Product Review: Stove in a Can

I recently got to take a nice outing with the family and test out the Stove in a Can.  This little stove is made for outdoor or emergency cooking and comes with fuel cells and matches.  I’m always interested in ways to cook without power, so appreciated the opportunity to test this stove out.

First of all, the product is packed well.  The stove comes with 4 large fuel cells and a little box of waterproof matches plus a couple parts for assembling the stove all inside the can.  The can is a short #10 size can, so not amazingly small, but not too big either.  Good for a car kit or just having handy in your emergency supplies at home.  A bit large for packing in a backpack style evacuation kit.

Stove Assembly. Inside the can (along with the fuel cells and matches) are two metal pieces.  The larger one with holes in it forms a ring inside the rim on the top of the can.  It will hold your pot and allow air flow to your fire.  If your pot is smaller, you can use the can’s own lid upside down on top of the ring as a support for your pot.  The groove on the lid sits securely on the upper ring.  We used the lid.

The second, smaller piece of metal gets bent into a circle–the up and down bends in the band make it so this piece can be secured to itself in various sizes of circles.  This will support your fuel disk inside the stove so it gets air flow underneath it.

Lighting. Use the included matches or fire starting method of your choice to light the fuel disk you want to use.  The large fuel cells are wrapped in paper, so you can just light a corner of the paper and they start.  We used a smaller fuel cell that can be purchased separately from the stove and is not paper-wrapped and had a little trouble getting it lit with the included matches.  The matches wouldn’t stay lit long enough to catch the disk on fire, so we ended up using a lighter.  You’ll really want to have an alternate source of starting the fire than the included matches–ours didn’t work very well.

Once the fuel cell is lit, set it on top of your inner ring and get your pot on top.  The large cells are probably better lit inside the stove rather than lighting them first and dropping them in because they fit pretty snug through the top hole of the stove.  The disk really gets fire going quick after being lit, so be ready with your food so you don’t lose potential cooking time.

The fuel cell is a wax/wood shaving mixture that burns nice and hot.  One of the drawbacks of this stove is the fuel cell requirement.  However, you could potentially use some other cooking material in the stove and still have it work.  Maybe the dryer lint fire starters and some small wood would work.  We’ll have to test it out with something other than the fuel cells sometime and see how it goes.

We wanted to boil some water for everybody’s Cup of Noodles lunches.  We heated about 6 cups of water on the Stove in a Can.  We used one of the smaller fuel cells that can be purchased separately from the stove.  These are supposed to burn 30-45 minutes instead of 90 minutes.

We are at high altitude (approx. 6000 feet) and the small disk burned for roughly 30 minutes before burning out.  Our water got plenty hot and made little bubbles inside the pot, but never boiled.  I’m sure it would have helped to have a lid on it, but we didn’t bring one with us.  Anyway, the fire lasted long enough to heat water for Cup of Noodles or re-hydrating freeze dried meals or for cooking something small in a pan over it.

If you finish your cooking before your fuel disk is done burning, you can put the lid on your stove and kill the fire by oxygen deprivation, then light up what is left of your disk the next time you need to cook.

Cleanup. This part is a bit tricky.  The stove isn’t nearly as pretty when it’s done cooking as when it started.  Quite a bit of the paint cooked off the outside and there was plenty of sooty black on the pot, upper ring, and can lid.  And yes, because the lid is used on the stove upside down, it is the outside of the lid that was on the side nearest the fire getting blackened.  Thankfully we had a bit of snow and some desert grassy brush to clean it up with before we packed it all back up.  However, the inside of the stove is dirty and black as well, so we didn’t put our unused fuel cells back in.  Of course you could, it doesn’t matter too much if they get dirty–they’re just going to get burned another time anyway.

Overall, a nice little off grid stove option that is easy to transport and use and would also make a great gift for any camper or prepper.

These stoves can be purchased from retailers like Thrive Life or from the manufacturer’s site at Stove in a Can.

Keep preparing!
Angela