Caldera Cone and Wood Fires

[Dan Yeruski]

Well I can't seem to leave well enough alone. I always have to modify something. I originally thought that I wood invert the cone and use the Ti stakes furnished by TD. By the time I got my cone I had an idea to use a different approach. Leave the cone as is and create a one piece pot support to place on top of the cone. Because of my pot design TD could not make a TiTri system for me. A large opening at the top of the cone for the wood mode was not possible so I modified and made it work my way. The entire set-up worked out just right for me. Thought I'd share how I did it. You might be able to modify your cone to be used the same way.

Caldera Cone and wood Fires on Youtube

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Neat technique to achieve the vertical stacking. Thanks for sharing that.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I have a TD Sidewinder for a 3 cup pot. Love to use it with wood for winter camping.

-> The vertical stacking looks interesting. I'll try it with the Inferno inverted cone.

-> Using sticks to support the mesh, not so much. They will eventually burn and the use of the mesh to admit bottom flow of air is lost.

-> The pot support is absolutely wrong for a cone stove. You lose the heat saving advantage of the pot-in-cone concept. You have merely used the cone to contain the fire. A hobo can stove does the same thing. BUT, the pot support is a good idea if you have to use a pot that is too large to fit inside the stove.

-> Absence of the inner Inferno inverted cone loses the gassifier advantage of recirculating unburned gas, thus making a hotter fire. Use the Inferno cone to be the container for "vertical stacking". I think the Inferno insert kit makes the Sidewinder or Tri Ti the equal of the Bush Buddy for combustion efficiency.

All in all you have (IMHO) one of four ideas that are truly useful but I like that you are tinkering and thinking about wood fires. That is how things are improved.

[Dan Yeruski]

-> Using sticks to support the mesh, not so much. They will eventually burn and the use of the mesh to admit bottom flow of air is lost.

Yes, and they served their purpose until they themselves were consumed. They eliminated one less piece to store in the pot. The base holes of the cone are truly marvelous…plenty of incoming air. Remember, I burn top to bottom. Plenty of incoming air due to the open top created by the pot support.

My cone was not a TiTri but yet I adapted and was able to burn my favorite fuel. It's ok, let's call it a hobo stove made of Ti.

Let's remember the efficiency that the cone gets with alcohol and esbit. Esbit, your favorite fuel will boil 3 cups with one cube. And if you want to slow down the burn rate of a cube let it stay inside the plastic wrap that it's packaged in. Peel the foil off and lite the top of it.

-> Absence of the inner Inferno inverted cone loses the gassifier advantage of recirculating unburned gas, thus making a hotter fire. Use the Inferno cone to be the container for "vertical stacking". I think the Inferno insert kit makes the Sidewinder or Tri Ti the equal of the Bush Buddy for combustion efficiency.

Oh Boy!!!! Recirculating unburned gas, that's a favorite topic of mine…one that I gave up on :-))))

[Dan Yeruski]

Watch the flame pattern of the cone and see how the accessory ring holds the twigs in a bundle.

Eric, stop the video at the 1:20 mark and look at the twigs under the grate. They are providing ample support for air to enter under the stack. You might want to change your mind about the twigs.

youtube video of Caldera Cone Flame Pattern

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

So what's your approach to soot management with the cone and pot? Do you pack it all in a sack? Or wipe it down after use? I've always liked the idea of using wood, but found keeping the soot off the rest of my stuff to be a bit of a hassle. Ideally I'd like to use a mixed strategy of wood and alcohol, but I find it's only worth it on longer trips where the wood usage saves substantial weight.

[Tom D.]

This is great stuff, very resourceful with the ring as an aid to making a vertical stack.

I have to think that for a single burn, the twigs underneath the grate would be no problem. You'd just replace them if you do another burn. I've found that even without a space underneath your wood stack, it works, just not quite as efficiently. Being at the bottom, those support twigs should be the last to burn when top lighting the stove.

[Jerry Adams]

Yeah, soot is a major negative

Now if you had a small fire, and then drug coals from the fire to under your pot was, right next to it, that might work. Maybe just have three rocks as a pot support. Technique rather than equipment.

[Dan Yeruski]

There is very little soot involved in burning twigs from the top down. Pine gives off more soot than hard woods. Hot fires are clean fires. Perfect your wood burning skills to get the "hot" fires. burning from the bottom will always get you soot. Dry wood is a must also for cleaner pots and cone.

