Pratt

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was thinking of the local damage in a camping area that can occur when multiple users build fires over a period of time

Mark Hoaglund

When the low lying wood twigs & branches run out I was thinking knotted or braided dry grass or dry dung pies like the cowboys & Indians do or migrate to another happy bountiful location like good old rotate cropping. We must fortify ourselves while touring.

Happy Feet

Not to nit pick but that's a bit of a false argument when you consider the different scales involved. Have all vehicles run on wood gas, homes heated by wood stoves and all industry run on wood fuel and the environmental impact would be huge.

Anyways, back to the regular program. Sounds like Mark is looking at this as a unique adventure in it's own right rather than the most practical solution for cooking. Nothing wrong with that as long as the confines of seasonal open fire regulations are considered.

Interesting comment by fishboat about the stove in question not involving gasification. Words get dropped but when you look at it, it's pretty easy to see the flame is directly from the fuel source and doesn't allow enough containment height for the gasses to be recycled and burned.

Mark Hoaglund

Hardly unique the Irish in me likes stews, boiled cabbage, rutabagas, celery, onions, carrots, etc. and a spot of coffee which the stove will do as well as baked bread, cake, muffin, pancake mixes.

Mark Hoaglund

Really? I'm thinking along the lines of carbon neutral free energy as well as electric cycles. My electricity comes from Xcel Energy which also uses fossil, solar, wind, hydro, biomass, battery sources. Speaking of recharging USB devices I was considering doing touring rest stops with a tethered micro hydro turbine in flowing water available online or YT ads as an option. I suppose some weight weenies will object while credit card touring to micronization and prefer hub, solar, grid outlets, etc.

Happy Feet

You're just sounding silly now.

The theoretical bicycle touring forum is two doors down on the left. Tell them the zombie killer sent you

elcruxio

When using these types of stoves there's this cool effect that happens after you light it up. At first they typically produce quite a bit of smoke but when the thing heats up enough you see this *foompf* and the smoke lights up, after which it's practically smokeless. It doesn't recycle the wood gasses but it does funnel heated air to flow over the top of the burning chamber which in turn brings more oxygen to an area where typically all oxygen has been depleted. Hence you combine fuel (the gasses), heat (both from the burning below and the heated air) and oxygen (again from the heated air).

Where I come from we have different names for woodgas burners and 'woodgas fuel burners'. One is a more refined twig burner or even an actual fireplace which also utilizes to some extent the released wood gasses and the other is a specific carbon monoxide burner which was used in cars back in the day.
One neat woodgas fireplace actually reverses the airflow inside the fireplace so that when it's in woodgas mode the flames go downwards instead of up.

Mark Hoaglund

USB mini hydro turbine https://www.waterlilyturbine.com/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Waterlily
https://www.amazon.com/Waterlily/dp/B07MXN2LXB

I like touring & resting by creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes. What do you cook with your fire burners while touring day after day of your journey or do you prefer energy bars & restaurants?

Happy Feet

I know what gasification is but when you look at the model listed here the flame is rising above the funnel with the return slots so all the "gas" is going out the flue, or around the pot, as it were. There are some very cool stoves that show the effect well but this doesn't look like one of them.

Happy Feet

Well, we all look forward to your trip reports, with pictures I hope, so we can see all the amazing things you do.
I love seeing the interesting and unique things people actually do on tours.
What people imagine they will do while surfing the interwebs... meh.

Doug64

We all like resting by creeks and lakes, but sometime you do what you have to do. Like cooking in the vesibule of the campgound's bathroom in a vicious thunderstorm. I think you would be hard pressed to find dry wood this day.

Priest Lake, Idaho. The lake was 25 yards away My daughter was supervising the use of my MSR Pocket Rocket. My front panniers were acting as wind screens.


Shower caps make good saddle covers.

Happy Feet

This is my basic cooking set if I want it to be bomb proof and simple. Tonight it's Lemony Couscous and garlic and herb mashed potatoes.



In this case a friend and I rode through open range ranch country. There were some local "residents" and smoke from multiple forest fires. That's looking straight at the sun at about 6pm.



Having only packed dehydrated food that could not be eaten uncooked, he was jazzed about using the pop can alcohol stove he made but could not get it to work. I was able to boil the water from this lake.



Other lakes and rivers I have been able to camp by with my basic cookset. How I make supper has never stopped me from enjoying the scenery.

indyfabz

Heh. Had to do just that at Spring Gulch Campground in U.S. 93 near Sula, MT. There is a bicycle site but no covered shelter to cook under, and it was raining pretty hard.

Mark Hoaglund

Until the snow blew in was going to test larger diameter branches up to 1 inch for duration with my free energy carbon neutral stove down at the park grills. Shucks.

