Hellfire Rocket Stove

I picked up one of these back around Christmas as a present to myself:

https://www.amazon.com/HellFire-Heav.../dp/B0822ZPKB3

I've been able to use it twice so far, and have been very pleased with it. It's reasonably easy to assemble, and once you get it going, it gets quite hot; I've used it to grill burgers on my cast iron pans twice now, and have been very pleased.

Only complaint I have is that after some time (maybe 40 minutes or so) it doesn't necessarily want to stay as hot; I think it may be because it accumulates pieces of charcoal that are too large to fall through the grate at the bottom or it could just be user error.

Good to know! I have no experience with these, and there are so many of them that it's hard to know which are worth it and which are not.

I've had one of the Solo Stove campfire models for about five years now. Starts up in no time, gives cookable high heat with just twigs and scree, and burns its fuel down to fine ash. Perfect for three or four people, though you'll still want a good old campfire for ambient heat and light.

I was just thinking about getting a similar setup, although the specs say 11lbs, so possibly something smaller to fit in a backpack.

My Father in law and I were talking during his visit last week, and he gave some pretty good insight on some SHTF scenarios. He's been with the Red Cross for many years, starting out at the bottom handing out meals, now in a regional logistics position, and having been through Katrina, and most of the other disasters over the last 20 years or so, I appreciated his stories.

Long story short, a small stove would have really really been a good thing to have in many of his scenarios.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKEj_JU-emc
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Hurley - this one is 3 pounds: https://www.virestove.com/product-page

Personally, I think having both wouldn't be bad. The lifetime savings on gas canisters would be good. Only bad thing is having to wait for the entire thing to cool down vs a typical backpacking gas stove where very little of it actually gets hot.

On the much smaller and lightweight end of things, there is this https://emberlit.com/collections/stoves Packs flat, made in Utah, backpacking size.


I have one in titanium that I have never gotten around to firing up, and a red-flag day probably isn't the right time to try it out in the yard [Flower]

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Originally Posted by XJ

On the much smaller and lightweight end of things, there is this https://emberlit.com/collections/stoves Packs flat, made in Utah, backpacking size.


I have one in titanium that I have never gotten around to firing up, and a red-flag day probably isn't the right time to try it out in the yard [Flower]

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Nice.

I went ahead and ordered a hellfire stove on Amazon and some bushcraft grills from eBay. Will be nice to NOT be beholden to liquid/gas fuel.

I'll probably grab one of those emberlit ones soon too.

I got an Emberlit back when they first came out. It works okay, but in retrospect seems more on the gimmicky side, just due to the size.

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Originally Posted by hurley842002

I was just thinking about getting a similar setup, although the specs say 11lbs, so possibly something smaller to fit in a backpack.

My Father in law and I were talking during his visit last week, and he gave some pretty good insight on some SHTF scenarios. He's been with the Red Cross for many years, starting out at the bottom handing out meals, now in a regional logistics position, and having been through Katrina, and most of the other disasters over the last 20 years or so, I appreciated his stories.

Long story short, a small stove would have really really been a good thing to have in many of his scenarios.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

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Yeah, it is heavy, but it breaks down to a bunch of flat pieces. It's probably not something you'd take if you're into ultralight camping gear and backpacking deep into the woods, but for car camping, short excursions, or a hunting trip where you set up a base camp, I think it will work well.

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Originally Posted by Justin

Yeah, it is heavy, but it breaks down to a bunch of flat pieces. It's probably not something you'd take if you're into ultralight camping gear and backpacking deep into the woods, but for car camping, short excursions, or a hunting trip where you set up a base camp, I think it will work well.

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I may have to pick one up for the car, and then one of the light ones for my bag. Im not a backpacker (mainly day hikes), but I do have a small day pack that goes with me pretty much everywhere, even if it's just left in the car, and it would be nice to keep a small stove in it.

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Originally Posted by Justin

Yeah, it is heavy, but it breaks down to a bunch of flat pieces. It's probably not something you'd take if you're into ultralight camping gear and backpacking deep into the woods, but for car camping, short excursions, or a hunting trip where you set up a base camp, I think it will work well.

