Best Rocket Stoves (and Plans) For Camping & Survival
By Just In Case Jack
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Last Updated:
June 29, 2022
Specifically, we’ll deep dive into the following rocket stove topics:
5 Best Rocket Stoves On The Market Today
WHAT IS A ROCKET STOVE ANYWAY?
A rocket stove is a super-efficient small combustion stove. Its intelligent design makes use of any small fuel sources such as twigs, small branches, pine cones, and dry grass.
This means a fuel source is:
More readily available
Easy to gather and haul
FREE (who doesn’t love free?)
These small fuel sources are burned in a combustion chamber containing a verticle chimney. The design ensures nearly complete combustion.
This means you’re getting more heat output (for warmth or cooking) than traditional firepits or even wood stoves.
The first ones built were based on an old lamp design that’s been around since at least the 1700s. Since those early years, it’s undergone incremental improvements over the centuries.
The modern-day rocket stove was officially designed in the 1980s. They were originally built to support an improved cooking system for impoverished nations.
Since the simple design of the rocket stove captured the world. Because they are relatively easy and inexpensive to build. Even with scrap materials from the recycling bin or a small amount of concrete!
That’s why they’ve become so popular among those of us who are preparing for future emergencies…
How A Rocket Stove Works – It’s Called Science
How Rocket Stoves Work – It’s Called Science
The true beauty of a rocket stove can be appreciated until you understand how they work. Why? Because the rocket stove design is so simple.
Unlike a traditional wood stove, a rocket stove has no moving parts. This means no flue damper and no air inlet grate!
rocket stove designThe basic rocket stove has only 4 components:
The “Elbow” – is a fire-proof L-shaped pipe with a 90deg bend in the middle. The horizontal portion of the elbow is the fuel chamber and air inlet. The vertical portion is the combustion chamber and chimney.
The Stove Body – an insulated surround for the elbow, capable of withstanding the high heat from the elbow. Large metal food cans (or metal trash cans) work great, as does sheet metal bent to fit the elbow. A hole in the top allows the chimney to exit upwards. And a hole on one side allows access to the fuel chamber and air inlet.
A Fuel Grate – ideally the fuel needs to sit up off the bottom of the fuel chamber. Normally a metal grate provides airflow under and around the fuel. This allows any ash to fall through and be removed.
A Pot Skirt – this allows you to place a cooking pot on top of the chimney. It maintains an air gap to allow hot-rising gases to escape the elbow. The pot skirt also blocks the wind from the bottom of the pot. This helps provide a better heat transfer for faster cooking.
Once you’ve assembled the rocket stove and loaded it with fuel, it’s easy to see why it’s such an efficient design!
First, the fuel blocks most of the air inlet, providing a limited amount of air for the fire.
This forces the air in a smooth stream under and around the fuel.
As this current passes around the tip of the fuel, it provides a constant stream of fresh air to the fire.
Second, the fire is only burning at the tip of the fuel.
As you slide more fuel into the chamber, it advances the burning material into the air stream from the inlet.
This makes it easier to control the burn rater and keep an even temperature.
Third, with the pot positioned above the chimney, you focus as much heat as possible into your cooking pot (or hands for warmth).
This means little waste and less fuel needed to get dinner on the table!
What you can’t as easily see is the insulated design of the stove body improves cooking efficiency.
It keeps the rocket stove from wasting much heat out into space and away from your cook pot. It also means the fuel chamber preheats the fresh air before reaching the fuel.
Why Rocket Stoves “Rock” For Camping and Survival
Why Rocket Stoves “ROCK” For Camping And Survival
Rocket stoves are a modern-day survivalist (or camping hobbyist) dream device.
No, they won’t win a “cool survival gadget” contest (like a solar charger) but I believe they’re even more important!
I mean what device can make your camping trips better AND save your life in an epic widespread disaster? Not many – that’s why the rocket stove is a device resilient people should invest in.
I believe it’s such a critical device for basic prepping that it’s on our top 10 list of basic preparedness steps.
So here are the top 5 reasons to invest in a rocket stove today.
1. The design works at different scales – small or large!
A rocket stove can be an extremely portable stove for cooking OR a massive “rocket mass heater” for heating a small cabin or hut.
