VitalGrill Survival Stove

I can't stop opening this thing up, setting it up, then packing it all back together into one small, well designed package. But far from being pleasantly tactile and easy on the eyes, this thing packs a punch and is wonderfully functional. The premise is simple: increase vented air flow through the base of a fire by means of a small battery-operated fan to increase thermal output. And boy, does it increase thermal output; I boiled a cup of water in about the same time as it takes my kitchen's microwave and warmed my hands in the process.I'm no Bear Grylls but a story my Father told me of an empty tank, -30 temperatures, and 12 foot high snow drifts has always inspired me to carry a small survival pack in the trunk of my car. Guess where this thing is going?Well, let me just unbox it, open it up, and repack it ONE MORE TIME before it takes pride of place in my trunk's survival kit.

The media could not be loaded.  Works better than I expected. To light this stove, I scrape a little pile of fatwood shavings on the bottom plate of the firebox, then I collect a fistfull of very fine twigs from the ends of fallen branches, especially from hemlocks as these are tiny and burn easily. I light the fatwood shavings with a ferro rod and put the wad of fine twigs into the firebox. As soon as they catch, I turn on the fan to high and it takes off. Really takes off. As the small twigs are consumed I add small broken up twigs to get some coals going and then start dropping in my main fuel, which is made up of sticks about 1-1.5" in diameter which I cut into 1" long cylinders with my pocket saw. These give a nice hot fire and burn longer than twigs do. Generally, I use this stove to boil water for mountain house meals and it will boil the water very quickly. Almost too quickly, you don't get a lot of time to play around because it does it's job so fast. This past weekend it was in the 20's where I was and the water I boiled started off with ice floating in it. This stove was still able to boil 16 ounces in about 5 minutes. The first time I used this stove I was disappointed because it didn't seem to be burning hot. Then I remembered the little slider you open to adjust the burn temp. When I opened that all the way it instantly took off. It is important to read the instructions and keep the fan going until the coals are all burned to ash. If you turn it off too soon, that's when the base can warp. I've always kept the fan on until the fire is gone and have no issues, just one side of the fire box has warped and I don't think there's any way around that. It hasn't affected performance and the firebox still folds up and stow nicely.Despite the fact that I do like this stove a lot, there are a couple of concerns that I have. The first is the feet under the stove. The aluminum base is cast, and whoever is supposed to do the final sanding on this casting didn't do a very good job, they left sharp edges on the six feet that cut through the carry bag the stove comes with. Not a functional problem, but hard on the carry bag and any other gear it is stowed with. I'll have to take a file and knock down some of those knife edges. The other is the fragility of the electrics. The battery box is thin brittle plastic that would break easily. I carry it in a hard sided earbud case to prevent this. Also, the plug that the battery box plugs into on the body of the stove is exposed and would break easily if it were dropped on it. There is no protection for it at all. So, if anyone from Vital Stove reads this I would urge you to address the fragility of the battery box and the connections. After all, the stove is useless if these break and the rest of the stove is built very well.If I had to pick between the Biolite stick stove and this one for extended use, I would be hard pressed to do so. If I needed power generation, then the Biolite is the obvious choice. If I just needed heat to cook on, then I would probably choose this stove instead. The Biolite has a circuit board, a rechargeable battery, a thermo electric generator...there are too many parts of it that could fail rendering it useless. Despite my concerns about the fragility of the electrics on the Vital stove, if they did break you could do some field repairs that would at least make it function with nothing but a Swiss Army knife and the remaining parts of the stove. This kind of simplicity is important if you need to rely on it for any length of time.

This stove is compact, very solid feeling with shiny polished windscreen pot stand. Starting a fire is the easiest thing due to the airflow as it blows any fire to a red hot ember and lights heavier wood pieces. The fire is very controllable using the fan sliding door. Cooking on a skillet was a joy as I could control the heat to keep it just right. Most wood stoves have no heat control. The high speed makes it burn like a forge, very hot. The fan allowed me to use damp wood, actually wet and blew it enough to get it lit and burning with almost no smoke. I highly recommend this stove for camping or emergency use for cooking or to create major heat at a camp. I think its fun to use and really will heat up water or cook a meal faster than any other. The fan is almost silent, not at all bothersome. I posted a video of stove use on youtube, search vital stove, my site is daddated1, I have my video there. Enjoy.

After experimenting more with this stove, I have to say the durability is really impressive.I originally thought the air-holed storage cap, which also serves as the base for the wood fire, would be a weak point for long fires, but I haven't noticed any warping yet.The surprise really comes from relating my experiences with this wood stove vs. others in long duration fires.With other wood stoves, regardless of whether they are steel or titanium, there is warping that occurs over time.Even the thick walled firebox's grill surface has begun to warp.But the VitalGrill, with its thicker solid metal construction, even in the fire wall, there is no warping for fires up to two hours. I tested it for that long and was able to use the fire for both a little heat and as a continuous simmering wood stove for stew.The only real problem with this stove is that it requires constant attention as the fuel burns rather quickly. If you don't pay attention for 10 minutes, the flame can easily go out.On another note, using a wind screen on three of the sides, leaving the side with the fan that draws in air completely open, markedly improves heat efficiency. I didn't measure anything, but water definitely came to a boil faster, and the rolling boil is much more aggressive with the wind screen than without. In a windy area, use a panel folding wind screen.When you want a small wood stove to burn for a really long time, and this requirement is relatively frequent (e.g. every day for a week or more), and demand bomb-proof reliability throughout the trip, you couldn't do much better than this stove. Just make sure you have batteries to spare.----As wood stoves go, there are quite a number of choices out there today, and they each have their advantages and disadvantages.This stove uses seriously solid steel construction, and compared to some other wood stoves, that's a big plus.the steel walls for the fuel are thicker than others out there, the legs are rock solid, and even the comparatively thin square cap is stronger than some wood stoves out there.Where some other stoves might fall apart in long term use, the VitalGrill Survival Stove will last and last. I could easily imagine bringing this stove with me for a month long base camp where I might be doing little day hikes from a single location. In such a situation, if I could set up a small kitchen area with stone surfaces, I could leave this out there as my every day stove. It's just that tough and durable.The base of this unit uses thick, solid metal, and while that translates to the durability mentioned earlier, it also adds significant weight to a pack.The fan works on two speeds and seems reliable, though I haven't taken it out on any outings yet, so have no idea how it would do in rough weather, getting beaten up every day. At the very least, the battery pack will likely fail before anything else. It is pretty cheap plastic. Then again, who knows, maybe it's cheapness and simplicity will allow it to function while degrading over time. the springs might rust a little or gather battery acid, and the plastic might warp a bit, and perhaps it would keep on ticking.One nice thing about this is that you can have this unit and, say, a trangia alcohol stove, and you have a dual fuel option for very little weight gain or added materials. Typically with an alcohol stove, you need extra pieces. You really want some wind protection, and a pot stand, and if possible a way to keep the alcohol stove off the ground.If you set up the walls of the VitalGrill, you can just place the alcohol stove inside, and you've covered all three requirements. Or, you could remove the VitalGrill firewall, and just use that with an alcohol stove. You've have the wind protection and pot stand ready to go. You'd have to deal with the alcohol stove being on the ground, but it's still usable.It wouldn't be ideal for a weekend trip where pack weight was a concern, nor would it be ideal on a mountaineering trip. This would be a good choice on a month long outing to the woods. It would probably also be useful in a rustic cabin environment. And if you'll be in a wooded area, and rain or damp weather means grabbing wet wood, this would probably be better than many other wood stoves out there.I'm not sure it would ever be my first choice, but it would never be a bad one.