Table of Contents
Introduction
I had been looking for a new wood burning stove for camp cooking for some time. Cooking and heating water over the open fire is great but it can get expensive on fuel. Even though I have access to a lot of wood its surprising how much as I can go through in a weekend. After searching the web I decided that I wanted a gasifier stove that would be efficient and yet be able to heat my workshop and provide the quantity of hot water I need to make endless cups of coffee.
Manufacturers Description.
The SilverFire® Hunter, is a lightweight, portable natural draft chimney stove designed for both indoor & outdoor use! The Hunter is a top lit updraft gasifier (TLUD), powered by twigs, yard scrub, or any flammable biomass (why buy fuel?). TLUD’s stoves utilize a batch fed combustion chamber. It is simple to operate. Just top light it like a candle, no continuous feeding required. Vent the chimney outdoors to eliminate all household emissions. Insert vertical positioned fuel into the combustion chamber; next place a little tinder on top and light! To fine tune your flame adjust the ventilation door at the bottom of the stove. That’s all there is to it! The portable SilverFire®Hunter model opens up a new frontier in biomass clean cook stoves. You now have the capacity to eliminate all household emissions!
Specification
Cooking Fire Power: ≥ 1.5 KW
Thermal Efficiency: ≥ 35% (StoveTec/EcoZoom 30%)
Emissions Concentration (smoke): ≤ 25mg / m3
SO2 ≤ 20mg / m3
NOx: ≤ 120mg / m3
CO: ≤ 0.1%
Stove Weight: 14.5 lbs
Stove Dimensions: 12” square x 16” tall / 30.5 cm x 40.6 cm tall
Double boxed shipping carton: 22 lbs
Shipping Box Dimensions: 16” square x 19” tall / 35.6 cm x 45.7 cm
Review Body
My fire impressions of the Hunter stove were very positive. It’s hard to ignore the “oh Shiny” appeal of the Hunter Stove.
It is marketed as an indoor and outdoor stove using the supplied chimney. All the parts fit nicely inside the Stove Body. The whole package has a nice robust feel of quality to it. Silverfire state that it’s a great product for use in a disaster situation and I can see that its main design focus is as a cooking stove.
The Hunter is easy to light, easily adjusted, lightweight, and cooks very rapidly. Thin tight packed fuel produces a very rapid boil. It has the ability to boil 2 gallons of water faster than the largest burner on your gas or electric cooktop. In the event you want to slow the cooking process down (e.g. slow cooking with cast iron) add thicker, dense fuel into the combustion chamber. Dense material takes longer to burn, ideal for slow cooking. Combustion in the Hunter produces very little smoke or soot, if using dry fuel. The beauty of the Hunter is that the first 20 minutes to half hour of cooking is high fire power (boiling operations, browning meat, etc…), then for the next two hours a wonderful diminishing, simmering heat is present (low fire power cooking). The stove is dialled in for maximum cooking performance. At any time, you can also just add more fuel and primary air to stoke the stove back up to high fire power cooking too! Just add fuel and open the ventilation door a couple of fingers to add primary air is all that is required. This stove is very intuitive and straight forward to operate. At the end of cooking, invert the stove to dump out the small amount of fine ash residue from the bottom of the chamber. The Chimney is divided into 4 small sections to accommodate handling this lightweight, easy to mange stove (14 lbs). It is approximately half the weight of most rocket stoves on the market, due to the quality lightweight insulation, stainless steel construction, compared to other manufacturers using mild steel and cheap clay for insulation.
TLUD technology has been around for over 100 years. Primary air passes through your fuel as it combusts in the combustion chamber and becomes carbon monoxide gas. The carbon monoxide gas is then burned and mixed with the preheated secondary air, above the fire. The secondary air combustion appearance is like a gas stove and is know as a Chinese burner. The end result of your biomass fuel is to produce minimal amounts of ash, soot, and bio-char, which is required to be removed from the stove after cooking for maximum stove performance.
The Silverfire Hunter is pretty easy to light and is fairly lightweight as stoves go. Obviously its not designed for backpacking and I would probably not talk it on canoe trips due to its size. I may in the future make a bag for it so I can protect it in an open boat.
The stove is easy to assemble with each part fitting together neatly. Each chimney piece is numbered which is a nice touch and the elbow joining the chimney to the stove fits nice and positively. The chimney feels stable even with a breeze.
The Hunter.
Conclusion
The stove looks great. I am a sucker for shiny mirror finishes. The Hunter works well and is well made. The heat output is very good. Almost all the fuel is burnt efficiently so there is little smoke and not a huge amount of ash produced. The only irritation when cooking is that you have to remove the pan to add fuel. This is not a deal breaker but it does grate a little when slow cooking.
I would like to have a iron plate for the top to cook on and will purchase or make one in the future.
Rating
Ratings are out of 5, 1 being bad and 5 being the best
Fit for Purpose – 5/5
Versatility – 4/5
Durability – 5/5
Value for money – 5/5 Pricing £135.00 on Amazon.co.uk
Overall – 5/5
