Camp Stove Power Charger

Product Description

Just because you're outdoors and don't have an electrical doesn't mean you can't charge your electronic devices. With just a little bit of wood to burn ... [Read more]

Top Reviews

Everything it claims to be.
by cautious 1 (5 out of 5 stars)
June 28, 2017

Absolutely extraordinary. We spent three days "off the grid" testing this and everything was great. We ate everything from some si rival foods to fried spam and eggs. If your coffee drinker, take your press. I would say if you want to simplify things a little you should use pellets and fire starters. Although we only used it one day with the pellets, instead of the wood that we collected that was a remarkable difference
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Definitely not for hikers or anyone who wants hassle-free cooking
by Graham R Tillotson (1 out of 5 stars)
May 30, 2018

I've had both the BioLite stoves -- the first and second versions -- and they are just too much of a hassle. It takes a lot of work and babysitting to keep the flame going, and in colder weather I could not get the battery to charge. I had a blazing fire going for over an hour and the meter just stayed where it was -- low to no charge. Then you can get into these weird scenarios in which the flames die down, and you are trying to get it going, but the fan turns off. Just very busy and fickle. I'm going back to the tried and true gas stoves.
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Biolite 2 bundle review, updated after 2 years
by Great Owl (5 out of 5 stars)
June 23, 2017

Surprised to see no reviews on amazon. I bought this Biolite 2 campstove bundle at REI. I also have a small round ohuhu twig stove(about $20 on amazon) and an emberlit stove (about $40 from merkwares, also on amazon) that I will weigh into the review. Biolite 2 bundle at REI was on a pre-summer sale for $150, so I'll weigh that cost in as well. What you get: Campstove 2 (the electronic thermal device with a battery in it that puts out a fan, along with the burning chamber) Kettlepot with the blue pour lid French Press for kettle pot (coffee, tea) Grill + cover USB Light Plastic bowl Before reviewing each item I'll note how it packs: The electronic device plops right down into the burn chamber of the stove, and that burn chamber fits in a stuff sack they include. This will help keep the creosote off your gear a bit when packing with it. The electronic + burn chamber in the stuff sack fits nicely into the kettlepot, even with the coffee/tea infuser press at the bottom. The long handle for the french press screws off and you can place it alongside the stove within the kettlepot, and the lid will fit with the stove and press in the kettlepot. In this arrangement, the plastic bowl does not fit unless you remove the press. The grill has a plastic cover which is great to keep soot off your gear again, or off of your car. I doubt many would carry the grill addon backpacking. It's just bulkier. Review of each: Campstove 2: (Electronic) The electronic part is mostly used as a fan, has 4 fan levels that fill the burn chamber with air, so whatever is burning inside burns down to near nothingness. For the small burn chamber it has, that's good design. It has a built in battery that can "charge" your phone. It can get mine about a 40-50% charge. Once the battery is down from charging, it takes hours. I mean hours. HOURS of feeding twigs to get the battery recharged by thermal power. Do you want to sit out at your campsite for say 6-8 hours feeding twigs constantly hoping to keep the thermal temperature up to keep it recharged? Honestly it's mostly just made to power the little led light while you are cooking, and the built in fan. Bring a 21w+ foldable solar panel if you want to charge your phone, and use the stove if it's night and you want to top off your phone, then use your solar panel to recharge the electronic on this stove when day hits. Campstove 2 with kettlepot and infuser: 5 star for this part. The kettlepot is made for this stove. It props up an inch or so f
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Un-freaking-believable!!!
by Matt (5 out of 5 stars)
June 13, 2018

Beyond cool and nifty, this thing ROCKS! Easy to use, set up, gather fuel for, cook on... does exactly what you want it to do. Used it at 11k feet for 3 days for 2 meals a day with no issues whatsoever. The blower really helps get things moving when at altitude, too. Size is manageable when transporting; weight isn't too bad, especially considering you don't have to lug fuel around everywhere you go. Keep in mind, it is a little top-heavy, so be sure you're on a level surface. Also, don't be in a rush to charge your device as it takes a little while to charge things up.
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Power-Outage/Camping Life Saver
by yohanna690 (5 out of 5 stars)
December 22, 2016