So the design of the rocket stove is extremely versatile. Ideally, if you want to be extremely resilient to the uncertainties of life – you should invest in a small portable rocket stove and a large rocket mass heater as well!
2. They are insanely efficient – maximizing your fuel.
They run efficiently on very little wood fuel. You can use firewood, twigs, or pinecones to generate a lot of heat efficiently.
You can even run many rocket stoves on leaves, grass, and brush! The bottom line is that small portable rocket stoves can use the “free” combustibles found nearly everywhere on the ground.
But what about heating a home? With a well-designed rocket mass heater – you can make your large pile of firewood lasts much longer. How much longer? In the video below, they only used 0.6 cords of wood for an entire Montana winter!
3. They produce very little smoke.
If you hate smoke as much as I do, then it’s about time you did something about it.
You could get a smokeless fire pit for your backyard but you should also get a rocket stove for your survival cooking needs. Why don’t they produce much smoke? It’s due to the efficiency of the burn.
The more efficient the combustion process, the less smoke – it’s as simple as that! And if you’ve been paying attention – efficient burning is a rocket stove’s Modus Operandi.
4. They are a Plan B backup heat source in a long-term grid-down crisis.
What’s your long-term power outage heat plan? Even if you have a backup generator, it will eventually run out of fuel. So, what’s your plan after that?
For some people, a candle heater is worth a try – but it’s not gonna work for large spaces. So for others, it’s to invest in a kerosene or propane heater – but now you’re storing large amounts of liquid fuels…
Instead, if you’re serious about being prepared and resilient, then you should look at a rocket stove as a better solution. You’ll need to scale up to a rocket mass heater with a chimney to safely heat a home.
While small portable rocket stoves produce much less smoke it’s not “smokeless”. So if you burn on inside a home or space without a chimney – you could die from carbon monoxide poisoning. DON’T DO THAT!
5. They are a better option than campfires/wood stoves
I’ve always loved cooking over a wood fire. But it’s not always the most convenient means of preparing food and keeping warm.
It can be hard to find enough wood to keep a fire hot enough to cook.
Dry wood can be even more difficult to locate, especially in the rain and snow.
Even if you collect plenty of usable wood, you must constantly feed logs onto the fire to keep up a bed of coals.
Every time you add more logs, you must move the cooking pot out of the way. Thus disturbing the cooking process often, leaving you hungry longer!
A wood stove is an improvement. They help manage the heat and the burn rate of your fuel and provide a more stable cooking surface.
While wood stoves improve efficiency, they still require copious amounts of large firewood.
Splitting logs and sawing branches takes both time and effort! And traditional wood stoves are not exactly portable!
So, what can you do when there’s very little downed wood for fuel? What if you don’t have time to search for dry wood in the rain?
Best Rocket Stove Plans – DIY Rocket Stove Builds
Stacked Brick Rocket Stove Plans
For this super simple rocket stove all you’ll need is a small pile of bricks. Just arrange them in a way to create the rocket stove chambers and there ya go!
Concrete Block Rocket Stove Plans
This version provides a stable place for a cooking pot and can be assembled in minutes. You’ll just need to source a few concrete blocks and properly arrange them. Simple, yet effective.
5 Gallon Bucket & Concrete Rocket Stove Plans
For this version of a rocket stove, you’ll need a 5-gallon bucket, some concrete, and some cardboard tubes.
Metal Rocket Stove Plans
There are plenty of simple designs for rocket stoves. But there are also designs that feature welded pipe for durability. If your skills include metalworking, these are best since they’re damn near indestructible!
And you can even build one that has a gravity-fed fuel chamber (watch next video)!
Material Free Rocket Stove – The Dakota Fire Hole
Now that you’ve taken a look at the DIY rocket stoves, imagine doing the same thing with a hole in the ground!
The Dakota Fire Hole has been a longtime solution for efficient cooking without concrete, bricks, buckets, or metal.
It consists of two intersecting holes or tunnels. It has the same fundamental configuration as the elbow of a rocket stove.
Since it’s similar in design, a Dakota fire hole has many of the same benefits as a rocket stove. It’s a very low cost, efficient, high heat, clean-burning.
But it adds an element of discretion (the flames are hidden below ground) and wind resistance.
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