Split Log Stove - One Log Fire For Camp & Trail Cooking

[Applause] for the past few months i've been experimenting with a variety of one long stoves trying to find something that was quick and easy to make easy to light and to keep burning and something where you could control the heat on it so if you wanted a higher heat for frying or boiling you could do that or if you wanted a lower heat you'd be able to achieve that as well and what i've come up with is the split log stove for this one log stove all we're going to need is some kind of saw and a tool to make a split in the wood i found this down spruce tree dead wood and the section of wood that i'm looking at here is about eight inches in diameter you want to try to match up the diameter of the log you get with the diameter of the pot or pan that you'll be using my pan that i'm going to be making my breakfast with is about eight inches in diameter so this log should do just fine so we're going to be making three cuts on this log in the first cut we're going to be making on the wider end so the log tapers from this side this way it gets narrower up here the tip of the tree is that way and the base of the tree is that way so i'm gonna make my first cut right down here so we got our first cut done now we're going to move up about two inches from that make another cut that's going to give us our base there's our base nice and thick that'll do perfectly so now we're going to come up about 10 inches from that cut and make our final cut next step is just to split this log right in half one split is all we need now that our log is split i'm just going to do one extra step you don't have to do this if you don't want to it just helps a bit with heat distribution figure out which side you want to be your top so this is the side that my pan is going to sit on and all we're going to do is just remove a little bit of this wood from the inside of the log near the top which is just going to help that flame to reach out a bit which is going to help with heat distribution doesn't take much just a little bevel like that that's all you need all right with both those done let's get this thing burning now that our stove is completely done ready to burn we're gonna take our base seat it into the ground just make sure it's good and sturdy and as level as it needs to be then we're going to take our burning logs place them on top and i usually just like to seat it into the ground a bit better and just make sure that the top of my stove or my pot or pan is going to be sitting it's good and level getting this log stove burning is super easy we're just going to open up one side on the back here both logs are still touching we just have the front side opened up to create this air channel you can throw some tinder at the bottom and i'm just using birch bark today lots of birch trees around this area so might as well take advantage i'm just going to throw some small fuel on top i try to lean my fuel towards the back where it's still closed up so it doesn't fall out all we have to do now just light up our tinder and i think you're going to be surprised with how quickly this gets going a lot of other one long stoves take quite a while to really get burning but this one takes off quite quickly and takes very little fuel to get it going all right this is going real strong let's get my kettle on there that's making some coffee so it's probably been about maybe just over five minutes now so i'm gonna add my coffee grounds here before it gets really boiling [Applause] oh that's good all right so coffee's made got that water up to a boil um took i don't know maybe about six seven minutes or so so not too bad what i've done now is i've just pulled these logs further apart you can see how big of a gap is between them and all that's going to do is it's kind of going to stop the logs from burning so rapidly they're not going to be interacting with each other quite as much so we're getting a much lower heat over it now so probably good to start cooking our breakfast so this is the advantage of this split long stove is that you can move these logs to control the heat so when i move them away like they are right now these logs stop interacting with each other and they stop feeding off of each other so the fire loses a lot of its heat and actually if you separate these logs just leave them they'll go out relatively quickly too maybe 10-15 minutes they'll be completely out so it's a great way to conserve fuel if you just need to boil up some coffee you can separate them they'll die and then come back light it up and once these logs are charred on the inside they re-light extremely easily so right now just letting these logs cool down i've got them separated right here it's another reason why this base is so handy because it just gives you a platform to work on and move these logs around on you don't have to worry about the ground being level or stable or anything so it's a really good setup actually so these logs are starting to turn all ashy on the inside so we'll give them a few more minutes then we'll be ready for cooking it's been a few more minutes i've got these logs about maybe just over an inch apart at the top here and got a relatively medium heat so we're gonna start cooking now i know that there will be people that'll argue that this setup's no good because you only have the one split so you're only going to get heat throughout the very center of your pan but that's just not the case your pan is going to absorb that heat that's going to spread out like on the edge of my pan oh yeah that's too hot to touch and this bacon's frying up just fine coffee boiled up just fine so i'd call this pretty effective it's a nice thing about this setup with this base is that it keeps your fire up off the ground which is great for situations similar to mine where it's been real hot and dry the past few weeks haven't really got any moisture and the ground's really dry and there's potential for a forest fire this is a great way to be able to cook food boil water without actually having to have a fire on the ground heat's getting a little bit lower than i want so i'm just gonna come in here move those a bit closer together that'll bring the heat up should be good for our eggs so [Applause] hmm that's really good oh man breakfast the champions right there all right well i'm gonna break camp once i finish here and carry on down the trail so i'm gonna do is move these burning logs as far apart as i can get them on this base and leave them and they'll go by themselves finish my meal and pack up my stuff and by the time i'm done that should be out [Applause] all right well i got my dishes done and went for a quick swim it's really hot out today and that's the only way to beat the heat out here but this has been sitting for well probably half hour maybe 45 minutes or so and it is out there's not even any heat left maybe just a little bit warm on the bottom here but that's no big deal same with this side base here yeah it's just a little bit warm so you can see underneath besides it being just flattened down there's no damage now there's a little bit of ash and stuff that fellow but there's no burning on the ground on the base there's no no burning it didn't burn through got a little bit low right here but that's why we make our base about two two and a half inches thick so there you have it the split log stove it's quick and simple to make easy to use and you can even control the heat on it which is a huge bonus when you're trying to cook out here so i'd recommend you give it a try it's a fun little project and works really well and let me know what you think if you made it this far i just want to say thanks for watching really appreciate it i've got a lot more videos coming real soon we are just about done with summer just about done with the heat and the bugs which i am so excited for um starting in the fall we're gonna have some really good videos coming out here so uh yeah i appreciate you watching and hopefully we'll see in the next one god bless and happy trails

Channel: Kusk Bushcraft

Views: 206,862

Keywords: bushcraft, kusk bushcraft, solo bushcraft, solo bushcraft overnighter, campfire cooking, bushcraft cooking, bushcraft gear, survival, primitive skills, primitive technology, wilderness living skills

Id: SG8T_MYJiO4

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022