I was initially hesitant to purchase this item due to the price tag, but I felt like it would make a good gift for my outdoorsy brother so I bit the bullet and picked one up before buying him one as well. After it arrived I convinced my wife to let me take her camping so I could test it out in conditions that would necessitate its use. Wow - seriously. This thing is nuts. It gets so hot that the coals constantly glow red hot inside. On high speed (the fan settings on the outside) I had 4 eggs and bacon strips cooked up and ready to eat in about 8 minutes. Boiling water took a bit longer, but still faster than I feel I could have done it on my stovetop. After that trip it kind of just sat on a shelf in the event that I ever got around to camping again. I did purchase another unit for my brother that he literally keeps it in his trunk whenever he heads out on a lengthy road trip. My brother has freely advertised his unit to all his friends and has probably helped BioLite sell another 30 units all on his own. Fast forward a few months to Hurricane Matthew that tore along the east US coast. I was in one of the cities affected by the storm and was without power for about 2 weeks. This was especially difficult due to having 2 adult and two children family members visiting during that time from Europe (not the greatest of impressions for their first experience in America) and cold showers are never enjoyable. So, I break this stove out after about the 3rd day to start cooking meat that would otherwise go bad due to lack of refrigeration. Every breakfast, lunch and dinner for about 10 days this stove kept 8 people fed, EASILY. I did get the Thermos add-on for the stove which ended up being invaluable for making coffee in the mornings. The entire stove breaks down and fits inside the Thermos, which is pretty nifty and saves space when packing a backpack or storing it on a shelf. As a parting gift I ordered another stove and gifted it to my European in-laws on their way out of town. It was WELL received and appreciated. Alright, so you know the life story of my BioLite stove, so let me point out a few things for those potential buyers so you know what to expect: 1) This stove is voracious - utterly insatiable. You have to keep feeding it to maintain the heat necessary for cooking things. I will caveat this though. Fire consumes, right? So, it is to be expected that if you introduce a source of fuel to fire, that source will be reduced as it is consumed. The harder t
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Biolite 2 bundle review, updated after 2 years
by Will Deal (5 out of 5 stars)
June 23, 2017

Surprised to see no reviews on amazon. I bought this Biolite 2 campstove bundle at REI. I also have a small round ohuhu twig stove(about $20 on amazon) and an emberlit stove (about $40 from merkwares, also on amazon) that I will weigh into the review. Biolite 2 bundle at REI was on a pre-summer sale for $150, so I'll weigh that cost in as well.

What you get:

Campstove 2 (the electronic thermal device with a battery in it that puts out a fan, along with the burning chamber)

Kettlepot with the blue pour lid

French Press for kettle pot (coffee, tea)

Grill + cover

USB Light

Plastic bowl

Before reviewing each item I'll note how it packs: The electronic device plops right down into the burn chamber of the stove, and that burn chamber fits in a stuff sack they include. This will help keep the creosote off your gear a bit when packing with it. The electronic + burn chamber in the stuff sack fits nicely into the kettlepot, even with the coffee/tea infuser press at the bottom. The long handle for the french press screws off and you can place it alongside the stove within the kettlepot, and the lid will fit with the stove and press in the kettlepot. In this arrangement, the plastic bowl does not fit unless you remove the press.

The grill has a plastic cover which is great to keep soot off your gear again, or off of your car. I doubt many would carry the grill addon backpacking. It's just bulkier.

Review of each:

Campstove 2: (Electronic) The electronic part is mostly used as a fan, has 4 fan levels that fill the burn chamber with air, so whatever is burning inside burns down to near nothingness. For the small burn chamber it has, that's good design. It has a built in battery that can "charge" your phone. It can get mine about a 40-50% charge. Once the battery is down from charging, it takes hours. I mean hours. HOURS of feeding twigs to get the battery recharged by thermal power. Do you want to sit out at your campsite for say 6-8 hours feeding twigs constantly hoping to keep the thermal temperature up to keep it recharged? Honestly it's mostly just made to power the little led light while you are cooking, and the built in fan. Bring a 21w+ foldable solar panel if you want to charge your phone, and use the stove if it's night and you want to top off your phone, then use your solar panel to recharge the electronic on this stove when day hits.

