We’ve had our eye on the Solo Stove for some time now. This backpacking stove has won several awards so we were pretty excited to get our hands on the Solo Stove Lite and put it to the test. The Solo Stove is a wood burning stove that burns super clean and hot thanks to a very unique design. No need to pack along fuel canisters. You can boil water with just some twigs found around camp. Think hobo stove but A LOT more sophisticated and more efficient. We were able to get the Solo Stove started quickly and it burned very hot with little to no smoke.
There are several different accessories for the Solo Stove Lite. The Solo Stove Pot 900 is one accessory we highly recommend. As you can see in the photo it sits nicely on top of the Solo Stove and when not in use the Solo Stove nestles right down in the pot freeing up space in your pack. The Pot features a rubber coated lift tab, easy pour spout, fold out handles, and volume markings on the side to measure your water. It’s made of a durable stainless steel that is lightweight coming in at 7.8 oz.
The Solo Stove is a natural convection inverted downgas gasifier stove. Yeah that term blew our minds too. The best way to explain it is like this…..The Solo Stove was designed with double walls. In the picture above you can see the holes at the bottom of the stove. The holes at the bottom of the stove channel air to the bottom of the fire and also channel warm air up thru the double wall and out the top inner holes. This preheated air circulated back down into the firebox causes a second combustion. This process creates a hot fire with very little smoke and it uses less wood than a standard camp fire.
The top cooking ring can be removed from the stove and nestles nicely into the stove when not in use. Another nice feature of the cooking ring is the ability to add tinder to the fire with a pot in place on the Solo Stove.
We own and have used our fair share of backpacking stoves both wood burning and gas. We were really impressed with how efficient the Solo Stove Lite was. Yes you can probably boil a pot of water faster with a gas stove but there is a satisfaction that comes from the simplicity of cooking with twigs and tinder you have collected. The light weight and compact design is an added bonus. The Solo Stove Lite is quality built and the company stands behind their product with a lifetime warranty. You can pick up your Solo Stove by clicking the below.
