A few years back, I was looking for a cheap and light weight alternative to the current camp stoves on the market. One day I just happened to stumble upon a folding camp stove on Amazon.com. After reading all the reviews and thoroughly reading the description, I went ahead and purchased this particular model. once it arrived, I could hardly wait to try it out…..

A week or so later my brother and I went on an extended primative camping trip. We called it a survival trip but with both of us being a few pounds on the not so light side, we couldn’t actually call it a survival trip. We backpacked 5 miles into the woods for 5 days. On this perticular trip, each of us brought roughly 40 pounds of (stuff we didn’t need) what we thought we had to have to survive for 5 days. Our bags were so heavy and we were so out of shape that we had to stop every 30 minutes and take a break. We made it to the location that we picked on the map and it only took us four hours to walk five miles.

I plan all my backpacking trips on how much food will we need for so many days. then, I fire the dehydrator up and throw my onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and whatever else I can dehydrate to help minimize the weight a little. On top of that, my first order of business is one pound of dried kidney beans. That is a camping staple for me. Red beans as we call them in South Mississippi is the best food in the world! I discovered that summer sausage didn’t need refrigerated until after opening so I bring a small one of those as well as a sandwich bag of instant rice. Let me tell you that summer sausage in red beans is GREAT!

Once we make it to the area we plan on camping at, first order of business is setting up the campsite and gathering our water. I will go over water filtration in another post. I have an in depth tutorial of how to build a water filter on YouTube as well as this video about water below. After setting up camp, I begin the search for firewood. that is when I break out the folding camp stove. This little guy is amazing! as you may know it takes a good 2-3 hours to cook a pot of beans and that means constantly putting firewood in the stove.

The Quick video below demonstrates how to put together the folding camp stove

Now, as long as you have leaves and anything that burns you have fuel for this stove. The thing that really had drawn me to this stove in the first place was, I didn’t need to carry any fuel with me. That would add weight to my bag and depending on how many days you stay in the woods, you may or may not have enough fuel. So, a wood burning stove fit the bill for me. Besides, there are millions and millions of acres of sticks laying around all just waiting to heat up a pot of beans.

This little stove comes in a carry case and folded up is 6 inches by 7 inches and is half an inch thick. It weighs 1 1/2 pounds and fits in your backpack perfectly. I have cooked countless pots of dried beans on it and have boiled countless gallons of drinking water on it. Being made from stainless steel, it does warp a little over heavy use, but if it was to fall apart from use I would definitely order another one. Of all the camping stoves and burners and such that I have used over the years in and out of the woods, this one is by far my favorite. This stove is available here and I have also linked a few other stoves that i use as well.

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