring one of these with me.

Be aware that larger pans on tiny stoves will have a smaller “Hot Spot,” which could make cooking more difficult.

Quickstove 12.6 oz. tiny wood stove for hiking

The Quickstove is a clever portable little stove that is compact and lightweight. It requires no assembly, is simple to operate, and has three distinct cooking positions. This should enable it to fit any pan or pot you possess—Grill directly on the bottom plate by turning the stove on its side.

Additionally, various fuels will be required, including wood sticks, charcoal, Sterno, alcohol burners, and Esbit fuel.

6.7 oz. Lixada Folding Wood Stove

Another cool little stove is the Lixada Folding Wood Stove. The sides are all hinged together, making construction quick. Once the sides have been folded, one pin must be inserted through the final hinge. Pull the pin to flatten the stove once you’re done using it. This wood stove also comes with an alcohol burner.

Ultralight Titanium Nano Stove G2 by Firebox, 7 ounces

A special feature of the Titanium Nano Stove the tiny wood-burning backpacking stove is that the case it arrives in doubles as a stand. For more stability, while cooking, use this stand. The case doubles as an ash catcher while you cook. Because of this, it will be simpler to leave no trace at the campground or on the route.

Large Campfires That Burn Wood

These are excellent for automobile or group camping. They are an excellent way to have a controlled campfire because of their size. Expect little portability because they are significantly bigger than backpacking stoves.

16-pound EcoZoom Versa Camping Stove

Backyard camping is a fantastic match for this big wood stove. However, the EcoZoom Versa Camping Stove weighs 16 pounds. You probably would never take this hiking, but it would be sufficient for a group of RV campers. It comes with a tray that fastens to the entrance and has a sizable side door for feeding in wood. Long pieces of wood are easier to feed as a result. You don’t need to separate large branches.

The wood-burning backpacking stove has a vertical combustion chamber that is completely insulated, which forces wood gas to blend with the flames. There is an air damper system on the side. You can close the door to stifle the oxygen flow to the fire and delay the burn.

BioLite Campstove 2 – 2.06 lbs., Wood-Burning, Electricity-Generating

At first, I thought this wood-burning BioLite Campstove 2 backpacking stove was gimmicky, but the more I researched it and learned why people are buying it, the more sense it makes. While hiking, I already have a foldable solar charger; this stove would replace it. If you were to bring this wood-burning backpacking stove instead of an external battery pack, it wouldn’t be all that much heavier.

Utilizing a thermocouple, the BioLite Campstove 2 generates electricity to power your electronic devices. Therefore, the stove also charges its batteries while cooking—the device doubles as a mobile phone battery pack. A built-in fan in the stove forces air back into the burn chamber, greatly enhancing combustion and producing a cleaner, more effective burn.

Wrap up

Whichever wood-burning backpacking stove you choose, you will find cooking easier when camping with one of these choices.