Mark Hoaglund

I've used petroleum jelly cotton balls for wet wood fires but not wax. May try combining the two after watching this:

Vaseline Cotton Ball VS. Paraffin Wax Cotton Ball

`

Mark Hoaglund

A $1 fire-starter-tool gets a jelly ball & wood burning such as this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/161863778161 I strike & spark it for my gasification woodgas stove using dry grass paper too.

Mark Hoaglund

Took my free energy carbon neutral woodgas fire burner stove to the parks grill and lit it up with photos taken while 34-48F outdoors for 2 hours.

Chose a mix of twigs to 0.5 inch diameter branches sawed to ruffly 4 inch lengths see pix #1 . Added dried pine needles and oak leafs, sparks and inhaled the heavenly aroma I missed while smoldering for 7 minutes. When smoked cleared & gasification kicked in added covered 16 oz water cup, which the exterior was previously wet coated with dish soap than allowed to dry overnight, with boiling taking 15 minutes. Boiled a second cup of instant black coffee. Flames and charcoal heat lasted 45 minutes then let the coals die out.

Refer to pix #2 for ash coal pile and smokey soot soiled pot. Easily washed pot clean with rinse rag and no additional soap needed see pix #3 . Dried and recoated exterior with dish soap for simple easy clean up next time. It was sunny out and listened to The Byrds in the 60 yo pine grove city park amongst a frisbee disc golf course folks have used the past month. Need a windscreen to decrease boiling time with the breeze off the geese & duck populated dammed lake and jelly balls.

pix #1

pix #2

pix #3

staehpj1

I tinkered with wood gasification stoves a little. My hope was to avoid needing to carry fuel, I still found I needed to carry as much fuel to start the wood stove in case of wet weather as I carry run the alcohol stove. I hoped it would be light. It was actually heavier than most of my other stoves. I never got it to burn anywhere near clean so the pots were a sooty mess. Overall it was more trouble than it was worth to me.

I liked the idea, but in practice it didn't work out that great for me and I gave up on it. It is great if others manage to make it work well for them.

Mark Hoaglund

Ordered a Tomshoo wood stove and update for a couple reasons for comparison. When considering denatured alcohol, white gas & methanol HEET fuel cost $13-17 plus tax a US gallon locally its a little pricey when comparing a gallon of US unleaded or E85 gasoline costs $1.40 including tax. Wood along the roadside is minimal.

staehpj1

For me other factors are usually a big enough deal and cooking fuel is a small enough cost for any of the choices that I never really factored in fuel cost at all. I buy 12 ounces of Heet at a time for a little over $3 so I never really thought much about fuel cost. I assumed it was probably more $$ per btu than isobutane, white gas, or gasoline especially since it supplies less btus per ounce.

The thing is that stuff like weight, flying with the stove, convenience, and a host of other factors all come into the play in the decision. Given all that fuel cost never even comes up in my decision.
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On a side note... Some gasoline users report that they drain the bit of gas left in the nozzle at closed gas stations and never actually pay. Me, I'd just buy a few ounces at a time being careful not to spill, but whatever.

Mark Hoaglund

To avoid high costs and work with the earths environment went with the Tomshoo woodgas cook stove for these reasons, you see I have one of the others and found something I hope is better for my needs with future test updates:

Mark Hoaglund

Received my Tomshoo gasification woodgas cook stove. Like what I see without balancing my pots and reminds me of home gas stoves. . .

Mark Hoaglund

Took the Tomshoo woodgas burner to the park while 30-42F, partly cloudy for 1.5 hours this morning. Better combustion and direct heat I contribute to the windscreen. It was 3 minutes to gasification with two petroleum jelly cotton balls. Took 5 minutes twice to boil four cups of instant coffee 33 oz total. Two little charcoals plus embers after 30 minutes using ½ to ¾ inch diameter branches cut to 3 inch lengths. Seen four folks with dog walking around the park. Timed it so I could walk home to sit in the sun on top of hill which felt good. I like this gasification woodgas cook stove better.

mtnbud

FYI Mark,

I was snow camping last March and brought my woodgas stove to melt water to ration my white gas fueled stove for cooking. The cold temps were adversely effecting my white gas stove making it tough to use, but the woodstove was worked fine regardless of the temperature.

I couldn't get my white gas stove to start early in the morning. It would only work later in the day after the temps warmed up. A negative was the water had a smokey flavor. The wood gas stove saved our trip, but cooking was way more convenient with the white gas stove when it was working!

Mark Hoaglund

Forgot my hot soaped pot turned black but water rung rinse cloth took most of it off. Now to invest in a scrub pad and Fast Orange hand cleaner with pumice. Its to bad about the white gas winter stove trouble but its warming up on the positive side. I don't recall my Coleman 533 Dual Fuel with winter blended gasoline being troublesome.