Campstove 2 with kettlepot and infuser: 5 star for this part.

The kettlepot is made for this stove. It props up an inch or so from the bottom of the kettle as you can see in the picture, with 6 holes (in 3 places) so you can aim the flame away from the electronic device. The handles are silicone and I wonder how long they will hold up, with heavy use the kettle pot may require you to pack a leather glove to pick it up if the handle wears over time. Anyway when you get the flame going and put some water in the kettlepot the flames shoot out the holes in the bottom of the kettlepot. This is where the design of the stove shines.
-Cleanup with kettlepot is very easy, very little soot and all just on the bottom, as the stove shoots hot flame on the bottom and out the sides, it doesn't line the sides of the kettlepot with soot. Just a little coloration on the bottom wiith use.
-Comparing Emberlit: The emberlit stove after use is full of soot, smells the house up like a campfire when going to clean it as you have 5 pieces of metal to clean along with your percilator or pot (whatever you use for water) having soot built up on the sides all around. For coffee/tea or water, soup, whatever you cook in the biolite 2 kettlepot, you have less soot to clean up.
-comparing to Ohuhu: Same with emberlit, but you got a round stove to clean soot off all the parts of, and whatever pot you use, soot all around.

Kettlepot for me is what makes this biolite stove worth 5 star for quality

On to the grill:

I've cooked chicken legs on open flame, and on aluminum foil. It takes about an hour or hour and a half to be safe. Aluminum foil helps. Pre-cooked hot dogs heat up and split wonderfully in almost no time. The grill does not cook evenly, closer to the flame means that side gets cooked first. It's on the camp side remember, so you can only fit so much, and the more you fit on it, the less room to move things around.

Feeding: The grill uses a piece of steel that caps the top to spread the flame, by cutting off the air it forces it out towards the grill (as the fan forces the flame to keep going from the electronic device) The grill gets too hot at the 3rd and 4th fan levels, so it's best to keep it on fan level 1 or 2 as the instructions also say. It gets the job done. It's a good amount of soot to clean up. Honestly I don't see anyone backpacking long distances with it. It's going to be best for car camping and probably not in bear country. Being that the grill sits up above the stove, you get about 3" or so more room to feed the fire with twigs. Just keep in mind you have to close that cap to spread the flame, so the twigs yet again have to be small enough.

Emberlit has a small grill you can get too, but good luck fitting much on it. Much more packable however. Biolite wins on the grill for ease of use. As I can't think of how it could be improved as it is what it is, i'd give it 5 star for design.

USB Light: Uses touch sensitivity to turn on or off, and touch and hold to change brightness, let go when it's at desired brightness level. It's a usb light, works for what it is, 5 star I suppose.

My overall thoughts: I'd give this a 4 star and emberlit a 5 star, here's why:
-Biolite is well built, steel, though it has an electronic device, which could fail, requiring a new stove at that point. (Definitely a what if scenario)
-Biolite has a small burn chamber fed only from the top, can't really help it, adding a feed hole would change the entire design of it.
-Biolite due to small burn chamber can turn into smoke very easily unless you have very good quality dry wood, I use what is around, and if it rained recently, there's some moisture in the wood to be burned off. It's life. It's how it goes.

I enjoy twig stoves to see a nice flame and cook my food. The emberlit shows flame very well, like a mini camp fire, enough to warm up to. I can pile sticks on top of the emberlit to make a taller flame. The biolite does not.

The biolite has 1 purpose: To burn ultra efficiently and heat up that kettlepot for a hot cup of coffee fast with little creosote to clean up. I love it for this purpose. It's wonderful to be able to set the thing in the house and not smell too much creosote smell, as I do with the emberlit.

