I am planning to purchase a Littlbug twig stove. I will use the stove for solo and tandem trips and also will use it as my "evening fire". I am leaning toward the Littlbug Sr. instead of the Jr. I know it is a heavier but seems more versatile. Have you used one? Thoughts? Also, I would use it to burn sticks for evening use but in the morning I would use an alcohol burner such as a Trangia to make quick breakfasts. How has a small alcohol burner worked for you for this purpose? Thank You!

i have the sr but have not used it that much
interested what others have to say too

Solo stove for twigs and the Caldera Cone is the best alcohol stove out there IMHO.

As per taking to much time for the twig stove to get going I disagree. They get rolling fairly quickly actually. A tiny bit of a learning curve. I like having chemical fire starter handy to facilitate things if need be. Some birch bark of course gets things rolling quickly as well.

I have not used the litterbug and the solo stove appears to be a knock off. But the quality of the solo stove is excellent. I will be going in with mine this summer for 20+ days with no back up (which is not needed and redundant). Just more weight and volume. So I would take one or the other, not both.

Go on Utube or the blog site "Adventures in Stoving" and check out the Caldera cone. Super efficient and of excellent quality. Plus it comes packaged sturdily. I used that on a 20+ day Cascade Mountains (PCT) backpacking trip and it performed flawlessly.

Here is the link to the wet fire........extremely light and not messy like vaseline soaked cotton balls. If your fuel is wet or starts to sputter and go out you will be very glad to pop a cube in and get on with life.

Wet fire

I have the Jr. model and use it for my solos and as a backup on tandem trips. It's not all that big, so I'd be hesitant to use it as a primary stove for cooking for two or more. I'm sure it'd work, but the Sr. would be quicker and easier, I'd guess.

The Jr. would also be a pretty puny "evening fire." :)

I would take the Sr. I have two of them. Once you get some coals it is easier to keep going. Makes a nice mini-campfire for a little heat at night if you want. for boiling water for dehydrated food it is the best. Take some BBQ leather gloves for handling it. Also, forget an axe and take some Fiskars loppers. You can plow through a bunch of fallen branches in no time and will have a ton of firewood. I also take a large Ikea plastic/vinyl bag for collecting all the sticks and it keeps them dry overnight as well. I used to have a Jr and found it was too small - needs more attention and won't support larger pots e.g. for 4 people.

I have a senior and agree that it is good for boiling water. However, our cooking requires a fair amount of simmering and it didn't work well for that. It's just too hard to control the amount of heat. On the trip we used it, we only took the Littlbug Senior and an alcohol burner. We would up cooking on the fire grate a fair bit. There we could make the fire on one side of the grate and adjust cooking heat by moving the pot toward or away from the fire. For the alcohol burner, I thought the Senior kept the pot too far from the burner. With an alcohol burner, I'd rather use some other setup.

There's no doubt that these stoves let you use small bits of wood and generate some serious heat. If that describes your cooking, fantastic. We switched to a couple of MSR Windpros.

Good point Andy........the wood stoves or alcohol stoves for that matter don't have much control when it comes to simmering.

But they are great for boiling water and seem to be fine and dandy for frying fish provided your pan is thick enough to distribute heat.........mine also worked well for hash browns.

I use the senior for boiling water and Trangia for smaller tasks. Works great. I have one of those hinged wind screens for trangia. Trangia/alcohol not so good in the cold.

I just premiered my Littlebug Sr the other day on a backpacking weekender. I loved it, definitely got the job done, although I did have some trouble packing it in and out due to the size of the pieces. Shouldn't be a bother on a canoe camping trip though!

Mastertangler-

I don't want to hijack the thread, but have a couple of questions for you that may be relevant for the OP.

On your 20-day PCT hike with the Caldera Cone, how much alcohol did you take for fuel and what did you use it to do - cook? boil water? what was lowest temperature used during the trip?

I'm also curious why you didn't get the Caldera Tri-Ti that also burns wood (can be made into a gasifier too) rather than buying a separate wood burner? The Tri-Ti interests me as a possible long trip solo stove.

I use the Sr. with an Open Country 4qt. Pot and a trangia. The pot slides right in and hangs at a perfect height on the the bail attachment. It works like the Caldera cone. When I use a smaller pot I insert tent stakes in for pot supports.

boonie: "Mastertangler-


I don't want to hijack the thread, but have a couple of questions for you that may be relevant for the OP.


On your 20-day PCT hike with the Caldera Cone, how much alcohol did you take for fuel and what did you use it to do - cook? boil water? what was lowest temperature used during the trip?


I'm also curious why you didn't get the Caldera Tri-Ti that also burns wood (can be made into a gasifier too) rather than buying a separate wood burner? The Tri-Ti interests me as a possible long trip solo stove.


"

Um, I took to much fuel ;-) as I always do. I can't think of a trip yet where I didn't have an abundance of fuel and leftover. That was helpful last year on my Isle Royale trip where I left a big can of iso ever so slightly open and it was empty by morning. Whew! Good thing I had lots extra Iso. Slept really good that night ;-)

On the PCT trip I put my extra alcohol fuel into little plastic Nalgene bottles and taped the lids. I don't remember how much I used and all I did was boil water. Worked perfectly. I liked having a measuring cup (little plastic cup like what is on top of a cough medicine bottle) and had things measured out fairly perfectly as to how much fuel I needed to boil water for a meal or for tea. I also had an eye dropper to remove any excess fuel, very handy.

Tri-Ti? Never heard of it. I might have considered it had I known. But then again probably not. I knew on the backpack trip I would only be boiling water. To be honest I am not the type which generally likes equipment which do a variety of tasks but does none of them exceptionally well. I know that goes against the grain of what most folks consider smart. I like specialty gear which does one thing, but does that one thing extremely well. Thus my choice of the solo stove for the twig burner. Does a superb job IMO.

MT (and other interested people) -

Trail Designs (Caldera Cone) Ti-Tri Systems

As far as I can tell the alcohol part of this combo is a task that it does exceptionally well and is often considered the best alcohol system out there. How well or poorly it does the other tasks, I'm not sure. I don't think anybody worries too much with that as far solid fuel (esbit) goes. It, with the inferno gasifier insert, appears in their video to be pretty effective and efficient, but I have no real experience with them, so no real basis for comparison. The system is of interest for short trip alcohol use and long trip wood-burning use with some alcohol use, but not sure if it's enough to tip the balance.

Boone did you check out the blog site "Adventures in stoving"? I find this guy to be right on the money. He turned me on to the Caldera Cone and the Kovea spider. Both excellent systems and was just as advertised.

He probably has a few things to say about the Tri ti system. Check him out.

Adventures in stoving

Go into search (Tri ti).....interesting comparison between brush buddy and tri ti.

Thanks, MT-

I hadn't checked out Adventures in Stoving recently, and never have been through everything there. A very good site and a very good comparative review.