My Experiment building a Woodgas Stove.

A Woodgas stove is an efficient way of cooking with wood. It allows a more controlled burn. A small amount of wood goes a long way. In my experiment I used 250 grams of wood to boil a litre of water in 8 minutes and had flames for a further 12 minutes. I could have boiled another litre of liquid, or boiled what I had for 20 or more minutes.

The rough design of this woodgas stove does not allow for brilliant efficiency but it is surprisingly effective and fast. I had little smoke once the wood in the stove had been lit.

I tried making a smaller stove with mixed success. Link

I constructed this can stove using 2 coffee cans. One is a large size close to a gallon paint can. The other is fits comfortably inside the larger can. The cooking pot sits on the screws. I experimented with various heights to get the best burn. Once I hit on the sweet spot the fire immediately burned much better and the jets became stronger. I had to experiment with the size of the holes in the cans. I gradually increased the size till it seemed to give the best burn.	Stove is ready to light
After 2 minutes the stove starts to really burn well.	Immediately after lighting there is a bit of smoke and sputtering, but after a couple of minutes the reaction is set up and the burn really takes off. The air is sucked in the outer holes of the big can and gets heated in the space between the 2 cans. It then rushes into the burner can in quite strong jets. This nicely heated air boosts combustion quite alot. It is hard to photograph but further down I have a pretty good picture of the jets.
If I take the pot off for a few seconds, the jets are visible. You can see at the top, round flames where the holes are, and the hot air is rushing in boosting combustion. Lower there are a couple of jets visible blowing from the side of the can towards the centre. The patterns is not stable with the pot removed but start up again once the pot is replaced.	Jets visible as round flames on top and jets on the bottom of picture.
fancy kettle traps flames and shortens boil time	I have this high tech kettle designed to speed up boiling on a gas stove. It has a hollow ring open towards the inside with holes on the outside. Inside this channel / ring there is a springlike wire. The flame is trapped inside the channel and the heat is quickly exchanged to the copper bottom. This kettle boils much faster than a regular pot and would work really well on the Woodgas set up. I'm not going to put it on because I'm too lazy to clean it up after!

Woodgas stove links

Woodgas article from India
Mark Jurey's wood gas backpacking Stove.
Morrisville State College, Woodgas camp stoves, from the Renewable energy training center.
Spenton makes a commercial version of a woodgas stove that gets good reviews.

I tried making a smaller stove with mixed success. Link

[HOME] [MY HALF HOUR SOLAR COOKER]

emails: Christine

This web site reflects my personal ideas and doesn't represent anyone else's point of view.