Ultralight tent stove overview

This ultralight tent stove overview summarises my posts on my many tent stove innovations as they have failed, morphed and improved as I have learned to make a better stove. It is a brief outline of a complex and non-linear journey.

Background to the tent stove overview

The following group of posts are about my little wood stick burning tent stove for comfort and cooking while alpine camping. They are meant for the very small number of people who enjoy the wonders of overnight venturing into challenging alpine country on foot or skis with only the content of a light backpack for survival and comfort.

Box tent stoves

For my smallest box or bento box tent stoves, there is a four-part series that should be read in context to best understand the stoves development and operational principles, complex management required to avoid problems that can be hazardous or lethal.

I added an article about my experimental larger oval tent stove, for cooking multiple pots. It works according to the same ‘lean & mean’ clean-burning principals. It also should be classified as a box stove as it shares similar features and unfortunately the sam faults.

These box stoves are now largely made redundant by my improved round stove designs. However, they may make good background reading to help to understand the rather unusual clean and hot inverted burning arrangement in most of my tent stoves.

Round fire dome tent stoves

These round tent stoves formed with a tough fire dome improved the stick combustion and eliminated the above-mentioned problems with the box stoves. The round shape is very suitable for storing the stove in a cooking pot or multiple pots. It makes it a compact, strong, light and packworthy load. The round shape also meant that the fire dome can be inverted to double as a fire bowl to become a blower stove that can be used for fast outdoor cooking with sticks or slow cooking with a tiny (9g) alcohol burner.

The most recent innovation was to make the roll up stove pipe so small that it can be conveniently packed within the fire dome while backpacking. “Yes, that’s a tent stove, blower stove, alcohol stove and pot/s all in the one little packworthy bundle.”

The overview of my tent stove posts

Box tent stove- Part 1

This is a background to the stove development and my dream of an ultra-lightweight heat source that would provide unlimited warmth in a small tent when skiing and snow camping. It tells of lessons from failures. and how I was teased, and at the same time, spurred on by the amazing protracted and intense heat energy that could be released by the efficient combustion of a hand full of bush sticks. (link)

Box tent stove (Bento)- Part 2

This is about the development of my 500g rectangular Bento Micro Snow Stove Mk15.  It uses an inverted J-burner wood gas burner that largely met all my defined requirements including snow melting, cooking and heating. (link)

Small tent stove (Bento)- Part 3

This is about the mundane but very important basics of safely and effectively using the stove under field conditions that are invariably difficult when heat from a stove is most needed. (link )

Small tent stove (Bento)– Part 4

This is about supplementary DIY tools to take and make in the bush when using the stove. It also covers safety, care and maintenance issues to get a long use from this little stove. (link)

Larger experimental tent-stove (Oval box)- Part 5 

This is about an alternative larger ultralight tent stove with a big oval cooktop with room for simultaneous cooking, snow melting, water boiling and generous heat for warmth for a group of winter trekkers. (Larger tent stove). This stove was lovely, but it still has the problems of the box stove that needed to be managed well to avoid trouble.

Miniature Dome Stove (round fire dome)  

This tiny ultralight tent stove with the cooktop maximised for cooking. It is very simple to operate and provides intense heat for warming tent occupants and cooking. As a bonus, it also converts into a blower stove for fast outdoor cooking and an alcohol stove as a backup (Miniature Dome Stove). However, the elbow fitting makes it complex and the burner can choke up with pyrolysed wood charcoal.

Stove designs and experiments to correct stove combustion problems of-reverses burning and charcoal choking

Experimental ceramic stick burner.

This heavy experimental ceramic stick burner was an experimental platform that enabled me to find out how to rectify the combustion problems that I found in all the above stoves. “It certainly was not designed for backpacking.” Using an experimental moulded ceramic stick burner I conducted a series of experiments that investigated the burn characteristics of various burner configurations that separated the combustion of wood sticks and the produced charcoal and hopefully could avoid reverse burning and charcoal choking.

Micro tent stove design for robust, trouble-free and consistently hot and clean combustion.

This post, micro tent stove design, discusses issues about the design of stick burning stoves to provide convenient strong radiant heat for comfort and cooking, robust combustion and avoidance of hazardous reverse burning and charcoal choking that I have encountered with the above box- J-burner stoves.

Experiments with micro barrel stoves made from coffee tins

My multiple experiments with micro barrel stoves made from coffee tins was part o fa search for a stove that could burn all night.

It failed to find this ‘Holy Grail’. However, it was essentially an inverted burner, that did not show a great tendency to reverse bur or charcoal choke and this seeded the ideas that resulted in my Miniature Dome Stove and the even simlper KISS stove.

Pudding bowl stove

The pudding bowl stove was another experimental step toward my current best stove design. instead of using a drum or can, it used a tough pudding bowl that was inverted to make a fire dome that could form a limited cooktop and fire dome walls to spread strong radiant heat onto campers.

It was tiny, very simple, clean-burning and easy to keep fuelled with bush sticks. It produced steady intense radiant heat for a small tent and could boil water in a 700ml mug. However, the cooking space was very limited. Although the problematic reverse burning was greatly reduced, it could still occasionally reverse burn, particularly if left unattended.

Reverse Burning in ultralight J-Burners.

This post is about understanding the causes of reverse burning and mitigating factors in ultralight stoves through improved burner designs.

Three-in-one Miniature Dome Stove

I thought at the time the Miniature Dome Stove was my ultimate alpine backpacking stove. It was designed for heating and cooking in a small tent. It also can also be used as a blower stove and as a backup alcohol stove. It has a very simple horizontal stick burner that means it has robust combustion, minimal fuel stick preparation and avoids the reverse burning problems that affect all the above stoves that have inverted stick burners or inverted J-burners. However, the problem of charcoal choking revealed itself after an hour or so of operation.

Here is a little Instagram video of the Miniature Dome Stove.

A ode to the Miniature Dome stove

With round dome befitting a pot,
The same dome get incredibly hot,
No concern of pesky reverse burn,
Even with an expert user, or not.

The downdraft dome stove

My dome stove design changed back to a downdraft burner that was simplified by only having two holes. It importantly defeated the reverse burning and charcoal choking problem of the J-Burner stoves. As a bonus extra this KISS tent stove design made the stove my hottest one. It also consistently spreads the heat onto the wall of the fire dome. This meant that it became a great radiator for body warmth. Lastly, the addition of a ‘V-wire’ bracket to the fire dome allowed it to support and heat a large dinner pot and makes up for having a small cooktop.

At the risk of loss of a little simplicity the KISS tent stove can also be transformed into a blower stove or alcohol stove when required. All stove parts including the roll up stove pipe fit inside while backpacking.

Tim

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