Whether we are at our home or outside, we must need food to survive.
When we are at our house we don’t have to think about the food, we have a full arrangement to make any type of food. The situation goes difficult when we are on an adventure trip, hiking or climbing. During our outing, we can’t carry all the kitchen belongings to make some foods or even a cup of coffee. However, a portable rocket stove can help us in this situation.
Undoubtedly, the invention of this kind of cooking tools makes people’s adventure trips even more enjoying and thrilling. In the past, travelers had to concern about making a fire for boiling water or making some light snacks in a remote area in unfriendly weather condition, but now they can fully concentrate on the enjoyment of the tour.
This type of cooking opportunity turned people’s apprehension to enjoyment, the stoves themselves become the reason of concern for some adventure enthusiasts. It’s the concern of buying the best rocket stove from the market. Travelers know that all the stoves out there may not be the right choice for them considering their needs, requirements, and trips’ surroundings.
To help those apprehensive minds, we came up with a comprehensive guide. This content includes detailed reviews of rocket stoves, an ultimate buying guide, and 8 frequently asked questions and their answers. So, if you are among those concerned individuals, you can keep scrolling to unearth all the amenities.
Best Rocket Stoves Review
Analyzing a number of stoves, here we made a list of rocket stoves. As we mentioned earlier, we all have our individual needs and requirements. Considering this need diversity, we also made a list that contains different types of stoves. Among these five, one is powered by gas, one is completely foldable, and one has a special grill grid. Hopefully, you will get the one from these five that resonates your needs.
1. MSR Pocket Rocket 2 Ultralight, Camping, and Travel Stove
MSR Pocket Rocket stove is a good choice for first-time users as well as for them who prefer lightweight stove for their adventures, such as camping, hiking and backpacking. The lightweight stove also designed in a way that you can carry it conveniently miles after miles. Moreover, with MSR Pocket Rocket Stove, you can ensure constant cooking felicities for yourself even in a rough weather condition without worrying much about the fuel.
The reason behind its suggestion for the first-time users is, this stove is always ready to be used. Having the stove, you don’t have to worry about priming, preheating or pressurizing the stove, simply you can use it both indoor and outdoor without any hassle.
Whether you are in your house or having fun during your outing, you may feel drinking a cup of coffee. You can do it within less than 5 minutes using the stove. The cooker allows you to boil one liter of water just within 3.5 minutes!
Other than the boiling, you will get the maximum amount of heat from the stove to get your any kind of food ready within a very short time. Here the flame easily adjusts from a simmer to a rolling boil, as a result, the object on the stove gets all the heat to make things warm efficiently.
When it comes to the overall design, this stove is a great choice if you want something simple but functional. In the upper panel, it has the foldable canisters. Just below these, there is the controller at the bottom of the fuel tank. When you want to cook, you just have to turn on the switch, then light up at the opening of the stove.
This one is artificial fuel featured stove, high-performing isobutene-propane is used as fuel in this stove. This kind of fuel is also available in most of the countries around the world. So, even if you are on a world trip, you will find your stove as your trusted cooking partner.
Highlighted Features and Benefits
- Foldable canisters facilitate in both convenient carrying and wide range of cooking.
- Easy to set up and doesn’t require any preparation.
- Fast boiling service will keep you always warm and active.
- High performing fuel that is also very much accessible.
2. Ohuhu Stainless Steel Backpacking Camping Stove.
Ohuhu stove is driven by natural fueling system. It can be a good choice for those who travel in forest areas and do not want to carry fuel for making fire. Here fuel that is used in the stove are all natural materials and have abundance in forest areas. It’s also a multipurpose stove, you can use this single stove for cooking, boiling, as well as making BBQ. Moreover, for carrying purposes the stove features its own mesh carry bag which is 5.3-inch in width and 3-inch in height.
Probably you know too that stainless steel is one of the toughest materials that are used for home appliances. Ohuhu stove is manufactured with high-quality stainless steel, this structure not only enables the stove to burn regardless of the weather conditions but also guarantees for longer usages. It will burn bright whatever weight or high heat comes its way.
Choosing this stove as your outdoor cooking partner, you are also working towards a sustainable earth. The stove doesn’t require any kind of non-natural fuel or alcohol thus there will be no chemical emission to the earth atmosphere. Additionally, it also keeps you free from the tension of finding appropriate fuel for making fire.
You can use a wide range of dry materials to make a fire in this cooking tool and almost all of them are available at our fingertips. The materials include dried twigs, leaves, pinecones, and wood. However, the basic requirement of these fuels is they must be dry at their best.
