Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I received my stove a week ago after watching the videos and doing my homework. I was looking for a stove to replace my propane stove that I have used for 15 years camping and fishing throughout the West. I was a little skeptical about the video showing how little wood it will take but then the world is messy and as long as it worked I would be OK with it. I am easy to please but hard to impress. This stove didn't just impress me, it Wowed me. I found my round bottom wok fit perfect on top of the stove so I took one 8 inch square piece of fir and chopped it to the suggested 1/2 inch size so that I had what looked more like kindling than firewood and fired up the stove. In less than a minute the smoke went away and I started a simple pork stir fry in my wok. I expected the stove to over heat the wok but I was surprised that the temperature with the suggested size of wood was perfect. I do the meat first then the veggies so that I don't over cook the veggies but I also had some hard stuff like broccoli that takes time to cook. I cooked over the stove for 30 minutes or so and it was dark when dinner was done. It came out perfect. I still had more than half of my 8 inch square pile of fir left and since the outside of the stove was still cool enough to touch I lifted it and set the stove on our table between us and we had a miniature fireplace that we used to light up dinner. It was quite romantic. I expected that the stove would be OK, I didn't expect that I would love it. I have not tried green wood in it but there was no smoke with the seasoned wood. I mean NONE. The heat was about like 2/3 of high on my gas stove at home so there is less worry about burning. I mean my propane stove has two settings, off and high. On high it is easy to burn stuff so I have to watch it like a hawk. With my Zoom Dura I went and did some camp chores on the second night I cooked with it. I kept an eye on it but I didn't mother hen it. I got the Zoom Dura, the model without doors, as I belong to the school that says the less moving parts the less there is for me to break. Without the door of the bigger model controlling the temperature was easier than I expected and one 8 inch square of firewood a foot long could cook two meals. The stove fits perfect in a 5 gallon plastic bucket, although I am looking for a steel one now, and I have a lid for the bucket that is a seat. With my small folding table I have the perfect cooking station where I can set on my rear and cook at eye level. And it all packs up and stays clean in my rig. I am slightly worried that some camp grounds may make me not use it during fire season. In my youth I fought forest fires, I learned to pay particular attention to the sparks and potential problems I might expect in the woods. Only in a heavy wind would there be a problem. The firebox does a real good job of combustion and in the morning there was hardly any ash left. That is expected as it burned hardly any wood. I love it when a product is even better than I expected. Just in case you were wondering I have no affiliation with the company, they don't know me from Adam. -------------------------- JUNE 30TH SIX WEEKS LATER: OK, I have just returned from a month on the Columbia and Snake rivers camping and fishing and have become intimate with my stove. I love it even more now that I have 30 or more meals under my belt. I have found that if I double the amount of wood I can get my wok really hot. The river bank supplies all the 1/2 inch sticks sun dried that I can use. Fire season is underway so no wood fires. In this zero tolerance society, we live by rules and no longer use common sense, even though the river was getting record rain the fire season that started June 9th prevented wood fires. So I got a bag of charcoal that I set next to the stove as charcoal is permitted but continued to burn wood. I used the charcoal bag as a red herring and so far I have not been caught. I have some pretty nifty camping gear but this is my favorite purchase in the last few years. I love it even more now than I did when I did the review above. Smokey the Bear will have to pry it from my dead fingers. I give it 6 stars. -------------------------- OCTOBER 14 SIX MONTH LATER Well I am back from fishing for half a year, and all this time this was my main stove. I have cooked on it hundreds of times now and it fits my needs like a glove to a hand. The Charcoal ruse worked everywhere and I never once burned a single briquet in it. The only problem that comes up is the carbon that it puts on the bottom of pots. If you are not careful you can get it everywhere. Here is how to solve the problem kind of. take a small squeeze bottle of liquid soap and put a few drops on the bottom of your pot before you cook. After dinner when you go to clean up everything will wash right off. I then keep my pots in a large plastic bag just on the off chance I missed some spots. Carbon won't be a problem. I generally wouldn't go to this much effort to review something 3 times but I love my stove so much I just had to come back and give you all the carbon/soap tip. Good Luck. -------------------------- May 20,2014 TWO YEARS LATER Packing up for another season and came to see if anyone read my review. I was surprised that so many have. Anyway my stove is now 2 years old and the blue color is black now from smoke but I love it still. I expected the dirt roads I drive to have pounded the fire brick inside the stove to dust by now but mine is still like new. I saw where some people have a hard time starting the stove. This can be fixed by picking up a bag of pine cones and a roll of Jute string (Not nylon) used in gardening. It is real cheap. Cut your jute in 1 foot lengths and wrap it around in between the scales. When it gets short throw a half hitch around the very top of the cone so that it looks like a pine cone candle. Heat up an old coffee tin with a block of paraffin wax in it. Dump your pine cones it the wax and use chop sticks to pluck them out. When they cool they will be a pine cone candle. Just light the wick and drop it in the firebox with your kindling on top. You will have a fire in no time. Just use real pine cones and not fir cones. Make a bag full and keep them with your camping stuff. Needless to say they last forever.