After viewing many videos on YouTube, I decided to purchase the Deadwood Stove. Seemed like the best value for the money. And I can say that I am not disappointed! It arrived promptly and I was totally impressed with the quality, construction and good leather gloves that were included.
I like these stoves so much, that now I even have two Deadwood Stoves! These are, to my mind, mini-wood stoves that are so well built they will be passed down for generations.
I’m old and disabled, so weight is a concern for me. The Deadwood Stove is 18 lbs. Not light, but for the quality of construction it is made for durability—5 year warranty. This is a mini-woodstove–I’m guessing 50 years plus. The Deadwood Stove is something you can pass onto the kids. This makes the $250 I spent on my gas grill look like money ill-spent as that, even though it is stainless steel, is already rusting (1 year old!).
6 Month Update on The Deadwood
I’ve had my Deadwood Stove for about six months now. I’m thrilled! Here are a few of the high notes:
- With dry sticks and pinecones it boils a quart of water within 10 minutes.
- I keep one (Yes, I actually have two now!) on top of a table on the patio so I don’t have to bend over.
- It has removable legs, so it is perfect on a tabletop.
- The legs have a slight adjustability
- Roasted marshmallows within three minutes!
- You can grill a steak (or tinfoil anything) to perfection directly on top of the built-in grill just by adjusting how many sticks you feed into the front of the stove.
- Wind blowing the wrong way? Just turn it! Works best facing the sticks into the wind—no smoke!
I put wood chips in a tin foil pan in my propane grill to get that delicious wood smoke flavor… Turn the Deadwood Stove slightly angled to the wind and you don’t need to add smoke! Actually, I’ve been contemplating how I can use a Deadwood to create a smoker. I’m sure it can be done; I just have to figure it out.
With two Deadwood Stoves you can pretty much do a meal. My two Deadwood Stoves have almost made the propane grill obsolete! And between we use them camping and the kids also using them, the savings in not buying firewood at state parks has already paid for both in one summer!
Only problem… The kids! Expect that they will borrow one for every camping expedition. The son even uses it on his pontoon boat! And my husband takes it with him on his Harley when camping! And if two of the kids go camping at one time, well, you are sans your Deadwood Stoves. Not good if you get the grandkids.
My son even sidled up and asked who was going to inherit the Deadwood’s (He already has dibs on the 12 gauge and .38)! Not cheap, but they are definitely worth the money.
Can You Use The Deadwood As an Indoor Rocket Stove?
With the bitter cold winter we have had this year and the electricity going on and off, I got to thinking about the Deadwood for interior cooking as well. Sorry, but I am not going to feed sticks into a rocket stove outside to cook when it is -20 with wind chills of -50.
It IS Minnesota!
WOW, am I impressed! For cooking all I did was clean out a spaghetti sauce can, tear off the label, stick it upside down inside the Deadwood for height, then I took a cleaned soup can with label torn off, put 10 cotton balls in it, poured maybe a half a cup of rubbing alcohol over that, let it soak-in good for about 15 minutes, lit it with a BBQ lighter and I had water too hot to touch with steam rising within 5 minutes!
Plenty good enough to cook on!
The Deadwood cooked okay with just a common candle too. But I think that a three wick survival candle would work a lot better. I also tried putting one of those pocket stoves in it with a fuel tablet and that worked great!
The legs on the Deadwood are positioned to make the stove easy to cook on just sitting on a chair. Remove the legs and you have a counter top or table top stove where you can easily stand and cook.
Below the grate the Deadwood is a bit less than 5”x5” , so Sterno fuel, camp heat, survival candles, fuel tablets, nearly any kind of solid camping fuel, can be used with it when you are indoors (and of course sticks for outside).
The only thing you have to be careful of if you are cooking indoors, is not to put too big of a pot on it that snuffs out the fire. And that may not be a problem because it can draw oxygen from below it also.
This is a very versatile, indoor-capable rocket stove!
Deadwood Is Also Awesome for Outdoor Cooking
We like to grill on the back deck. I like my propane grill, but it doesn’t have a burner. And the more I grill, the more I would like an extra burner for boiling corn-on-the-cob, sautéing mushrooms and onions, whatever.
The grandkids come over and want to make s’mores. Even though I have a fire ring down by the creek it is a chore to start up a campfire for 10 minutes of roasted marshmallows and then they are off to something else.
We have lots of tree–maple, birch and various spruce trees. We have branches come down in every storm and a lifetime supply of pine cones! So I have been looking at rocket stoves using biomass (sticks and pine cones), for perhaps two years now. Weighing the pros and cons and trying to decide what I really want from it.
Did I say money was tight? Everything I purchase has to work for multiple purposes.
Awesome Stove for Emergencies, Grilling, or Camping
If the power goes out and no natural gas is available, how am I going to cook? The propane grill will only work for so long and only for so much, so the Deadwood could come in handy there.
But what if nothing ever happens? How can I use a rocket stove to justify the purchase? I NEED at least one extra burner on the deck near the grill. I could satisfy the grandkids with their s’mores and hotdogs without creating a bonfire, and the kids could gather the twigs needed to fire it—yard cleanup.
It would definitely be handy for our camping excursions and would save us money by not having to buy firewood at the site (Minnesota is currently under a ban for unauthorized firewood being brought into parks due to an emerald ash borer infestation threat). And…. the kids could borrow it.