During your traveling or trip, you may have to boil water in a windy area or uneven surface, in each case, the stove will be stable for your task. It is geared with a 3-arm base support system, so even on the grassiest field, the stove will be balanced with its carrier.
Highlighted Features and Benefits
- Easy collapsible and lightweight design for effortless carrying.
- Powered with natural combustible materials.
- Featured with pot supporter for regular cooking and grill grid for BBQ.
- Stainless steel base for nonstop balanced usage around the year.
3. EcoZoom Dura Camping Stove
EcoZoom Dura Camping stove is a solution to the emergency preparedness, off-grid cooking, car camping. Unlike our previous two stoves, this one may not a good choice of your traveling because of its robust design, but it can be your stove for other outdoor usages. It’s an eco-friendly stove which also ensures maximum utility from the fuels for the user and you will get this efficiency irrespective of weather and surface condition.
In this stove, you can cook your afternoon snacks or boil some water with just a handful of sticks. The stove is fully powered with natural elements; you don’t require any kind of chemical or oil for making fire. You just have to be sure that whatever you are using as fuel like leaves, sticks they are dry.
Whatever types of fuel you use for your work; you can ensure efficient use of those fuels. Here in this cooker, the fully insulated vertical combustion chamber forces gases to mix with the flames efficiently also decreases the harmful emissions. After all, you can get your cooking done using fewer fuels.
Once you own this Eco Zoom Dura rocket stove, you can enjoy uninterrupted cooking service for a long time. The stove has a well-built design that will keep it in place during your cooking, you don’t have to worry about tipping, falling or unexpected accidents.
In any outdoor condition, you can use the stove conveniently. For easy moving, it has two handles on both sides. These steel-made handles are covered with silicon grip so that you can carry the stove even when it is hot. Additionally, one can easily maintain the stove, it’s easy to clean after each use.
Highlighted Features and Benefits
- The well-structured design will keep your face free from smoke.
- The stove features extra room for long fuel.
- Cast iron made stove top will compatible with most cooking equipment.
- Use of this stove will not harm its surrounding environment.
4. Kampmate Ultra Lightweight Portable Camping Stove
If you are looking for something thin and super easy to carry just like your books or clothes, Kampmate rocket stove can be your perfect selection. Here, along with the stove, you will get a special carriage that keeps the parts organized. While you are on an adventure trip you can do your cooking using fuel around you, there is no special type of fuel required for the function of this stove. Overall, it’s a stove that will take just small space inside your bag but will be ready to keep yourself warm and satisfied all the way.
The stove comes with four sides and one back panel. Anyone who is not even familiar with this type of stove can setup and start his cooking in this cooking device. Moreover, the entire setup doesn’t require any tool. There are convex and concave connectors on the edge of each part, with the help of these connectors, you can make your stove ready for the cook.
Using the stove, you will enjoy efficient cooking every time. Other than the fuel opening of the stove, there are 9 more little bottom openings on the sides, three on each. As a result, during your cooking, the fuel and flame will get their necessary air circulation space thus an efficient cooking experience will be assured.
The entire stove is made of durable stainless-steel materials including the upper pot rack. As the stainless steel has solid strength to stand along in any weather condition, you can enjoy balance and uninterrupted service for a long time. Also, even if your stove gets black by smoke you can make it clean with just simple cleaning.
Just like our previous two stoves, this one is also an environment-friendly stove. No harmful chemical emission happens during the operation of this stove, you can get done your cooking using sticks, leaves and anything flammable surround you.
Highlighted Features and Benefits
- Lightweight still strong structure of steel, which is perfect for long-distance hiking and traveling.
- Easy to set up and fold-off for carrying.
- Ample air circulation area let the flames burn bright.
- Innumerable fuel options including wood, charcoal, cedar pucks.
5. M-5000 Envirofit Rocket Stove
Envirofit brings a robust cooking solution for outdoor enthusiasts, who normally go for a long drive, do hang out, go for hiking. Here the design of this stove is exceptionally well. The stove will take care of your any kind of outdoor cooking for a long time. However, after a certain period, if you get a particular part of the stove is not working properly, you can change it with a new one. All the accessories of this stove are also available separately.
The most identical feature of this Envirofit Rocket Stove considering our all stoves is, this one got a great balancing design. There are four legs on the bottom part of the stove. Because of these legs, the user will get proper balance even on slightly uneven grounds. Also, the legs will help the cooker to be stable carrying some hefty weight pot on it.
In between the cooking time or after getting done the job, you may have to move the stove, you can do it safely even if the stove is hot. The maker of the stove has attached two handles on the sides for safe and easy moving. Handles are firmly mounted on the stove also have a wooden cover on them, these wooden layers protect these handles from being hot.