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Indeed. If I'm living out of a ruck only, stuff got real enough that I'd probably be dead already anyway (or wouldn't care if I'm eating cold food). Otherwise, I'll probably be near my vehicle.

However, now that Hurley is in AZ, and has a sweet bike to do moto camping, 11lbs of stove is not a good use of his equipment weight budget.

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Originally Posted by CS1983

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKEj_JU-emc
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Hurley - this one is 3 pounds: https://www.virestove.com/product-page

Personally, I think having both wouldn't be bad. The lifetime savings on gas canisters would be good. Only bad thing is having to wait for the entire thing to cool down vs a typical backpacking gas stove where very little of it actually gets hot.

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This video does a good job of showing how the stove works, also I had the same issue with knocking off the hinged cover for where the fuel goes in.

CS1983, that Virestove looks like a neat design. I like how it's all hinged and folds up vs. the Hellfire's "Tab A into Slot B" approach. If weight is an issue, that looks like it'd be a good choice.

Attachment 81198

Here's a picture of mine from the first time I cooked with it. It runs hot enough that you can get a good sear on the outside of a burger.

Does it have instructions on best approaches for regulating heat output, or is this just fire up and go?

The instructions on mine are basically limited to a tag inside of the carrying bag for the stove that tells you to assemble it in the order of the numbers stamped on the pieces and that's pretty much it.

There's no instructions on how to regulate the heat output, it's basically just fire it up and go. The only thing I've noticed (and I've only used mine twice now, so I'm not an expert) is that it doesn't seem to burn quite as hot after awhile. I think this might be because I end up with kind of a bed of hot coals that are too big to fall through the grate into the ash collector beneath it and that this might be causing a problem with the air flow, but I'm open to suggestions.

I'd assume there could be some regulation of heat via opening/closing the vents, though I'm not sure how much regulation would occur.

I'm curious as to what you're doing that you'd need the thing to be going for 40+ minutes.

From the pics and video, it looks llike the base could benefit from having a much wider footprint. It looks as if it could tip over really easily with a pan on it. Is it stable ?

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Originally Posted by CS1983

I'd assume there could be some regulation of heat via opening/closing the vents, though I'm not sure how much regulation would occur.

I'm curious as to what you're doing that you'd need the thing to be going for 40+ minutes.

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Oh yeah. In my picture you can't really see it, but there's a small vent with a piece of metal that you can rotate to allow more or less air flow as needed. You can also keep the ash removal door open for additional airflow as well.

As for the time needed, 40+ minutes is probably excessive, but after grilling the burgers I wanted to saute some zucchinis.

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Originally Posted by colorider

From the pics and video, it looks llike the base could benefit from having a much wider footprint. It looks as if it could tip over really easily with a pan on it. Is it stable ?

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In my picture you can see there's a piece of metal near the back that extends off of the base to give it a wider footprint. That piece of metal extends to either side and aids in stability. With my cast iron pan I would describe the setup as being reasonably steady. It helps if you put it somewhere that's flat.

Reminds me of a stove made from cinder blocks.

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Originally Posted by earplug

Reminds me of a stove made from cinder blocks.

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Had to do an image search on that. Neat concept.

Also kind of reminds me of the stoves that people have built using surplus ammo cans.

The cinderblocks WILL crack though; and likely the first time you use it.

I tried making a rocket stove from high rise steel beams, but the damn thing kept melting.

^^ Nice!

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Originally Posted by CS1983

I tried making a rocket stove from high rise steel beams, but the damn thing kept melting.

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Too much foil?

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Originally Posted by Gman

Too much foil?

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Probably too much thermite, now that I think about it. I like my goat brats crispy on the outside, ya see.

Well, I got my hellfire rocket stove the other day and finally went to do a first put-together. I have 2x #5’s and no #4. Sigh.

Not sure if I need to address this through Amazon or the company itself (Battlbox?).

It looks like a great product if it included all the pieces. I look forward to that resolution.