Thanks for this test. I use several "gasifier" wood stoves ... also the 2 Toaks versions. In my experience the difference in size really matters when the wood is bad (e.g. moist) and the temperatures are low. In the cold, the larger burning chamber of the large Toaks (80 % more volume than the small version!) creates much better fire dynamics. In summer, I am fine with the small version if I don't have to boil more than 500 ml. Most important for me in cold conditions: a little metal ground plate (metal foil will do the trick, I use the lid of a can). Without this, the heat will evaporate moisture from the ground an send steam through your system... this will destroy all the gasifiing benefits even of the big Toaks version....
I have mastered the small one ! Haha I had the same problem until I figured the rite equation .I use more small twigs and I mix them with the larger wood .no matter what the larger burner will do better in any case but the smaller one can be done .Great video and thanks for your time .
You can fix your small stove! On similarly sized tin can gasifier wood stoves that I've made, the symptoms you're having indicate that your bottom inner can doesn't have enough or large enough air holes. It takes a certain amount of heat to drive the air convection of a stove like this. This stove has a smaller fire and a shorter chimney. That's 2 strikes against it! In order to compensate, the primary fire needs to burn hotter. In order to do this, it needs more air. This size stove is always a pain in the butt. They can be made to work but not made to work well. It's only viable if low weight is the driving factor.
Both stoves suffer from a design flaw. The burn chambers have air vents only on the bottom of the chamber. Because the ventilated bottom of the burn chamber comes to within 1/4 inch of the ground, the least pressure on the stovetop will drive the burn chamber into the dirt, blocking the airflow. Even accumulating ash from the burn can do the same thing. A disc of aluminum flashing, larger than the diameter of the base will, at least, stop the air vents from getting buried in the dirt. Any other way of elevating the stove base above the ground would, of course, also be effective in increasing the airflow through the bottom of the burn chamber.
I drilled 12 holes measuring 3/8ths diameter, around the base of the burn chamber, approximately one inch up from the bottom. That helped to avoid the problem.
Instead of running stakes through the bottom of the pot to stabilize it, why not just stake it down to the ground with two stakes? That way it's definitely not going anywhere and you don't have to drill any additional holes in your stove.
I think I’ll get the larger one. I already have the 1100 pot that it can nest in anyways, and I think it’s a little more stable and the extra wood space probably allows it to not have to be messed with quite as much. It’s only a little over 2 oz heavier than the smaller one anyways. I’ll be doing the tent stake trick as well. Thanks for the video. Subbed😎
I wonder about the ground clearance, and how loosely packed the wood was in each, it's hard to do side by side in just one instance on ground that isn't perfectly flat. I really appreciate the video. Maybe some more side by side tests and comparisons of them would help ferret out the advantages.
Hey mate. Good review. I'm trying to find a couple of good pots for the small Toaks to nest in. Thinking it nests in the Toaks 550, and then into a MSR Titan kettle . . . but I think the packed size of the small Toaks stove is a little tall for the MSR kettle?
Very little air flow throw the bottom when sitting in the dirt like that, maybe good for dry baking.. But for boiling and frying try large can lid or set up on some stones to allow optimal air flow.
A MYOG "catstove" can fit in both versions (depending on can diameter). One part (!) of the Toaks will than function as windshield and pot stand at the same time. However, the distance between flame and pot might still be to large... so you may have to put something below the alcohol stove in order to elevate it a little bit...
Toaks Titanium small wood burning stove...can this stove be used with out adding the top part and using a separate pot stand? Would you try it...and make a video of you doing it...
I would like to see the small one filled with small twigs not the cut wood you usedthe twigs would burn faster with more airso it would give a shorter hotter burn enough for that pot of water
How does your friend (that you borrowed it from) like the small stove? Did he have the same problem? I've seen other videos where these things ran great. Unless the small stove can burn better than that I'll shop for something else. Thanks for the video.
I ultimately got the large one. I think its the only bit of kit I have ever bought which is not the lightest option. It was purely coz the large one nests perfectly in my snowpeak trek 900. The small one would have left a lot of dead space as the diameter is smaller. With the large version I get a larger inner cavity to use for other things. That being said, the weight % penalty is quite large. The large one is nearly 50% heavier than the light one (150g vs 225g). Guess its a good thing I went with the large. Thanks for the video. Good points made. Did you by any chance take a photo of the remnants after the burn? Was the fuel really choking the air out?