On top of the stove, there is a solid iron panel with multiple placement points. As the panel is made of iron, it will absorb the primary load of the pot placed on it and help the stove gaining proper balance. Moreover, the pattern of this grid also helps a wide range of pots getting their place so that small shaking and moving do not displace them.
You will feel the freedom of using a wide range of fuels depending on your need and availability. The stove allows its users to use any dry combustible materials for their cooking. There is a stand inside of the stove, so when you use any large stick or wood piece, you can move them safely.
Highlighted Features and Benefits
- This Envirofit stove is a great combination of solid durability and excellent performance.
- Eco-friendly stove with a wide range of accepted fuels.
- Ensure proper balance for both the pot and stove itself with legs and metal upper.
- Sufficient room for air circulation inside of the stove.
How Can You Buy the Best Rocket Stove for Yourself?
If you are an experienced traveler, you probably already knew how to buy a rocket stove analyzing the dominant factors. However, if you are going to purchase a stove for the first time for your upcoming trip, you will find this section beneficial to your decision making.
In the first part of this section, we have discussed the essential factors that deserve your consideration before making the purchase. In the final part, we will guide you how you proceed to buy a rocket stove.
Nonetheless, we always recommend would-be buyers to priorities or sacrifice any factor during or before buying considering their personal requirements and limitations.
Air Circulation
We all know that fire needs oxygen to burn, so a stove must have ample room for oxygen circulation inside the combustion chamber. On the other hand, when a stove has good air circulation room, less amount of smoke emits during the cooking time. As a means of air space, the manufacturer makes different sizes and shapes holes on the stove. Sometimes, the two openings of the stove work as air circulation room, no additional holes are needed.
Stability
As rocket stoves are purchased basically for outdoor usages, they must have proper balancing ability to be balanced on different grounds. During an adventure trip, a traveler may have to boil some water on the rock or a grass field which are uneven, without proper balancing any accident may occur. Legs on the bottom, a wider-angle leg design, circular body shape, these are the common approaches that are taken by the manufacturers for balancing their stove.
Durability
Whether it is a stove or any other home appliances, they should be strong enough to deliver constant service for a long time. A durable stove can ensure safe and secure cooking for its users in various weather conditions days after days. A wide range of steel materials are normally used for eco-friendly stoves and almost all these steels are well known for their robust building quality.
Moving Facility
A stove featured with moving facility can be moved one place to another even in the amid of cooking. For example, you start cooking in a particular area, suddenly the speed of the air goes up, at this moment, having this facility you can change your direction without muting the fire. Different types of handles are mounted on the side of the stoves to make them moveable.
How to Proceed to Buy
Choosing the Type
I think you already got that there are different types of rocket stoves, some are best for carrying in the travel bag, some are comparatively big in size and best for normal hangout with friends. Additionally, the stoves are also classified into two categories, one requires artificial fuels other can function with natural fuels like sticks, dried leaves, etc. It would be a wise decision for you to analyze your necessities and choosing a specific type on the basis of your requirements.
Get the Stove
Once you finalize a particular type of stove for your next outing, you can select one from that type of stove according to your budget range. In the next step, you should know well about the warranty policy, and parts availability. Finally, either from a physical store or a trusted online store you can purchase your stove.
Frequently Asked Questions
A new user, as well as the experienced one, may look for the answer to some questions on a constant basis. Some questions are regarding the use, some are about safety and maintenance, and most interestingly some reflects the confusions of the new buyers about the usability of the stove.
In the following section, we have collected such frequently asked questions and provided expert solutions for them. Hopefully, these answers will make you a proficient user of rocket stoves.
Do Rocket Stoves Really Work?
Ans. Yes, the stoves work. Basically, these types of stoves are chosen for small cooking activities like boiling water, warming food, making an omelet. You shouldn’t expect regular cooking service from this small cooking device.
How Hot Does A Rocket Stove Get?
Ans. It principally depends on the length of the cooking time. If you cook for a longer period of time at straight, then the stove gets hot much. Nevertheless, natural fuel empowered stoves get comparatively hotter than the oil/gas featured stoves. Among all the parts of the stove, the iron case shield absorbs maximum temperature also takes a longer time to be cool.
How Does A Rocket Stove Work?
Ans. Different types of stoves function differently, and it depends on their body structure and fuel requirements. We discussed below two common types of stoves.
Stoves those are powered with a fuel tank starts working when the user turns on the switch. In these stoves, once the switch is on, the stored fuel from the tank starts flowing through the pipe to the opening of the stove, at this time, the user has to make some flames of fire using a lighter or match to turn those flowing fuel to the burning fire. This fire keeps flowing until either user turns off the switch or the fuel is finished.
