hello i'm Wanderer001 and this is my review of the solo stove bonfire fire pit this is the kind of
goldilocks happy medium of fire pits that is offered by solo stove this is going to be your
most portable fire pit so for those of you like myself who don't necessarily have a place where
you can keep a fire pit out year-round this is going to be the perfect size for you because well
you can pack it up in the included carrying case which i'll show you a little later and
store it for the winter time or when not in use they do have two other models which are slightly
smaller and much larger but one the smaller one that's made to bring camping with you and the
large one is definitely meant to be kept in place when we're talking about the actual size of the
bonfire here you are looking at a diameter of 19.5 inches so just shy of 20 inches with a
height of 14 inches without the stand because this is just the bonfire right here and has a weight of
20 pounds so with that weight and size it is actually fairly portable for what you're getting
here the bonfire itself is made of 304 stainless steel but you can see after a season of using this
it's got a nice patina to it meaning down here where you can see this is kind of the
original color that the solar stove was versus up here where the metal has gotten heated over
time so let's actually take a look at what this looked like right out of the box in its pristine
condition so that we can compare this is just a quick out of the box look of the solo bonfire
before it actually gets used because i wanted to have a difference between
pristine and then actually how it looks after it gets used so just a quick
look around so you get an idea of what this looks like you can see right here this is where the two
pieces of metal come together so you will have a noticeable line it's not terrible you have some
perforation for airflow at the bottom nope this is not going to be used on this table
and if you were going to use this on a deck there actually is a separate stand that you
would need to raise this up if not it's very close to the ground and you have a possibility of things
getting overly hot all right we're gonna come up here to the top because we do have this
gate right here and it ships where the gate is upside down so you just kind of take and flip
that we're going to take that out for a moment you can see your perforated air holes at the top there
and then down in here you actually have the grate where your logs will rest and underneath
that is actually an ash bin which you can't really see here but because your ash is going
directly through your grate to an ash bin down there there's no drop for the ash bin that ash
kind of sits there so you remove it by turning the bonfire here upside down so keep that in mind as
you don't want to get water in here because then your ash is going to turn to goop and might not
leave easily since there's no drop underneath and i'm going to pick this up one more time
very quickly because over here you can see the seam on that side up at the top
and this is just like i said a quick look at it so coloration how it was before now besides
the patinaeing that you see here versus when i originally opened it and took it out of the box
interior also does get a little i'm not going to say must but it's a fire pit it's getting heated
it's getting scratched because you're throwing wood and logs and twix and all that stuff in here
so it's not terrible but again a lot of the reviews that i saw didn't really show the
interior or really the exterior after heavy amounts of use again this is after one season
picked it up last year probably did a burn two three times a month for like four months and i've
gotten two burns out of it this season already so that's what we're looking at for usage now one of
the interesting factors of the solo stove is the fact that well it's a double wall construction
meaning these things down here bring air up inside and then there's perforated holes all around the
rim here which allow for a better burn of what you have in here but that also means that if you're
used to doing fires outside this will actually burn through your fuel much faster because of
that extra burn that extra burn that happens also is why they say it is smokeless uh and i'm going
to say smokeless with an asterisk because well one you have to be at a certain height
of fuel in here and not too high not too low in order for that secondary burn to happen and
keep the smoke down the times that you're going to really notice heavy smoke or more smoke than
you normally would with this are one when you're first lighting it and two if you happen to try and
use duralogs with it because i did test a duralog a singular duralog in here to see if it actually
would work in this system and it does however you do get a bit of a heavy smoke as seen here and
primarily that's because well there's one log and it's really meant to be stacked up a little higher
so it does come out a little blacker if you've never actually used a fire pit before or not or
not as comfortable setting up a fire i'm going to tell you this is remarkably simple to actually get
going so let's actually take a quick look at what a initial kindling setup looks like that i used
and how quickly that goes up showing how little is actually needed to get this thing started
just some random kindling twigs pieces of pallet scraps newspapers and then down in
there somewhere right there is actually some fire starter which is just paraffin with some sawdust
once you get your kindling situated and your fire actually going you may be wondering again
if you're new to this what kind of fuel can i use well here you go this is a hardwood
if you cut these yourself or pick them up from an arborist or you can go to your local grocery store
you're looking to be using anything that is a 12 10 to 12 inch long with a three to six
circumference that will fit comfortably in the solo stove and once you really get this going
then you'll start to see that really nice burn but you'll also have a nice flame shooting directly
up because of the fire ring that's on top however because of the way that this is constructed
heat is not dissipated evenly around this while these sidewalls will get
very hot and you should not touch them as can see as can be seen here
the majority of the heat dissipation is actually up out the top so if you're trying to use this for
