****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
It’s easy to use. It’s sturdy. It isn’t light and I don’t think it’s meant to be.It isn’t fancy. It has sharp edges, came with spots of rust, the side looks like it was dented slightly from the factory, and some of the welds are iffy. That’s why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, but none of that takes away from how well it works. It’s utilitarian, rough around the edges, and if it was cheaper I would have overlooked all of that, but it isn’t.It seems to work really well, very quickly heating up enough to stop smoking. It can require some finesse to run at steady temperature and adding fuel too late can cause smoking but that’s the nature of a solid fuel stove. I think it was actually designed to be a home/small restaurant stove, or maybe for street vendors, in places where solid fuel stoves are a fact of life. It has some clever details that would make it good for use in many non-western kitchens. You can empty the ash without moving the stove, and it appears the wind screen was designed to attach to a chimney and with a pot, wok, or the included lid the exhaust is going to mostly go up the chimney. But I don’t know, as none of that was really mentioned on the included sheet of paper.It has an English language warning label and basic instructions.As for camping, which is what they seem to be marketing it for on Amazon: I have several similar stoves, and for the sort of camping I do any of them would work better, as would most of the sheet metal rocket stoves. That doesn’t take away from this stove at all, but you can get a slightly smaller stove that works on the same principles but the legs fold up, the whole thing is lighter, and at least for me if I’m camping and need extra heat I’m going to cook over a campfire. It can be used, and if it matches your needs it’ll work well, but I won’t be taking it camping. I use it in the back yard “kitchen” with a wok, discada, or even a big stock pot. It needs a short table or even some cinder blocks to raise it to a comfortable height to use while standing, but it’s a decent height to use while sitting.We use this stove almost every day to cook food in the yard and it is the best. The most important part in this stove is the fan attached to itWow, stainless steel and heavy plate steel used in the construction of this stove. Tried it out as soon as I got it with some tree branches I had lying around. It has a large fire box, so you can load it up with rather large chunks or any other wood you might have that fits in the firebox. Burn was extremely good and you can vary the flame by increasing or deceasing the air volume. Only smoked a little at start up. I bought this to cook using a discada, which I think it will do very well. Heavy duty built, heavy weight and should stand up to anything I might throw at it. Another thing I like about this stove is, the electronics are removable and outside the stove. Other forced air stoves I've seen, have the electronics built into the stove making it very easy to burn them out if not careful. My only issue is, the holding screw to mount the air blower unit on the stove, I would have went with a quick disconnect option. Haven't used, but wind screen and lid are nice too.This stove works great! The seller was extra helpful in making sure everything works just right. Very well built, easy to clean and easy to use. This is the BEST rocket stove design I have ever seen!Quality is way more than I expected. Very functional. I have not tried it with wood. I converted mine to burn waste vegetable oil and it's a blowtorch.
