The wood gas stove is probably one of the simplest to make at home and most wonderful forms of camping stove. It uses the alternative fuel of wood, but it burns it in a special way. Essentially it takes the smoke and gases that come off the smoldering char (H2 and CO gas) and turns that into flame that you can use to cook a meal. These are great for catering for your friends and family in the garden as well as when you have a power cut (for instance, if you normally cook with electricity at home). On top of that you can make them with reasonable ease out of old food or coffee tins (the larger the better). Some of the most successful ones are made with old pant tins or empty one gallon food tins.

Once you have got a tin that is just right for you, take a twist drill and bore a mesh of holes on the bottom of the tin, and then drill a ring of air holes around the lower part of the cylindrical wall of the tin. Now for the important bit! The way hat a wood gas stove works is that it takes extra air that comes into the combustion chamber above the burning matter, and creates flames there. So another ring of holes is needed in the tin, still on the cylindrical wall of the tin, but near, but not at, the top open end of the tin, maybe about ¼ the height of the tin down from the open end. These holes will act as air inlet “jets” and will be, once the stove has reached optimum temperature, the place where the gases that rise up from the burning matter will ignite to create the flame that you can cook by.

Now, the stove itself has to be above the ground to allow air into the holes at the bottom. For this I recommend a bent wire coat hanger to create a stand, or if you are using the wood gas stove at home in the garden, take an oven shelf and rest the stove on that. Never use the wood gas stove indoors as I understand there is a danger of carbon monoxide.

Build yourself a pot stand with rigid metal mesh so that the pot will stand about one inch above the top of the stove.

Next you need fuel. When you go for a walk in the woods at the weekend, look out for sticks. You don’t need many. Just some hard wood sticks about as thick as a pencil. Take them home with you and when you are home chop them up into  one inch pellets with a pair of rose pruners and place them in the stove. Place your stove outside on the stand and then squirt a dash of barbecue lighting gel on the top, and set fire to it with a splint. As the lighting gel starts to ignite the fuel, you will notice that flames will start to lick around the inside of the wood gas stove and some flames will appear at the air inlet jet holes. After about 5 minutes you will probably have a nice steady tall blue-yellow smokeless flame.

Once you have gone though the time expense of making the stove, your fuel is free! The only cash expense is the lighting fluid or gel to get the stove burning. Hardwood twigs make great fuel, but the best fuel for these stoves is wood pellets.