warmth solar stove does now send sell a heat dissipator but if you're just getting this
just know sitting next to this you might not get as much heat as if you're standing upright so keep
that in mind one of the really cool features that is touted by solo stove for something like this is
that secondary pilot burn that you get where it kind of helps keep the smoke down i'm going to
say that is one of the coolest features of this and everybody who i've had around this always
comments on it once that really gets going how cool that really looks when all is said and done
and you're ready to stop using your fire pit there's one thing that you have to keep
in mind you cannot dump water on this one it's stainless steel it will warp if you hit it with
cold water but two the ash catches at the bottom of this if you hit that with water that ash is
going to turn to sludge and there there's no door on the bottom of this that you can open
up to let the ash sludge out and the holes are not going to exactly let ash out so you have to plan
your burns accordingly so that you know you don't have to leave this unattended there are some
extra accessories that you can get to help but we'll talk about that a little later because the
next question is if you're not dumping water on this and you actually do let this cool generally
overnight how do you get the ash out what does that look like well it looks like this
so
now some things that i have noticed not being really covered and partially why in this entire
review i haven't been really moving this around because the oil from your hands on stainless steel
when it heats up if i bring over and i have my glove on for this because well you can see
where i touched this with my hand and got oil on it it kind of burns in so i generally
uh use a solar stove with gloves when it's cool to move things around but just giving you an idea of
what actual like wear and tear would look like on the fire ring that goes around the top here
now for storage i will say that the firing just flips over and makes a nice place for
itself inside of the solo stove that you can use the included carrying case with here we have the
included carrying case with the solo stove it does come with nice handles on both sides that you can
grip to help carry this around it is a very thick material and kind of reinforced at the bottom
it does have a drawstring at the top so when you get your solo stove in here
you can kind of seal things up and pour it around or store it as i talked about before however there
are two other accessories that i would recommend getting if you're getting your solo stove bonfire
and let's take a look at what those are first being the actual solo stove stand for the bonfire
it adds an extra just shy of three inches and if you're going to be using this on
a deck of any kind or on your grass you need this to separate the bottom here from
whatever surface it's on now i will admit i kind of thought that it came with this
but it does not even though all the depictions you may see online have the stand depicted with
the solo so these are two separate products i kind of wish that they put them together because
it's really nice to be able to have this now the question is can you actually use this on a
wood or trex deck and not have to worry about it burning well i had those questions so last time
i used this i threw a small piece of trucks and a small piece of wood under this before burning
to see if it would do anything so let's take a look at that test of tricks and regular deck wood
underneath the solo stove with the ring to help lift things up let's see how these look afterwards
obviously need to test the questions
ash pile after last burn was kind of windy so there's a bit more left but it does really do
a good job of breaking things down despite the high temperatures that we saw both the
regular piece of decking and the tracks are absolutely fine as long as you use
the ring to help lift things up so that's good to know as you saw there with the use of the stand
you actually don't have to worry about hurting your deck which is nice and partially why i said
i wish it came with the solo stove came with that is because if we flip this over you can actually
see there is a little groove that the stand can sit on so they did kind of figure that you'll be
purchasing that once it's all grooved into place this is what it looks like with the stand option
and probably how you've seen it advertised the stand is actually one of the first accessories
that i got because i wanted to be able to use this on my grass without having to worry about
putting pavers down but also know that you can use this on the deck as long as you have enough space
around the solar stove itself now the second accessory that i think is a must-have for the
solo stove is the solo stove lid for the bonfire it sits nicely over the top and part of the reason
that i say this is the secondary what i would consider must have for the solo stove bonfire is
one if you let this get down to just about burning embers or burning coals you can put the lid
on and let that quelch out overnight without having to worry about wildlife wandering over
and messing with the stove and having those hot exposed embers now the other reason i say the solo
stove lid here is another must-have accessory is because when you pack everything up into the bag
because it only has a drawstring to keep things shut that means that insects spiders things of
that nature might be able to wander their way into the solo stove itself but if you have the lid on
the top you don't have to worry about that because everything packs up neatly into the solar stove
that means the the stand here and the fire ring that goes around the top
all fit nicely into the solo stove and then fit into the bag as can be seen here
and just like that packs up for easy storage so if you like me like the ability to have a portable
fireplace around your house that you can fit roughly four to five people around the solo stove
bonfire is probably what you're looking for i know it haunted me in advertisements for over a year
and then i had a friend who got it and highly recommended it so i picked one up too and i
have to say it has not disappointed if you pick this up for yourself i know you'll like it too
which is why i can highly recommend it with that being said i have been Wanderer001 if
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