I recently purchased the Emberlit Stove from the TSP Gear Shop. And I am thoroughly impressed.
It started with amazingly fast service from the Gear Shop. The stove I ordered was shipped the day I ordered it and was at my house before I knew it. I am extremely happy with the Gear Shop and will be a many time repeat customer.
The Emberlit Stove come in separate pieces and is very lightweight and compact. It could easily fit in any pack without any noticable weight or space. Assembling the stove for use is very quick and easy. I had the advantage of watching the video a few days prior so I knew exactly what to do. But I could imagine that even without watching that, anyone could figure it out in a few minutes.
Lighting the fire is even easier than getting a plain old campfire going. Simply load in some leaves, pine needles, or like material followed by a handful of twigs. There is no need to spend any time arranging the sticks and such like using the tee-pee or log cabin approach to fire building. The stove itself provides the structure and all you need to do is shove it in.
Once you have enough burnable material in place, simple light a match and light the bottom through any of the air holes or door. It'll light up pretty quick. Give it a moment to settle and place several larger sticks in feeding through the door. Then as the big sticks burn, simple continue to feed then into the fire.
I tested the stove by boiling a small pot of water. With the top on, I had the water boiled in around 5 minute. In all, it probably took me 10 total minutes to collect firewood, setup the stove, get the fire going, and bring the water to a boil.
Clean up was a very quick and easy process. Since only the end of the sticks are burning, just pull them out of the fire and hit it against the ground a few times. There are just a handful of coals left in the stove. I dumped them out and was able to use the water from that one pot to instantly put them out. It did take about 10 minutes for the metal stove to cool down enough to disassemble. (I sped it up with a little water)
Using the stove was an extremely quick and easy way to cook with a small pot. The only downside I can see is that it is a little small and I would be nervous cooking on it with a large pot. But then again, it is probably slightly larger and more stable than most of the camping stoves on the market. Still, I'd love to see a larger model that could accomodate a larger pot.
Overall I was thoroughly impressed. The Emberlit Stove is definitely worth the price. And a must have in every single camping pack. Infact, I am buying several more and think every pack should have at least two. Cause two is one and one is none.
