Larger Wood Gas Stove for 2-4 ?

Your best bet (and lightest) is probably to get a pot of your choice (for 3-4 person or what have you) and get a Trail Designs Ti-Tri for that particular pot.

FWIW, I "talked" (emailed) w/Rand at Trail Designs about a Ti-Tri for a larger pot. He just bought a MSR 2L Ti pot to design for. The 2L pot itself is something like 4.4oz w/o lid…

Hmm, I could have sworn that Fritz Handel (www.bushbuddy.ca) also made larger wood stoves, but the only ones on his site now are the BB and the BB Ultra. This page describes a larger ‘Trek Stove’ that Fritz made, but the trekstove.com link doesn’t work any more. Maybe contact Fritz?

The Ti-Tri might be a very viable alternative, but FYI it is not a wood gasifier stove, per se – basically just a windscreen that you can build a small fire in, no?

Edit: There’s a good thread somewhere here debating the merits of single-wall vs. double-wall (gasifier) wood stoves. I didn’t mean to suggest that one is necessarily better than the other. I just like my BB Ultra.

It looks like the Ti-Tri wins for lightest weight. Anyone have much experience using these with wood fuel? It seems like the cone would help direct heat to the pot but I wonder about the O2 flow though those little holes at the bottom of the cone. Maybe the slot designed for the pot's handle provides enough ventilation…

Another possibility I was thinking of is the Sierra TT (ie the titanium version of the Sierra Zip Stove). It weighs in at 10 oz, so about double what a bush buddy weighs. But, its got a much larger burn chamber and pot stand and looks like it can really cook. Double the weight but maybe double the cooking capacity? Anyone used one of these?

I have been using the Ti-Tri with the AGG 2 litre pot with great results. I have tested this set-up side by side with the Bush Buddy and found:

a)The BushBuddy was slightly more fuel efficient
b)They both had about equal boil times
c)The Ti-Tri was more stable
d)The Ti-Tri was more wind resistant
e)The Ti-Tri was easier to feed wood into, and could take larger pieces
f)The Ti-Tri was lighter
g)The T-Tri needs to be handled with care as the edges are razor sharp!
h)TheTi-Tri needs a base if you wish to prevent fire scars.

As a bonus, the Ti-Tri can also be used as a windscreen for an upright or remote canister stove as well as with alcohol or Esbit. I would say the TiTri is the clear winner for me.

>The Ti-Tri might be a very viable alternative, but FYI it
>is not a wood gasifier stove, per se

Thanks for all the positive comments on the Ti-Tri!

If I may, I would like to make one comment on the most assuredly accurate "gasifier" observation made by Jason. The Ti-Tri as currently sold and marketed by Ti-Goat and Trail Designs is not per se a gasifier.

Now, for the bright eyed and quick of witted among you, you might have noticed a minor slip of the keyboard in Chris Townsend's "2008 Backpacking Light Staff Pick". When he selected the Ti-Tri, he also made mention of the latest version having a "lightweight grate that fits inside the cone". What he was referring to was a a prototype add-on gasifier that was sent to him, Ryan, and a few others for evaluation. While we unduly fretted over the premature announcement in the staff's pick, we ultimately noticed that the reading public didn't catch on…..so decided it wasn't an issue. :-)

However, the feedback we received from Chris and the rest of the evaluators was the most noteworthy bit. To a man (and woman), nobody thought the gasifier was worth the added weight gain or complexity. While it did increase fuel efficiency a bit, it was reported that with access to abundant fuel, fuel efficiency is not a driving factor. As a result, adding the gasifier made the Ti-Tri (oddly enough) less desirable over the current offering!!! Go figure.

This was a big surprise to us, but in retrospect, it kinda made sense. So, we decided NOT to productize the gasifier module for the Ti-Tri (which we were planning on calling the Caldera Inferno :) Now, with that said, if there are those among you that need to own every Caldera Cone variation that comes out of our shop, and see the advantage in a gassifing Ti-Tri over the standard model, drop me an email and I'm sure we can work something out.

Thanks again for the interest!

Rand :-)