Nice comparison. I think the small one needs less of a wood load to increase airflow....which will require adding wood to bring on a boil. Like the straw trick!
Possibly although I did try to keep the same "density" of wood between the two so they had similar air space. Maybe the small one needs more air space then the large one in general?
the ashes clogging the bottom holes,that`s why the stove starts smoking imo. I`ve enlarged the bottom holes on my toaks small to 5-7mm and it works much more better now.
Hello to oversea, how this works and how to handle it right and use heat effective you can watch here. ua-cam.com/video/T-10Y5qVwwE/v-deo.html Take care and regards from the German lower mountain range the Eifel. Alex
so what is the point for not adding any more wood? adding wood every 2 to 3 minutes is not so bad..... I would love to take something smaller and do a little more work for the price
This disregards why I disliked it. Adding more wood to a stove that already is acting choked and not burning efficiently will not make it burn better. The fact that I could blow it back into a flame and it would then die back suggests it is just too small.
As long as it holds the flame just as good, and keeps a pot on top of the flame, then it checks the boxes. All it can do after that is get smaller/lighter without unchecking those 2 boxes. I don't care if it doesn't burn as complete as the bigger one. It's smaller and lighter and does the same job. I call that better.
@@T3Knical5urg3 It looks like the smaller one just does not have enough air flow. You can try the same, but place them on for example rocks or two straight sticks (not directly on the grass), so the air can pass throughout the bottom of the stove.
Nice review. Well done, sir! Question. Are you up for a challenge? While I love upside down fires, and most users of wood gas stoves INSIST these stoves MUST be ignited is this manner I find this to be questionable. Try placing the tender/fire starter in the bottom and load the fuel wood on top. THEN lift the stove and lite it from the bottom. The 'ash pan' (this is the lower chamber of the 'fire box') is filled with holes and is perfect got putting the heat source (FLAME generated from whichever method) next to the tender. Indeed the upside down fire method is all the rage these days. Even the manufactures of these types of wood burning stoves try to entice would be buyers to buy their product by “selling” them on the idea that one may overcome basic fire building skills simply by purchasing their stove. As I said, this is simply a challenge. I dare you to try this method. I submit that it is important to understand the concept of convection and how it relates to fire building. The gentleman in this video demonstrates the idea very nicely. Keep in mind the 'PLATFORM' is built into the stove you are using. ua-cam.com/video/Ma6VqwIuI24/v-deo.html
Yeah, don't forget to PATENT that bent straw. Large stove is BETTER, less tipsy & more firepower. Also, try blowing into the BOTTOM holes, not at the top of the stove.
Thanks for this test. I use several "gasifier" wood stoves ... also the 2 Toaks versions. In my experience the difference in size really matters when the wood is bad (e.g. moist) and the temperatures are low. In the cold, the larger burning chamber of the large Toaks (80 % more volume than the small version!) creates much better fire dynamics. In summer, I am fine with the small version if I don't have to boil more than 500 ml. Most important for me in cold conditions: a little metal ground plate (metal foil will do the trick, I use the lid of a can). Without this, the heat will evaporate moisture from the ground an send steam through your system... this will destroy all the gasifiing benefits even of the big Toaks version....
I have mastered the small one ! Haha I had the same problem until I figured the rite equation .I use more small twigs and I mix them with the larger wood .no matter what the larger burner will do better in any case but the smaller one can be done .Great video and thanks for your time .
You can fix your small stove!
On similarly sized tin can gasifier wood stoves that I've made, the symptoms you're having indicate that your bottom inner can doesn't have enough or large enough air holes.
It takes a certain amount of heat to drive the air convection of a stove like this. This stove has a smaller fire and a shorter chimney. That's 2 strikes against it! In order to compensate, the primary fire needs to burn hotter. In order to do this, it needs more air.
This size stove is always a pain in the butt. They can be made to work but not made to work well. It's only viable if low weight is the driving factor.
This was exactly the comparison I was looking for, thank you so much!
Thank you so much for the vid. I was hesitating about purchasing the small burner but now I'm gonna buy the big one. Thank you
Nice tip with the stakes👍
But not the compressed air🙄
Another great video. Please do more!
