Review on Emberlit Titanium UL: The Ultimate Survival Gear for Camping, Hunting, and Emergencies, Weighing Only 5.45 oz by Hector Watkins

The Emberlit Ultra Light Titanium Stove is functional, reliable and simple at its best. I've been a gear addict for three decades. This is the best little stove I've found to seriously enhance an outdoor experience. It's very convenient to pack: when folded it's really only 1/8 inch thick and weighs less than 6 ounces! This stove fits easily into your home. Back pocket, although obviously it would make more sense to put it against (or in) something stiff so it wouldn't bend in the backpack as the metal is thin. It's a space saver: in addition to the impressively light weight and volume of the stove itself, you save additional weight and bulk by not having to lug around canisters of fuel, some tinder, and a handful of finger-sized branches (easy to find on the trail and free!) to cook. It's simple and offers incredible reliability: the four sides join seamlessly around a square base to form a remarkably rigid and stable cooking platform that produces hotter, cleaner burns (i.e. more heat from significantly less wood and significantly less smoke) than one open flame. Titanium's high temperature resistance also means you can ditch the base plate and use this stove as a platform to hold the pot over the coals of an open fire when needed (instead of starting a fire inside the stove itself). My favorite feature is the large firewood door. You can insert the ends of relatively long sticks and then gradually push them further and further as the wood burns. This allows you to maintain a constant, healthy flame for long periods of time without having to remove the pot or pan from the heat to add more wood (unlike some other top-feed box stoves only). The door opening is small enough to safely accommodate burning wood, yet large enough to accommodate plenty of firewood for fuel. Wonderful! Cools down quickly: Titanium cools down significantly faster than stainless steel. So once you've got the fire out, you should be able to pack this stove up quicker if you're in a hurry. I try not to rush when enjoying the wilderness (which is why I don't care if a stove like this cooks a little slower than the noisy rocket-flame gas stoves most campers use). However, as I camp a lot with my inquisitive daughters, I appreciate that the faster-cooling titanium reduces the likelihood of accidental burns when handling the still-hot metal after use. In the spirit of bushcraft, this stove requires you to know and practice fire making, the core skill of bushcraft. This cooker simply offers an efficient way to use good old fire for more convenient cooking. More importantly, you can do this even in the wilderness, where open fires are forbidden but "cooking stoves" are allowed. The sides keep the flame and firewood in one safe place and provide a very stable 4" x 4" surface - wide and strong enough to support even a fairly large bush pot. While the thin metal walls may seem flimsy, the stove is quite strong when assembled and can easily support more weight than any pot I can think of for outdoor cooking, even if you're boiling gallons of water! the perfect bushcraft stove. Easier and quicker to assemble than a Honey stove, sturdier than a Vargo stove, lighter and easier to handle than Firebox and Firebox, and much quieter and truer to the bushcraft spirit than any gas stove. Yes, it takes a few minutes longer to cook, but who cares? I didn't time it, but a large handful of chopsticks boiled 29 ounces of water (almost a full quart!) in my GSI Glacier stainless steel kettle in about 10 minutes. And all the while I could enjoy the stillness and charm of a roaring fire, not the hiss/whoosh of a jet burner. If you're carrying a small spirit lamp or fuel tablets, this stove also doubles as the perfect platform, potholder and windbreak for this style of cooking. And if you're looking for a survival stove, it's as reliable as it gets as there's nothing to really clog, corrode or break. To be honest I would give this oven 6 stars if I could. I find it brilliant in its simplicity. My only disappointment is that despite the high price tag of $79 (titanium is expensive), this stove does NOT come with a cloth storage pouch. It comes in a ziplock plastic bag. This stove really should have a more durable storage bag with velcro to keep all parts of the stove together and keep soot out of other equipment. The zippers can suffice, but given the price, it feels a bit cheap. Highly recommended! This oven is amazing! [UPDATE 2/22/2014: A quick note to try and quantify productivity: Use a large handful of tinder (piles of wood chips/curls, pine needles and dry leaves), a large handful of small twigs for kindling (about twenty, every 1 / 8-1/4 inches in diameter) and five longer sticks (each 12 inches long and 1/2 inch in diameter) going through the door, I managed to get a good, hot burn within 14 minutes. That was more than enough to cook 29 ounces. Water in a GSI Glacier stainless steel kettle, leaving enough hot coals for the stove to likely cook for another 5 to 10 minutes on an even heat, in addition to the 14 minutes of high burn. When I finish the stove, I turn it over with my foot or a stick to pour out the hot coals. Titanium is cold enough to handle in under three minutes and ready to wrap in under five minutes. Also, I tried powering the oven continuously for 90 minutes. The stove had accumulated an impressive layer of coals during this time, filling about half or two-thirds full, and none of it spilled out of the side feed opening as I had feared. The inward slope of the sides and wide lip around the side feed port prevent embers and flames from entering the side feed port. After 90 minutes the sides of the oven had a very slight inward concavity but did not deform and everything was perfectly flat again when the oven was subsequently laid down. This design is clearly well thought out and effective.]