Comment by kortex | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kortex | Hacker News Reader

An annual problem I have every summer is dealing with smoky campfires when camping. Your bog standard cicle-of-rocks or metal ring fire pit is crazy inefficient, and unless you run continuously in the offgassing phase (bright, tall orange flames, as the wood gas burns off), with lots of convection, you inevitably produce a ton of smoke. This is terrible for all folks, but my asthma-prone lungs get especially cranky. So you either have to continuously feed wood (inefficient and costly), or play the game of shuffling upwind constantly.

I usually end up tinkering and modifying the fire pit to try to eek some better air flow patterns, but it's usually a lost cause with open pit fires.

I might just cave and get one of those stainless inserts, but what I'd really like is something flatpack that I could assemble into a more efficient burner. I've seen small ones [1] that slot together to make a rocket stove, but nothing campfire sized.

I wonder how much demand there would be for such a thing. Seems like there are several products for general "firepit" designs, but without a chimney, these suffer from most of the same problems as open pits. [2][3]

Edit: oh, maybe a "tent stove" is what I'm looking for.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Marsh-Kettles-Flat-Rocket-Stove/dp/B0...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Flat-pack-firepit-grill-carry/dp/B086...

[3] https://www.etsy.com/listing/799723294/flatpack-firepit-port...

https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Grill-Large-Original-Stainless/...

This is dirt cheap, light-ish, and excellent.

To get mostly-smokeless performance, leave out the bottom metal plate when you assemble it so it gets continuous air flow right through the device. I used to use https://www.solostove.com/en-us (car camping only) and it just burns too* clean - no smoke, hot fire, goes through fuel very fast, and all the heat goes straight up. Still love that thing, but actually for an "improved campfire experience" that collapsible grill thing is excellent. Particularly useful: the heat reflects off the inclined metal plates right on to the people sitting around the fire, in exactly the way it does not on a solo stove.

It's really good. Makes me happy.

Promising, thanks!

I had a charcoal grill like this once and it worked quite well, but something stole it off my lawn literally between cooking burgers and cleaning up. Must have still been hot. Anyway, I tried replacing it with a similar model, and convection was terrible. So it seems subtleties in the design which make a big difference.

Well, at least you got the burger even if they got the grill.

That particular device is two completely different animals with and without the bottom plate. Mediocre and smokey with it, really kind of fantastic without it. The wire mesh stops the big lumps from falling through but lets the ash go, and the whole thing burns like a chimney stove. Really good.

For those metal ring pits with a cooking grate, you can build the fire on top of the grate for better airflow. If you can get air coming in underneath the fire from all sides, it'll greatly reduce the smoke. And you also reduce the chances of smoke "chasing" the person that's sitting the closest, since they're not blocking a lot of airflow from the sides. Still not peak efficiency, but a lot less smoke.

I repurposed an unused grill lighting thing as a perfect miniature outdoor fireplace. I don’t know the exact name of the device but it is a metal tube 8” wide and 16” tall with a metal grille at one end, inserted up the tube a couple of inches:

https://image.dhgate.com/0x0/f2/albu/g9/M00/38/77/rBVaVV7PBK...

Yes, you have to feed it sticks like cookies into a Cookie Monster, but it’s really good for having a snap fire with lots of eat and lots of combustion. Because they are a ubiquitous garden accessory they are also very cheap.

If you're in the US, take a look at Firebox [1] that have a bunch of options through the price range all of which are fairly light. I would suggest going with a biomass stove with some thermal mass (easier to keep the burn chamber hot and also to stop the wind from pushing your stove around) if you're not constrained by backpacking/bikepacking constraints though (e.g. car camping or just going to a park/yard for some outdoor bbq.) You can make one with tin cans and some filler material (there's several guides online) or you can buy something like the EcoZoom [2].

Lots of people don't realize that wet wood generates a lot more smoke and that it takes wood a while after falling off a tree to dry up, so if I'm going by car or by train I often take some dry wood with me to keep the smoke dry.

[1]: https://www.fireboxstove.com/index.php?route=common/home

[2]: https://ecozoom.com/

Something like this? It's not backpack portable, although I think there are some out there that are smaller. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DKTM6NF

I've used and researched a lot of portable wood stoves. If you want a portable rocket stove, the one I would recommend is the Virestove. There are some video reviews on youtube that you can check out before buying it. I haven't used a more practical one yet. If you have the funds, they have it in titanium right now. Should be quite lighter than the stainless version. The mini version is more portable of course, but doesn't achieve the smokeless combustion that the larger version does. I guess it's the length of the chimney, but not sure.

For a flat pack grill that's practical and portable, I'd recommend you check out the ones made by UCO. They come in three sizes as of now. The only downside I find with flat pack style grills is that on most of them you have to raise the grill to add wood.

Somebody recommended the Firebox line. They're pretty awesome, but are regular wood stoves. They will smoke just like any fire pit or flat pack grill. No rocket smokeless combustion. The stainless version is very well built and will last forever. Haven't tried the titanium version, but seem to be well like by users. I'd also recommend the Bushbox, by Bushcraft Essentials. These towo are the best of the folding style portable wood stoves (not rocket style).

links to this stuff (some are available on amazon):

virestove.com

ucogear.com/portable-grills/

bushcraft-essentials.com/en/outdoor-stoves/

fireboxstove.com

I have to say though that I've been using wood stoves to cook less and less, mostly because of health concerns. It seems every year I find more and more reasons not to be around them.

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