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For YW Camp 2012 we encouraged the young women to bring their own rockets stoves, which lead to my husband and I Youtube'ing how to make a rocket stove using a #10 can and some regular cans.

Well, hubby goes outside and applied the principal of the metal rocket stove to create his own type of rocket stove---one made of wood. It actually worked pretty good. You could get several uses out of it before it burned itself up.

**That is our precious Molly in the pic, whom we had to put to sleep recently.**

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It might also be worthwhile to go over all the other various types of easily-made stoves, in case you're stranded somewhere without the rocket stove, or other factors make it impractical.

For starters, the hobo stove is the same concept; take a #10 can and an old "church key" can opener to make holes along the bottom. It's pretty effective, quick enough to make, and more-or-less disposable. Most of what you'll find listed as a hobo stove online these days is more like a quick-and-dirty improvised rocket stove, which, though it requires a bit more work, fixes the original hobo stove problem of having to remove the pot and add fuel through the top.

Alcohol stoves are good for small tasks; plenty can be made from old soda cans, which are common enough pretty much everywhere. At one time, I made a few using various cans from the side of the road, with only a good knife and a small but sharp nail as the tools. Isopropyl alcohol isn't the best choice for these, so you'll want some denatured alcohol from the paint section, or just a bottle of fuel line de-icer. It's a good reason to carry a couple bottles of de-icer in the trunk, even if you never actually use it in your fuel. Using two soda cans for the stove, a large (about 1" larger diameter than the typical Campbell's can) soup can with both ends cut out and some vents punched at each end as a wind ring, and a regular soup can as the "pot," I was able to boil a nearly-full can of water in about 6 minutes with about a cap full of denatured alcohol. The cat food can alcohol stove also works well for extra-simple applications.

Really, there's no reason every vehicle in the family shouldn't have one or two soda can stoves and a bottle of de-icer to fuel them. If you're also carrying water (and if you're not, why not?) and hot cocoa mix and/or some soup, you can be a lot more comfortable while you're waiting for the tow truck to find you.

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Rocket Stove Instructional DVD by calen kennett — Kickstarter Not pushing this guy but I thought you guys might like to see how these work in peoples homes not just for camping etc.

Heres another application of the principle. http://www.perfectimagespa.com/admin/fckeditor/index.php?emam=uggc%3A%2F%2F538357.pnpur1.ribyhgvbaubfgvat.pbz%2Fvzntrf%2Fcerggl-ebpxrg-fgbir.wct

Edited by annewandering
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I just this past Thursday helped the Relief Society Sisters with their "Cooking when the Power goes Out" activity. We had 4 Rocket Stoves heating Dutch Ovens with a couple inches of oil in each for deep frying Indian Fry Bread. Used another dutch oven to heat the refried beans (all the other toppings were lettuce, tomatoes, blk olives, cheese, etc). Also two additional (very large) dutch ovens for two different cobblers (one apple, one peach).

Rocket Stoves are great!

Totally cool idea to use a log for the rocket stove.

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Hmm so how does scouts teach survival skills if they cant learn to make heating and cooking facilities?

I'm not sure they bother trying anymore. Looking through the list of prohibited stuff sounds like they've banned everything that might be really useful.

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I just this past Thursday helped the Relief Society Sisters with their "Cooking when the Power goes Out" activity. We had 4 Rocket Stoves heating Dutch Ovens with a couple inches of oil in each for deep frying Indian Fry Bread. Used another dutch oven to heat the refried beans (all the other toppings were lettuce, tomatoes, blk olives, cheese, etc). Also two additional (very large) dutch ovens for two different cobblers (one apple, one peach).

Rocket Stoves are great!

Totally cool idea to use a log for the rocket stove.

Sounds like a realy cool Relief Society activity. Thanks for sharing that idea. :)

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The stake (and my ward) has had me teach a few classes on topics like 72 hr Kits, Cooking without Electricity, Preparedness (in general) and food storage.

Trust me though, when I say I just started all this when we joined the Church about 8 years ago and I'm no fountain of knowledge.

I've just tried a lot of different stuff and know what I like and don't like.

Also I'm kind of the unofficial firearms instructor/coach.

But back to cooking for a minute... before I started driving haz mat tankers, I was a cook for many years.

Cooked at the Double Tree Hotel on the Wharf in Monterey, CA, and was a cook and then Kitchen Mgr for about 5 or 6 years at a TGI Fridays in Tucson, AZ.

I really enjoy cooking, but got burned out (cooking for others) after a while.

Besides the big camp chef camping stoves, I have several rocket stoves, a kerosene stove with an oven attachment, a couple volcano stoves, a solar oven, an apple box oven, a nice (but very heavy) wood burning stove and an assortment of alcohol, butane, white gas and odorless mineral spirits cooking devices.

OK... I admit it, I'm a hoarder. :D

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