Both stoves suffer from a design flaw. The burn chambers have air vents only on the bottom of the chamber. Because the ventilated bottom of the burn chamber comes to within 1/4 inch of the ground, the least pressure on the stovetop will drive the burn chamber into the dirt, blocking the airflow. Even accumulating ash from the burn can do the same thing.
A disc of aluminum flashing, larger than the diameter of the base will, at least, stop the air vents from getting buried in the dirt.
Any other way of elevating the stove base above the ground would, of course, also be effective in increasing the airflow through the bottom of the burn chamber.
I drilled 12 holes measuring 3/8ths diameter, around the base of the burn chamber, approximately one inch up from the bottom. That helped to avoid the problem.
Great video. I been looking at a wood option for my Toaks 750 with nail. Found it!
Instead of running stakes through the bottom of the pot to stabilize it, why not just stake it down to the ground with two stakes? That way it's definitely not going anywhere and you don't have to drill any additional holes in your stove.
Brilliant minds think alike. I just posted a comment on a previous video suggesting exactly that mod to improve stability. Nice idea.
I think I’ll get the larger one. I already have the 1100 pot that it can nest in anyways, and I think it’s a little more stable and the extra wood space probably allows it to not have to be messed with quite as much. It’s only a little over 2 oz heavier than the smaller one anyways. I’ll be doing the tent stake trick as well. Thanks for the video. Subbed😎
You can stick tent pegs in the bottom vents too. That'll stick it in place and make it incredibly stable
Smaller stoves require more fiddling! Good review!
just what i wanted to see. thanx man
thanks for testing, helped to get a clue how it works (or not)
Thanks for the vid. With more experience with the smaller one, it will blowtorch. Even the DIY gassifiers make out of soup cans can do that.
I wonder about the ground clearance, and how loosely packed the wood was in each, it's hard to do side by side in just one instance on ground that isn't perfectly flat. I really appreciate the video. Maybe some more side by side tests and comparisons of them would help ferret out the advantages.
Hey Thanks never had a problem with the small one works for me using less wood probably would help
lol, it dosnt count as a comparison of heat times if you heat it on one and transfer the pot pre heated to the other
Glad I saw this. Big one for me.
You know you can - and should - continually add twigs and other biofuel into the stove during operation, right?
You can also stake it to the ground using bottom air holes
Thank you
Hey mate. Good review. I'm trying to find a couple of good pots for the small Toaks to nest in. Thinking it nests in the Toaks 550, and then into a MSR Titan kettle . . . but I think the packed size of the small Toaks stove is a little tall for the MSR kettle?
It’s not a fair test! You never let the little one start to gasify before you added the pot.
Will the toaks 850 ml pot nest in the large burner? Don't want to nest the small stove in my 850 ml pot.
I'm getting the small stove with 750 pot and 450 mug.
Large one looks more stable.
Very little air flow throw the bottom when sitting in the dirt like that, maybe good for dry baking.. But for boiling and frying try large can lid or set up on some stones to allow optimal air flow.
Do you think cotton balls with Vaseline would be okay to start a fire in these stoves?
Really like your straw bellows. Where did you get it?
Does 750ml cup fit inside big stove ?
7:55 flame coming out of large one aggressively. However small one has a pot on it so air flow will be restricted. Duh!
hi, can a standard alocohol stove fit in the small Toaks? wanted to be able to use another fuel source. thanks
A MYOG "catstove" can fit in both versions (depending on can diameter). One part (!) of the Toaks will than function as windshield and pot stand at the same time. However, the distance between flame and pot might still be to large... so you may have to put something below the alcohol stove in order to elevate it a little bit...
I’m sure you answered this elsewhere, but what is and where did you get the steel “bent straw” bellows? Brand? Thanks! Great vid!
Looks like two bent stainless steel straws with tubing connecting them.
Bonjour so which one is the best ?
because of you stability issues. Toaks is great!
You need to use a wind screen with both of these stoves...
Toaks Titanium small wood burning stove...can this stove be used with out adding the top part and using a separate pot stand? Would you try it...and make a video of you doing it...
I would like to see the small one filled with small twigs not the cut wood you usedthe twigs would burn faster with more airso it would give a shorter hotter burn enough for that pot of water
Agreed, the large split wood pcs are harder to break down to woodgas than twigs and sticks.
