Best Stove/Heat Source Fuel by Weight

[Kerbs]

I do a fly in hunt most years so weight is always a concern. We use a base tent and then spike camp from there. In the past we have used a kerosene heater as our primary source of heat in the base tent for evenings/mornings. While this works pretty well, I dislike the fume/smell and it does not give the drying effect a stove does. Plus is it's very easy. We have thought about switching to a stove but would need to fly in fuel as scrounging wood is not an option.

At roughly 6lbs/gallon I imagine the kerosene is by far the lightest fuel option. But if we were to go with some weight penalty, what is the best option for a stove? A big plus if fuel is block shaped where it can be stacked and wrapped. My initial thought was a synthetic log like Tacoma log. Has anyone else explored a similar option or other ideas? I am not interested in propane given the water content it puts off. That said if it was externally venting maybe?

 

[sneaky]

Nuway stoves are propane and externally vented. Portable diesel heater may be another option, depends on how big a shelter you are heating

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[z987k]

They make compressed logs for the ultralight wood stoves. They're not really light and don't have near the energy an equivalent weight of kerosene has. It's what I did this year. We had 30lbs of them iirc. That weight of compressed wood only lasted about 5 days, so you can't really use them for long hunts. There was some wood around, but it was all so wet it wouldn't burn even after some of it sat next to the stove for 2 days.
I'm throwing around the idea of a nordic stove. The little one weighs more than my small thin walled wood stove, but 5 gallons of kerosene would last a month, so the stove + fuel weighs less.
If you have electricity the portable disel heaters work, but they draw too much current to last very long on batteries or you'd need a pretty good solar array to keep them going. And now you're getting really heavy.

If wood is readily available where you are hunting, just get one of the thin stainless or titanium stoves.

 

[JR Greenhorn]

Good old fashioned coal is starting to become available again in some places for use in tent stoves with higher energy density than wood. Certainly not common, but out there if you look for it. There might be some options there, if you can find a good way to package and transport it. I don't have any experience with it; maybe it's no better than kerosene?

 

[Kerbs]

Good old fashioned coal is starting to become available again in some places for use in tent stoves with higher energy density than wood. Certainly not common, but out there if you look for it. There might be some options there, if you can find a good way to package and transport it. I don't have any experience with it; maybe it's no better than kerosene?

Thanks, hadn't thought of coal. I looked into propane but the weight of the gas relative to how fast you burn it doesn't seem to pencil. The Nordic Stove is intriguing but at close to 17#s for a small one, I am not sure that I am that much better ahead than the normal kerosene heater we are using now. The upside is we could run it when sleeping and not be to concerned being the nordic externally vents. That's a big issue with the kerosene heaters we use now.

 

[Shoot870p]

Did not even think about coal or the compressed logs.

 

[Wacko]

The logs like duraflaame's are a no go for a wood stove. They say so on the packaging. Many people also complain about the clogging the spark arrester and smoking them out.

I am going to be trying something like this this year myself. Safe for a wood stove, burn tests show 4 blocks put out a lot of heat and will burn 4 hours or more. Not sure on the weight, but should pack perfectly. These are bio blocks, but tractor supply sells a "knock off" or whatever. Available lots of places if you search for them.

BIO BLOCK Firewood 12 pk - Ace Hardware

Enjoy BIO BLOCK Firelog sales all year long! In warm weather, customers purchase BIO BLOCKS to take camping, or to burn in a fire pit or outdoor fireplace. In cold weather, BIO BLOCKS are burned in fireplaces, inserts, or wood stoves. Whether they are used to provide ambience with an occasional...

www.acehardware.com

Good luck!