I know most of you that have the bushbuddy are slaves to your stove having to constantly feed twigs to it in order to get 2 cups to boil.

I'll have to do a video that shows a pot after a nice hot burn. There will be a coating on the pot but it will not be dirty soot.

I'm not against putting my cone and grate into my pot uncovered. My pot of water comes to a boil and I'm good to go. Dump it into my Mountain House "Chicken-N-Rice" and I'm one content and happy hiker.

I put my pot into a tyvek sleeve stuff sack. I bought some tyvek forearm protectors on ebay that work great as stuff sacks. They have elastic bands on both ends. I furnished them with the folding woodgaz stove.

The reason your pants have pant legs is to wipe your hands after handling your fire stuff :-)))

Soot Management Caldera Cone youtube

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I love how you've got a video up already. I'm off to watch it.

[David Thomas]

>"This is great stuff, very resourceful with the ring as an aid to making a vertical stack."

Yeah, I liked that, too.

A skinny rubber band would be super easy although it would stink a tiny bit when the rubber burned.

A tiny spool* of cotton thread would weigh just about nothing and let you make a bundle or two in advance (like the night before, as you wait for your dinner to cook, you could gather your morning bundle and then tuck it somewhere it won't get dew on it overnight).

*Of course, not a single-purpose spool, but cotton thread wrapped around a pen, spoon handle, tent peg, or something you were taking anyway.

Or you could all wood-crafty about it and tie a bundle of sticks together with grass or a strip of bark from a (dead!) branch or root. Or just kill a bison and spin its hair into twine.

[Justin Baker]

Soot must be a wood stove thing. I always cook over a small open fire and i usually dont get enough soot to worry about it rubbing off. I generally wait until its down to coals. The soot must come from the initial combustion.
I probably have a few grams of soot stuck onto my pot. It just doesent rub off. All of my pots end up looking rough after a few trips.

[Justin Baker]

"Or you could all wood-crafty about t and tie a bundle of sticks together with grass or a strip of bark from a(dead!) branch or root. Or just kill a bison and spin its hair into twine."

Mors Kochaski did a thing about tying sticks together with spruce roots. He would light it on fire from the top and swing it around in the air to get it going. Cutting one root from a healthy tree wouldnt hurt it.

[Dan Yeruski]

Watch the video of a Inferno Insert being used in a common light the bottom technique. He loads the Inferno with pine needles/cones(fast burning) and then a load of big stuff. He finally gets the pot on and then I could tell the fire is going to be snuffed or seriously damage the fire. The video ends at that point. Notice the smoke.

Scroll down the page to the video identified as MVI6425

MVI_6425Watch the video half way down the pageMVI_6425

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I think most of that smoke resulted from using spruce boughs for tinder. I'll try vertical stacking and top lighting. Might just work better.

[Dan Yeruski]

Eric, give it a try. I inverted my cone and made it into an Inferno. A little clumsy at first but managed to geter goin ok. It boiled 2.5 cups with one load. I'll publish another video to show the entire 14 min in a shortened version. This video will give an idea of how it wnet for me the first time doing the inverted cone. The next time I'll place the cone on before I light it. I used fat wood for my tinder.

I inverted the Cladera Cone turned into a Inferno

.
I had time to load another video so you can see a shortened version of a 14 min. video. The above video is of the first 5 min.

The full 14 min. video shortened on youtube

[Dan Yeruski]

Are there more than 5 of you out there that use wood most of the time for your goto fuel?

I use it most of the time so I'm #1

Who is #2?

I know there are tons of you that purchased BushBuddy's and Backcountry Boilers. Are you using wood in them or alcohol as the main fuel?

[Rob E]

Hello Dan,

I have a one of the classic Ti cones, and I really like to take advantage of the "tri" fuel nature of the cone.

Though, I don't usually use wood for my goto fuel, but rather, use wood to create "surplus", so to speak, with the fuel I've packed. What I will do is bring *exactly* the right amount (or even slightly less) esbit or alcohol for the number of hot meals I've planned. Then I will try to use wood to boil a meal or two right from day one when the weather and trail conditions allow. These one or two boils will create a surplus in the fuel I have packed, creating some buffer for emergencies, "emergencies" usually being the desire for an extra hot chocolate or peppermint tea at night.