I take a star off mostly because of the cost. At $150 on sale it's up there. At $200 normally, it's way up there. As you consider buying this think about this, one thing you buy is another thing you don't. If you want a good bundle to occasionally grill on, and to make coffee fast, and don't care about seeing a nice tall flame, get this. If you don't mind getting a little dirty, or dealing with soot, get the emberlit or a cheap off brand like it. On an emberlit you don't have to worry about burning an electronic item when piling sticks higher than the stove goes. You just get more soot to clean.

For $150 I'm going to keep it for what it's worth and use it a lot, but still love the emberlit for backpacking and making a decent size flame without a full out campfire. The biolite 2 is a great stove, just consider if it's worth the cost to you as you'll mostly use it for the tea pot to make coffee. How much is a coffee maker worth?

update after 2 years:

I've just ordered a 2nd one of these biolite camp stoves, and upped my rating to 5. Just got a note that I had 100 helpful reviews on this item.

Please note this tip after my 2 years experience - if you are in a dry climate you may not have my above problems. In Minnesota it rains a lot and is cold (very very cold) for 6 months solid (below 60 easily). We often have only wet wood to burn. I found a solution that works even here though. I used it on a car camping trip where I went out to the west coast and back living in my car/tent for 3 and a half weeks and survived quite comfortably. (did not stay at camp sites except 1 day of the 3 and a half weeks).

At a big box store near you (call and ask prices) you can get a 40lb bag of hardwood pellets, just ask for the ones you burn in a pellet stove to heat your home and the employees will show you where they are. I found fleet farm has a 40lb bag of pellets for 4.69, other big box stores were 5 and some change. These burn amazingly well and clean in the biolite 2 camp stove. On setting 1 for the fan speed you can burn it from 3/4 full (just below the upper line of holes on the burn chamber) for about 45 minutes. This helps when you want to use the device to charge your phone via wood power as you don't have to add twigs the whole 45 min burn.

This is a great prepper item and I would highly recommend it for anyone in an area where you may have blackouts/brownouts with the standard electric grid. A 40lb bag fills up 2 5-gallon pales pretty well and I can cook a whole summer on just 1 bag of pellets.

One last tip is the dollar store is your friend. 1 dollar lighter, 1 dollar cotton ball, 1 dollar petrolleum jelly. Dip 2-3 cotton balls in some jelly and light it from a distance on the top of the pellets and you don't have to watch the stove for ~45 min.

Enjoy.
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Power-Outage/Camping Life Saver
by RVP in MD (5 out of 5 stars)
December 22, 2016

I was initially hesitant to purchase this item due to the price tag, but I felt like it would make a good gift for my outdoorsy brother so I bit the bullet and picked one up before buying him one as well. After it arrived I convinced my wife to let me take her camping so I could test it out in conditions that would necessitate its use.

Wow - seriously. This thing is nuts. It gets so hot that the coals constantly glow red hot inside. On high speed (the fan settings on the outside) I had 4 eggs and bacon strips cooked up and ready to eat in about 8 minutes. Boiling water took a bit longer, but still faster than I feel I could have done it on my stovetop.

After that trip it kind of just sat on a shelf in the event that I ever got around to camping again. I did purchase another unit for my brother that he literally keeps it in his trunk whenever he heads out on a lengthy road trip. My brother has freely advertised his unit to all his friends and has probably helped BioLite sell another 30 units all on his own.

Fast forward a few months to Hurricane Matthew that tore along the east US coast. I was in one of the cities affected by the storm and was without power for about 2 weeks. This was especially difficult due to having 2 adult and two children family members visiting during that time from Europe (not the greatest of impressions for their first experience in America) and cold showers are never enjoyable.

So, I break this stove out after about the 3rd day to start cooking meat that would otherwise go bad due to lack of refrigeration. Every breakfast, lunch and dinner for about 10 days this stove kept 8 people fed, EASILY. I did get the Thermos add-on for the stove which ended up being invaluable for making coffee in the mornings. The entire stove breaks down and fits inside the Thermos, which is pretty nifty and saves space when packing a backpack or storing it on a shelf. As a parting gift I ordered another stove and gifted it to my European in-laws on their way out of town. It was WELL received and appreciated.

