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Click pictures for a larger version.
Kit comes with windscreen, fuel bottle, "spork",
lighter, plastic container, lid, and stove (center, small
stove shown).
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Lightweight, efficient alcohol-burning stoves
for backpackers and campers have been popular for decades. The
design is about a century old, but ever since Al Gore laid claim
to inventing the internet, folks have had easy access to
instructions on how to make these stoves from an empty coke can.
“Coke can” is a generic term around here. Regional terms
vary from “pop can”, “soda can” or the combination “soda
pop can”, but in Tennessee, they are all coke cans. Some can
be the brand “Coke”, but a coke around here is anything from
an RC to a Nehi Orange. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, back to the
subject at hand, these stoves will burn most any type of alcohol
very efficiently. The design is basically a gas generator, with
the alcohol burning in the center warming the fuel to evaporate
and burn more efficiently from the ports on the side, providing
a hot flame until the fuel is gone.
I once attempted to make one of these stoves
from a Dr. Pepper can, and succeeded in only cutting myself
before giving up. Now, HotShot Stoves is selling these dandy
little camp stoves for a very low price, and the kit comes with
everything needed except for the fuel. They offer a Small Shot
and a Big Shot stove, and both seem to provide plenty of heat to
cook a meal, while the entire kit weighs almost nothing.
These stoves are small, very efficient, and
best of all, very affordable. The entire kit consists of the
stove, a spork, fuel bottle, windscreen, and a Bic lighter, all
packed into a watertight container. The stoves sell for only $20
US for the small stove and $25 US for the large stove, plus
shipping, as of the date of this review.
You
can order the HotShot stoves online here.
Jeff Quinn
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Click pictures for a larger version.
Small stove (left), large stove (right).
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