The only downside is that my fuel weight doesn't decrease right away, but really, at about 0.5-0.7 ounces of fuel for a meal and hot drinks, it's not a significant amount of weight. The ultralight ethos of returning home from a trip with absolutely no food or fuel remaining has never appealed to me, mostly because my trips tend to have some degree of off-trail unpredictability, and using wood allows for me to create that buffer at the start of the trip, without packing extra fuel, rather than having to rely on wood at the end, when weather or trail conditions might not be as conducive for wood burning.

I also like to use wood for simmer or cooking foods that take longer than what is easy with alcohol or esbit. In the picture below we are frying vegetables in butter. The vegetables and aluminium foil were packed ahead of time at home, and were cooked on the first night on the trail. I've also used a frying pan placed on top of the cone a few times while burning wood, and it works alright, but you just have to be careful not to bend the lip of the Ti foil when you move or seat the pan.

I also use esbit a fair bit. Although I find that both esbit and wood leave residue, I've found that wiping the pot and cone down quickly while the residue is still warm gets rid of most of it it right away. I try to rub them in the dirt/moss/duff first, and then follow up with a 3 x 3 inch piece of a sham-wow towel.

I've used my Ti Goat 900ml pot many times directly over green pine branches that give off a huge amount of sticky creosote and sap. I have a MYOG reflectix cozy that I use to cover the pot that keeps the sticky mess from getting everywhere. Usually the pot goes right in the cozy from the stove, so the cozy gets pretty sticky on the inside.
I give the pot and cone as much of a clean as I can in the field, and a very vigorous scrub with a steel pot scrubber, dish-soap, and sometimes vinegar when I get home (I'm not actually sure if the vinegar helps, but it makes me feel better). After quite a few years, the cone and pot are discoloured a bit, but not at all sticky.

Burning wood in the cone seems to require a fraction of the fuel than using a normal fire with a ring of rocks, and I find it much quicker, but I don't use wood as my primary fuel simply because I don't feel I have to. Esbit and alcohol are so (relatively) inexpensive, and light that I really don't see a reason not to bring them.

Here is the picture of roasting veggies on the cone:

[Dan Yeruski]

Hi Rob,
Thanks for sharing how you use the TiTri feature of the cone. Roasting veggies or meat on your first night out is good planning. I do that without fail. Second night I'll finish off the veggies that I've brought. Fish on the third day is always in my plans when near water. I'm crazy about Mountain House "Chicken-N-Rice" with "Blueberry Granola" to follow as dessert. My new found stainless steel pot holds 3 cups of water with plenty of head room. Non-stick aluminum foil is my friend when roasting.

I clean the outside of my pot once a year with liquid "chaffing fuel" I wrap it with paper towels and then pour the chaffing fuel onto the towels and then let it soak over night. I have a video or two of that process. I normally use 3 fingers to handle my cookware. 3 fingers to get dirty ain't too bad. This new found wire handle seems to be working out nicely. I have another video that shows the handle remaining cool enough to lift the pot off the wood fire. I tried using a larger pot on the inverted cone but was not successful at it. I had to revert back to the smaller 4" dia. The 3/4" high X shaped pot support would have worked a lot better than the steel rods as shown in the video. The load of wood I used eventually boiled the 24 ounces of water at around 20 min. The wood was large diameter which burned slowly but without much smoke.

I had to be careful with my cone, it feels a little thin when dealing with a larger pot and maneuvering it to adjust the fire that seems to get under the bottom edge of it. The Ti cone is new to me so I expect it will take some time to adjust to it's lightness in weight. I sure do like the closure system that TD came up with….solid!!!

Really nice photos Rob, thanks for sharing those. What kind of grill is that in the 1st photo and what is the ingredients of the meal in the last photo…looks yummy :-) How tall is your Ti Goat 900ml pot and your Ti Cone? My pot is 4" tall and the cone is 4" tall, fits inside the pot. Grate fits inside the lid.

When watching this video concentrate on the top lighting and the amount of smoke when using the vertical stack method. About 2 years ago I started doing the vertical stack and top lighting. It has worked well for me.

The 2nd video is for a little humor. "How to light your fire with a Harley".

Larger pot did not work well

Harley fire starter

[Author]

Posts