How does your friend (that you borrowed it from) like the small stove? Did he have the same problem? I've seen other videos where these things ran great. Unless the small stove can burn better than that I'll shop for something else. Thanks for the video.
I ultimately got the large one. I think its the only bit of kit I have ever bought which is not the lightest option. It was purely coz the large one nests perfectly in my snowpeak trek 900. The small one would have left a lot of dead space as the diameter is smaller. With the large version I get a larger inner cavity to use for other things. That being said, the weight % penalty is quite large. The large one is nearly 50% heavier than the light one (150g vs 225g).
Guess its a good thing I went with the large. Thanks for the video. Good points made. Did you by any chance take a photo of the remnants after the burn? Was the fuel really choking the air out?
I did not take a photo but the large one only had ash left. The small one smoked for a long time after and eventually had small chunks of wood left.
It’s not even close to 50% heavier.
Greetings,
🙄
➡ Sorry, its exactly 50% heavier, according to the same weights abovementioned.
@@BingWatcher Don't say sorry, you're absolutely correct
@@jackriminton7959 Thanks for the kind words.👍👍 I am trying not to judge others on their mathematical abilities. 😎
Nice comparison. I think the small one needs less of a wood load to increase airflow....which will require adding wood to bring on a boil. Like the straw trick!
Possibly although I did try to keep the same "density" of wood between the two so they had similar air space. Maybe the small one needs more air space then the large one in general?
the ashes clogging the bottom holes,that`s why the stove starts smoking imo. I`ve enlarged the bottom holes on my toaks small to 5-7mm and it works much more better now.
your edc game looks strong
LOL the three clips in one pocket? Yeah, buddy.
Did you see that wild animal go by at 2:35 it almost killed em
Hello to oversea, how this works and how to handle it right and use heat effective you can watch here.
ua-cam.com/video/T-10Y5qVwwE/v-deo.html
Take care and regards from the German lower mountain range the Eifel. Alex
Out of interest, why not use the tent stakes to drive them through the inlet holes into the ground and stake the stove to the ground? Ground too hard?
so what is the point for not adding any more wood? adding wood every 2 to 3 minutes is not so bad..... I would love to take something smaller and do a little more work for the price
This disregards why I disliked it. Adding more wood to a stove that already is acting choked and not burning efficiently will not make it burn better. The fact that I could blow it back into a flame and it would then die back suggests it is just too small.
As long as it holds the flame just as good, and keeps a pot on top of the flame, then it checks the boxes. All it can do after that is get smaller/lighter without unchecking those 2 boxes. I don't care if it doesn't burn as complete as the bigger one. It's smaller and lighter and does the same job. I call that better.
@@T3Knical5urg3 It looks like the smaller one just does not have enough air flow. You can try the same, but place them on for example rocks or two straight sticks (not directly on the grass), so the air can pass throughout the bottom of the stove.
Nice review. Well done, sir!
Question. Are you up for a challenge?
While I love upside down fires, and most users of wood gas stoves INSIST these stoves MUST be ignited is this manner I find this to be questionable.
Try placing the tender/fire starter in the bottom and load the fuel wood on top. THEN lift the stove and lite it from the bottom. The 'ash pan' (this is the lower chamber of the 'fire box') is filled with holes and is perfect got putting the heat source (FLAME generated from whichever method) next to the tender.
Indeed the upside down fire method is all the rage these days. Even the manufactures of these types of wood burning stoves try to entice would be buyers to buy their product by “selling” them on the idea that one may overcome basic fire building skills simply by purchasing their stove.
As I said, this is simply a challenge. I dare you to try this method. I submit that it is important to understand the concept of convection and how it relates to fire building.
The gentleman in this video demonstrates the idea very nicely.
Keep in mind the 'PLATFORM' is built into the stove you are using.
ua-cam.com/video/Ma6VqwIuI24/v-deo.html
Yeah, don't forget to PATENT that bent straw. Large stove is BETTER, less tipsy & more firepower. Also, try blowing into the BOTTOM holes, not at the top of the stove.
..soft wood in a gasifying stove..? Really..? Maybe its time to learn something about them buddy...
I think you should have gave them both the same amount of fuel (not scaled down, the exact same amount of wood) to get a proper comparison.
This test is a joke