Kelly kettle for bikepacking, yes or no?

It’s a big lump, isn’t it? 120x270mm and 450g.
My main interest is camping in lowland wooded areas, so the difficulty in finding fuel isn’t a factor for me, I’m sure I’ll always find enough hung up dead twigs.
I can accept the limitation of it only being a kettle for boiling water, not a pan for cooking food, as well, unless I want to increase the size and weight even more with the pan adapter.
It’s just that I seem to be pretty much fully loaded already with what I consider minimal gear, and it’s a big heavy thing to find room to strap on somewhere.

As you say bit big and heavy really. MKettle or Backcountry Boiler would be a better bet if you want something similar.

I made my own wood-burning bouble-wall stove from cans.
Weighs nowt and is nice to use.
I wouldn’t be able to justify the weight of the kelly.

Fits inside an Alpkit mytimug

Shown in that photo is some vaseline-soaked cotton wool for firestarting and a backup meths stove (which I don’t usually take now that I’ve got confident with the woodburning bit).

Tried something similar a while back. Messy / sooty and just not as effective as a basic pop-can meths burner. Wood fires and camp-fires are more fun though, if you have a few of you and a bit more time each evening.

My weeny Ghillie kettle is OK, but I wouldn’t take it as a light or simple option.

You can only do boil in the bag food, or you have to take extra trivet and pot – and then the small one’s fire box is so small, you need to feed it huge amounts of fuel to keep it going….

Take one of these, I burn wood/heather etc under it now, and it just costs a new windshield every so often…
Esbit titanium stove by matt_outandabout[/url], on Flickr

We’ve used Jetboils in the past for tea duty. Quick, easy and reliable.

If you’re looking for something a bit more cooking capabable you could try something similar to these primus stoves

They both work on using the same principle a ‘jet type’ gas burner and a cup or pan with folded metal around the bottom (rubbish description, sorry) which helps to boil faster.

Would recommend both.

Links off google search, so might not be the cheapest options out there btw.

I’ve got one I don’t need, it was an unwanted gift. Email me if interested and I’ll get you some more details. You can have it cheap!

You can also get lightweight wood stoves. Come as panels you slot together and would allow you to burn wood /twigs. Slow-ish.

Personally I most often use a myti mug, small gas burner, canister and windshield.

Have a look at backpackinglights’s honey stove might be more versatile if you want to burn wood.

I think you’d need to be in the wilds for weeks for a kelly Kettle to make senses weight wise

Cooking without a cooker

Cooking with wood

DIY Woodgas stove

If your hellbent on woodburnimg of an evening – maybe a decent bushcraft knife could suffice?

It’s not that heavy but it is way to bulky. More fun though, the kids love it, and are good at lighting with a steel and feeding it properly.

You can get a cook set, to heat a pan on the chimney whilst the water boils.

I do take mine out on picnics and biking/woodsy days out with my boys, but I think for bike packing it’s either a JetBoil, a Trangia (reliable but slow) or one of those lovely flash MSR thingies. It really comes into its own fishing, its a comforting thing to have burbling away.. like TMS on proper radios 🙂

EDIT: Just read the bear bones link – a Kelly Kettle is a lot easier, the draft on the chimney lets you burn a lot more ‘sub optimal’ fuels, including damp twigs once its going a bit. I usually collect the tinder and first twigs early in the trip and fill a pocket, usually dry enough by first brew. Pine cones work well too.

OK, you’ve all put me off the Kelly Kettle as a bikepacking stove, due to it’s size & weight, although I have emailed Simon and will probably buy his one anyway as we intend to use the tandem for something sort of in between modern ultralight bikepacking and old fashioned cycle touring and it will be good for that.

I liked the look of the Honey Stove and think that may be the one I go for, although there’s a few similar looking ones about.

Maybe a trip to IKEA?

Or maybe MKII?

Your best wood burning stove option (IMHO) is an Emberlit Ti. They’re cracking wood stoves

I took my Pocket Stove Ti when I went on the WRT but didn’t use it for wood burnings. Just used meths and esbit in it. Its not a great wood burner anyway, too small.

The Emberlit packs flat. I have a bushbuddy as well but its too bulky