Walking Equipment and Accessories

Bushcraft Essentials Bushbox LF Titanium Stove | Review

Our verdict on this lightweight and super compact ‘hobo’ style stove from Germany based Bushcraft Essentials

Why We Chose The Bushbox LF Titanium: Very convenient, well made, fun

Bushcraft Essentials have one of those very basic but very functional websites that in its simplicity gives off an air of self-assuredness. It’s as if they know they’ve got the goods and they don’t need to do any dressing up. You could say we knew, even before ordering this product, that it was going to do what it’s supposed to do well… and we weren’t let down.

Who Is The Bushbox LF Titanium For?

Based on those old-timey hobo-style type camping stoves that have been around for centuries, this is the type of option that will mainly appeal towards the bushcrafters/survivalists/woodsmen and women out there, those people who want something hardy, long-lasting and, in a way, fail-safe. Most will use kindling such as twigs with it but you could also use solid fuel tablets or a trangia burner.

“It’s a stove with a small enough packed size to fit into your trouser pocket.”

What about for hiking and wild camping? Well, after a long, wet day in the Lake District, there’s no denying that most people will prefer to have the quick reliability of a gas burner, but if your hiking in summer and you can count of things being dry, these types of stoves make for a very fun, satisfying and eco-friendly way of cooking.

Bushcraft Essentials make portable stoves of all different shapes and sizes so you can pick the right product to suit your type of activity and needs. There’s the massive Bushbox that you could get a small bonfire going in, the mini ‘EDC’ one that’s about the size of a fist, and then there’s this, the middling sort, which in our books is the one that’s best suited to the needs of a hiker or backpacker. It’s a stove with a small enough packed size to fit into your trouser pocket but then it’s large enough to support the 1.5L pot that you’re going to cook your Super Noodles in. Thanks to the use of titanium metal, the whole stove weighs just 270g, a whole 200g lighter than the standard steel one.

The pot supports also double as handles. Clever stuff. Photo: Mike Brindley

It's worth looking at the extensive stove collection that Bushcraft Essentials offer. Photo: Mike Brindley

It comes with a basic webbing pouch but the company also sell a very smart leather one. Photo: Mike Brindley

Construction

The LF in the name stands for Large Folding. That’s because, unlike many of the other similar flatpack stoves out there – the Savotta Happy Stove or the Robens Logger Wood, for instance – this thing folds together as opposed to being pieced together. Thanks to its clever hinge design it can be assembled quite literally within a couple of second. It also comes with a grill plate which can be placed right at the top to balance a pot or it can be stuck halfway up the stove in order to raise a trangia or similar burner closer to the pot. There are also two trivets, basically thin strips of metal, that can either be used as a pot stand or can be hooked onto the sides of the stoves to double as handles to help move the stove around.

If you’re going ultra light and want to minimise your packed weight, there’s also the potential to leave the grill plate and trivets at home and use a couple of spare tent pegs as a pot stand. All you need to do is slide them through the little aligned holes at the top of the stove. Lovely stuff.

Tester’s Verdict

Will Renwick, editor of Outdoors Magic

“I’ve used a number of different mini burners now and this now might just be my favourite. I had loved the Savotta Happy Stove (and the Grumpy one) and while I do still rate that, it is a bit fiddly and flimsy when compared to this.

“This just seems one of those stoves that was built with pure, out-and-out functionality in mind (just like Bushcraft Essential’s website), with all those neat touches like the ability to use the trivets as pot supports or to have the grill pan at the top or in the middle. The assembly really is super quick and easy; it’s much, much simpler than other options out there and, while I was worried the hinges would make it a bit flimsy that certainly isn’t the case.

“In terms of cooking performance, with a gathering of kindling I was able to quickly get a 1.5 litre bot boiled on this and I managed to use it, without issue, for coffee and for cooking noodles in a pot. If you wanted to, and with care, I’d say you could get a medium-sized frying pan on this if you wanted to cook something a bit more substantial.

“I did find it singed the ground underneath a fair bit, though this tends to happen with all hobo-style stoves. Just something to be mindful of in regards to leaving no trace.

“The assembly really is super quick and easy.”

“I had the version that comes in a plastic webbing pouch, though if you want something with a little more class and old-timey style, you can also now get leather pouches from Bushcraft Essentials as well.

“When packed up, I found I could just about fit it into the handwarmer pocket of my Fjällräven trousers. It would easily fit into the thigh pockets on some of the trousers I have, like the Sasta Kaarnas.”