Alright, so you know the life story of my BioLite stove, so let me point out a few things for those potential buyers so you know what to expect:
1) This stove is voracious - utterly insatiable. You have to keep feeding it to maintain the heat necessary for cooking things. I will caveat this though. Fire consumes, right? So, it is to be expected that if you introduce a source of fuel to fire, that source will be reduced as it is consumed. The harder the fuel source, the longer it takes to be consumed. That should be common sense, but I didn't come around to the obvious without some trial and error. On my camping trip, I was using pine-cones and dry fuels of that nature (Wet fuel is a no-no and will irreparably break your stove - I'll explain in the next point). But... Lump Hardwood Charcoal (which is healthier to cook with than briquettes anyway) is a very hard fuel source. I have learned that the fastest way to get up and running is to fill the stove cavity with hardwood charcoal, dribble a very small amount of lighter fluid over it, wait a second or two for it to soak in, then light it. Breakfast in half an hour or less - I guarantee it.
2) I do not recommend getting the grill add-on for this stove... It is made of really cheap metal and I've found that putting a skillet directly on top the stove works just fine, and long as you can balance your cooking apparatus. A round pot without a long horizontal handle works even better.
3) When the stove heats up, it trips a sensor in the attached thermal-charging battery/fan that you attach to the side during set-up. At the base of the inside of the stove canister, there is a small port that sits right in front of the little fan in the piggyback unit. Note: The fan blades are PLASTIC. This is why you cannot use wet fuel with this unit and also why after you're done using it and try to turn off the fan it will not turn off. Your stove is not broken, it simply has to spin the fan while there is still a heat source near the fan blades to avoid melting them and making the stove worthless. The fan has two speeds: Keep it Hot Speed, and Burn Your Eggs Speed. I use Burn Your Eggs Speed to boil water - works very well.
4) Once you get the heat going and the fan is on, etc, you can't just plug in a USB and go to town. You must wait for the little green light to come on, indicating that there is enough of a charge being created. Only then will the stove charge an attached electronic device. (We kept two smart-phones charged enough to conduct our daily lives just by charging them during meals. Note: smart phones charge faster if you turn them off before plugging them in.)

The charge generated is a trickle, but is enough to make the difference between an emergency situation and a situation that is merely uncomfortable.

Thanks BioLite for an amazing product - I've freely advertised for you guys ever since Hurricane Matthew!

I paid full price for this stove and have purchased 3 other stoves as gifts for friends and family also at full-price. One emergency and it's worth the money, you'll see.
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Definitely not for hikers or anyone who wants hassle-free cooking
by Amazon Customer (1 out of 5 stars)
May 30, 2018

I've had both the BioLite stoves -- the first and second versions -- and they are just too much of a hassle. It takes a lot of work and babysitting to keep the flame going, and in colder weather I could not get the battery to charge. I had a blazing fire going for over an hour and the meter just stayed where it was -- low to no charge. Then you can get into these weird scenarios in which the flames die down, and you are trying to get it going, but the fan turns off. Just very busy and fickle. I'm going back to the tried and true gas stoves.
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Un-freaking-believable!!!
by BoatCamper (5 out of 5 stars)
June 13, 2018

Beyond cool and nifty, this thing ROCKS! Easy to use, set up, gather fuel for, cook on... does exactly what you want it to do. Used it at 11k feet for 3 days for 2 meals a day with no issues whatsoever. The blower really helps get things moving when at altitude, too. Size is manageable when transporting; weight isn't too bad, especially considering you don't have to lug fuel around everywhere you go. Keep in mind, it is a little top-heavy, so be sure you're on a level surface. Also, don't be in a rush to charge your device as it takes a little while to charge things up.
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Everything it claims to be.
by Amazon Customer (5 out of 5 stars)
June 28, 2017

Absolutely extraordinary. We spent three days "off the grid" testing this and everything was great. We ate everything from some si rival foods to fried spam and eggs. If your coffee drinker, take your press. I would say if you want to simplify things a little you should use pellets and fire starters. Although we only used it one day with the pellets, instead of the wood that we collected that was a remarkable difference

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