Nothing is more fun to sit around a campfire with your family or friends while camping. Having a good time with the people you love and telling good stories. While enjoying a cold beer or a hot cup of tea, while slowly night falls and above you the stars begin to glitter in the sky.
Idyllic isn’t it? But making a fire is of course also great fun and depending on the type of fire pit you have, the campfire can also be used to cook food, for example. But how idyllic that picture of camping with a campfire sounds, it is often a bit disappointing. Because there is always someone full of smelly smoke, the wood runs out faster than you had hoped and because the pit is so dirty afterwards that you would rather not take it with you in the car or camper. The standard fire pits are therefore not the ideal burners for making a campfire. Although they are cheap and available everywhere, they do not burn very efficiently and are sometimes – especially fire pits – also inconvenient to take with you due to their design. We therefore went looking for an alternative and found the Solo Stove. We first tried the compact campfire model (it is now advertised as a table model), but because it is too small to give off sufficient heat, we quickly switched to the Solo Stove Ranger. As far as we are concerned, this is the perfect burner for making a campfire! And no, this article is not sponsored by Solo Stove 🙂
Solo Stove Ranger Review
The Solo Stove Ranger is a stainless steel fire basket that works on wood, charcoal or pellets and can be used as a campfire or for cooking. Unique to this burner is that it uses the wood gasification method. In this method, in addition to the wood itself, all hot flue gases are also burned. This ensures efficient combustion, so you need less wood and you hardly suffer from smoke, as is the case with many other burners. The stove is also equipped with a double-walled construction, which also ensures efficient combustion, but also ensures that the outside gets much less hot. This also makes the stove safer to use. An extra nice thing about the Solo Stove is that there are many accessories available for it. As a result, the stove can be set up entirely according to your own wishes. For example, the Solo Stove is often used in combination with a Dutch Oven or pan set and you can expand the entire set with a windscreen, tripod, deflectors and other tools.
Specifications and features:
- Material: 304 stainless steel (durable stainless steel)
- 31.5cm (h) x 38cm (diameter)
- Weight: 6,80 kg
- Double wall construction for more efficient combustion
- Double wall construction is also safer for children and pets
- Wood gasification method for more efficient combustion
- Wood gasification method also ensures less smoke formation
- Comes with a handy carrying case
- Many accessories available
How does the wood gasification method of a Solo Stove work?
The Solo Stove uses the wood gasification method to eliminate smoke to create an even hotter flame. This is done by pulling the rising hot air through the air holes at the bottom. From there, the oxygen goes partly to the bottom plate on which the wood rests and partly up through the double-sided wall (360° airflow technology) making the fire even hotter. As soon as the oxygen at the top comes into contact with the fire again through the air holes, the hot flame is fanned and excess flue gases are burned. A hotter flame means more efficient combustion. As a result, you need less wood, you hardly suffer from smoke and you only have a mini heap of ash left over once the fire has gone out.
Conclusion
We haven’t mentioned any disadvantages yet, but there are certainly some. As far as we are concerned, only those are mainly limited to the price. You can buy the basic model of the Solo Stove Ranger from around €240 and it has to be said, that’s a lot of money for a fire pit. Nevertheless, we think it is absolutely worth that amount. We have made several camping trips, both in the Netherlands and abroad, where we have used the Solo Stove and it really is a great burner when it comes to making a good campfire! We also bought a suitable BBQ grill, so that we regularly cook outside with it. In that respect, the Solo Stove also has a double function for us and we are very happy with it! Are you also interested in this Solo Stove? You can order the Solo Stove Ranger here.
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