A easy question about Zip Stoves.

[oldsparkey]

A easy question for anyone who wants to answer it. :lol:

I know that you can use almost anything in a Zip Stove as a heat source to cook a meal.

The wood , depending on what type you use will soot up the cooking pot. So it is actually a couple of questions.

1... What wood can be used without getting the cooking pot sooty ?
2... Has anyone tried the self lighting briquet's , the one you put a match to and they burn. I'm thinking after the chemical burns off and the briquette is lit then you would have some good heat that would be soot free.
3... If not the briquet's then how about the stick charcoal.

Any ideas ??????????????

One other thought......... Kicking some ideas around.........

You are camping in a area where there is a shortage of wood and you want to do a beef stew in the Dutch Oven , you have decided to stay in camp another day so there is plenty of time to do that.

You suspend the D.O. from a tri pod over the Zip Stove and use it as the heat source. I'm thinking the briquet's would burn a lot longer then any small pieces of wood so the stew could be simmered ( slow) cooked over a longer period of time that way. Using less fuel , both natural and man made , to cook supper.

Keeping any firewood you gathered for the camping fire after the sun goes down.

Chuck.

 

[hairymick]

Chucky,

what are you thinking mate?

You are out camping, your stove and pots & pans are MEANT to be all black and sooty. This is only the natural order of things.

Re the stew, Not sure mate. I am thinking your heat source as in a zip stove might be a little too hot and too concentrated to do it well.

Unless you had a significant wind break, the bottom of your DO would be very hot while the sides would be getting cooled by the air round it. It might work, I just don't know mate.

 

[Jimmy W]

I think that charcoal would produce less soot. Next best would be a dry hardwood like oak or hickory. Wood with a lot of resin like pine would produce the most. But Mick is right, that black coating will cause the pots to absorb more of the heat and making a larger diameter fire on the ground for the pot to be over would give the DO more even heat not concentrated in one area.

 

[oldsparkey]

Like I said .. Just kicking ideas around and wanted to get other folks thoughts on this.

I agree a darken pot will absorb more heat the a shiny reflective one. Main thing is having a longer cooking time on one handful of items then having to continually feed sticks in the fire chamber.

I have found that when a person is trying to figure out something , it is best to ask because sometimes the answer is to easy to not see by that person where someone else can see it really clearly.

Chuck.

 

[john the pom]

No soot is a no brainer, just take an oxygen bottle along with you introduce it to the flame (not all at once :roll: ) Of course you will need to build an extra boat to transport the oxygen bottle... thinking this would not be suitable for backpackers.
Loose soot should "wash" off with a handfull of dirt/sand. Then just put ina plastic bag. Am assuming you'ser gonna allow said pot to cool first, otherwise blistered skin should also wash off with dirt/sand

 

[Jimmy W]

Chucky,

what are you thinking mate?

You are out camping, your stove and pots & pans are MEANT to be all black and sooty. This is only the natural order of things.

Before you go upsetting the natural order of things, maybe you should run this by the Bodine Institute. It would be a real bummer if you caused something like a reversal of gravity so that it pushed us up off earth instead of holding us down. I would hate to go through life having to hold on so that I don't float off into space.

Jimmy

 

[bearridge]

Am assuming you'ser gonna allow said pot to cool first, otherwise blistered skin should also wash off with dirt/sand

Now that set my chuckle-ometer off. Ya aint rite john....ya jest aint rite. Ya aint a Jap too, are ya? :mrgreen:

 

[Wannabe]

Now ain't this something. The very Southern Lawyer I was going to sic on folks that told Jap jokes is saying Jap stuff.What's a Jap feller supposed to do now?
Wa'nnabe

 

[john the pom]

Mericans shouldn't ought to consider Japs to be a bad thing. Who else wouldya have got into a war with last century. Biggest thing ever to happen to your economy... (Well 'ceptin' for the current economic development.)
Happen to be a fine race for scientific testing them WMD's on too. If ya'd a done more testing then, they wouldn't be scientifically testing on whales so much now.


LMCLAO, I fully expect this to get deleted
A p.s. thought. From soot to smut in just a few short steps
Smut: "a. Obscenity in speech or writing." The Free Dictionary.

if you caused something like a reversal of gravity so that it pushed us up off earth instead of holding us down. I would hate to go through life having to hold on so that I don't float off into space.

If that happened would we all be lookin' to hang onto birds an helium balloons to keep us on Earth?

 

[Wannabe]

Has anyone tried burning dried cow pies or dried horse apples in Zip Stoves? Buffalo chips are hard to come by and cow and horse stuff is everywhere. Don't make hardly any smoke. I guess our Aussie brethern could use roo stuff. I'm sure they have a pet name for it. :lol:
Bob

 

[hairymick]

Mate, we sometimes use horse or cow dung as smoke for our bighting sandflies. (I think you blokes call em sand gnats? about the size of a flea) It sort of keeps them away, but smokes like all get out.

I am having a little difficulty in understanding how sufficient wood for a zip stove could be scarce. They burn very little.

I think if I was to be bothered making a stew while camping, (not likely) I would be looking for a better option than a zip. When camping, I like my meals quick and easy and filling, Good taste is a bonus that is not allways achieved.

 

[oldsparkey]

I think if I was to be bothered making a stew while camping, (not likely) I would be looking for a better option than a zip. When camping, I like my meals quick and easy and filling, Good taste is a bonus that is not allways achieved.

Mick....

When I am out there by myself , the meals are no problem and they are darn good.
Where I paddle and camp wood is plenty , there is no short supply of it , if anything there might be to much , if there is such a thing. After all I paddle swamps and wooded areas.

I'm thinking of the areas where the wood is not that plentiful , the desert and there rivers for example. Basically I'm just kicking ideas around.

In a camp , spending two nights there with a bunch of starving paddlers , then it would be a wood fire under the oven and if necessary with some charcoal to cook the meal.
I do not cook in a rush for the group , my cooking is slow and deliberate , like me. Only problem is that the cooking when done that way smells and tastes a lot better. Guess that is one reason no one has cooked me ..... YET.

Just trying to get some ideas about not having to take that Coleman double burner on any more trips and using what nature provides us or supplementing it. We ... DO .. Have to have our evening campfire.

I shortened my canoe by two feet which means I have to pack smarter and not take some things , especially the heaver ones. NO... No way the D.O. Stays home when I cook for a crew.

Now .... I could stop doing that and go into the solo paddling mode which would be really easy to do when paddling with a crew. That would be to easy.

Chuck.
PS. No way I will eat one of those stinking MRE's ... Did that one time and hated myself for two days. Anyone eating them has lost there taste bud's. Plus they think constipation and bodily gas expulsion are a good thing. Might be there nose does not work , what an after stink they cause , it would gag a maggot. :evil:

 

[Kayak Jack]

Chuck,

We all, including you, probably already know the answers to your question. Jimmy Wingo summarised it well when he advised dry hardwoods, charcoal, and lastly pine.

A fire in a hole is more effective for a cast iron DO that hanging it over a ZIP or any other twig stove. Twig stove tend to have tow speeds - on and off. They pass through a "simmer" or "slow roast" faze on the way up to boil, and again on the way back down to off. Twig stoves are not meant to hold a slow, roasting heat.

Dried hardwoods will become charcoal as they burn. Or, you can start out with store-bought charcoal.

But, if you are determined to experiment more, use a dry hardwood in the stove, a wind screen, and maybe some aluminum foil over the hanging DO?

But, none of this is news to you. Just a repeat of commonly known knowledge.