On the other hand, stoves that are powered with natural fuel, just need a bunch of fuel inside of the stove and a fire source to start functioning. To enable this stove, at first user has to collect parched fuels like leaves, sticks, wood and has to store them inside the stove chamber. After that anyone using a match or lighter has to start the fire on a part of stored fuels.
In each case, once the fire starts burning, you can start your cooking just keeping the pot on the top panel of the stove. You can also control the flames either by switch or reducing the collection of fuels inside the chamber.
How to Clean the Rocket Stove?
Ans. After every cooking, it’s necessary to clean the stove completely, because the lifespan of a stove largely depends on the maintenance. To clean your stove regularly, you can follow the below steps.
Step-1: Let the Stove Cool Down
When you are done with you cooking, wait a few minutes for the stove to cool down. If you go for cleaning just after the cooking, you may be injured by the hotness of the stove. As the surrounding of the stoves is made of temperature absorbing materials, they take some time to release all the soaked temperature, so wait for a while.
Step-2: Remove the Extras
Remove both unused fuels as well as the ashes from the combustion chamber. If your stove is gas or oil-driven then you don’t have to remove any kind of ashes, but wood, leaves, and other dry fuels left ashes inside the stove. To remove them, you can use a brush or an electric blower. If you use the later one, it is advised that firstly remove by yourself as much as you can then apply the blower.
Step-3: Additional Cleaning
Additionally, you can clean the upper panel using a piece of cloth or applying the same blower that you have used for ash and dust removing. Moreover, as a consequence of regular cooking, there will be a carbon formation on the upper cast iron, so it is not recommended to clean them rigorously every time. Nevertheless, if you want to remove this formation, you can follow the instruction manual.
Step-4: Cleaning of A Gas/Oil Driven Stove
As gas or oil-driven stove doesn’t emit smoke and leave any black mark either on the pot or on the surrounding of the stove, you can simply maintain them with simple wiping.
What Is the Key Difference Between Rocket Stove and Wood Stove?
The key difference between these two stoves is, users get much efficiency from rocket stove than a wood stove. During the cooking in a rocket stove, compounds such as smoke, soot are sucked into the burn chamber, as a result, users get complete combustion without the emission of any smoke.
Inversely, wooden stoves release smoke and soot into the air through the chimney, as a consequence too much smoke and waste of some energy happen during every cooking. Furthermore, a rocket stove is also more portable than a stove that is made of wood.
What Are the Necessary Safety Tips for Using A Rocket Stove?
Ans. While doing any of our daily tasks, we should be very careful about ourselves. As cooking in a stove involves making fire, here you have to pay some extra attention. When you cook in a rocket stove you can follow below safety tips to keep yourself safe from any unwanted incident.
- While lighting up the stove by match or lighter, keep your hand as well as your body at a safe distance.
- In an oil/gas powered stove, at the beginning keep the flow of the fuel in low stage for firing up.
- At any point of your cooking, never touch the stove or the pot with the bare hand, you can wait for the cooling down or use a pair of hand gloves.
- If you are wearing gloves, pay special attention while lighting up the stove as the gloves are also flammable.
- Start you cooking placing the stove on flat ground, it will ensure proper balance for the stove and protect it from accidental spills and burns.
- Amid the cooking, if you need to move the stove, first take off the cooking pot then move.
- When you use the stove as your space heater, make sure that the exhaust gases of the rocket stove must be passed out of your home through a chimney.
How to Maintain the Rocket Stove?
Ans. Rocket stove maintenance mainly involves cleaning and replacing. You can do the regular cleaning of your stove following our before stated strategies. Secondly, if you find any part of the stove is out of use, then you can replace that damaged part with a new one. Other than these, for the better lifecycle of the stove, you can keep them in a dry environment after the use, it will protect the stove from any kind of rust related issues.
What Is the Advantage of a Rocket Stove?
Ans. Here are some key advantages that a random rocket stove user get once he successfully buys rocket stove from the market.
- With the help of this stove, you can turn any outdoor space into your cooking space.
- These stoves are portable, sometimes foldable and can be your perfect partner of outing, hiking, backpacking, and camping trips.
- You can even use the stove as a heater to heat up your room during a wild winter night, it’s also a cost-effective approach of heating.
Final Words
There are some common incidents that happen with stove users; such as, their stoves emit too much smoke, unable to make sufficient heat or become out of order after a few trips.
On a trip, when you are miles away from your residence the cooking stove is your only way of satisfying hunger, shouldn’t it be as best as possible?
However, if you have already gone through all of our sections, we are confident that you can successfully choose the most reliable best rocket stove for your next trip.