HotShot Lightweight Pop Can Stoves

by Jeff Quinn

photography by Boge Quinn

August 21st, 2012

 

 

Click pictures for a larger version.

 

 

Kit comes with windscreen, fuel bottle, "spork", lighter, plastic container, lid, and stove (center, small stove shown).

 

 

Lightweight, efficient alcohol-burning stoves for backpackers and campers have been popular for decades. The design is about a century old, but ever since Al Gore laid claim to inventing the internet, folks have had easy access to instructions on how to make these stoves from an empty coke can. “Coke can” is a generic term around here. Regional terms vary from “pop can”, “soda can” or the combination “soda pop can”, but in Tennessee, they are all coke cans. Some can be the brand “Coke”, but a coke around here is anything from an RC to a Nehi Orange. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, back to the subject at hand, these stoves will burn most any type of alcohol very efficiently. The design is basically a gas generator, with the alcohol burning in the center warming the fuel to evaporate and burn more efficiently from the ports on the side, providing a hot flame until the fuel is gone.

I once attempted to make one of these stoves from a Dr. Pepper can, and succeeded in only cutting myself before giving up. Now, HotShot Stoves is selling these dandy little camp stoves for a very low price, and the kit comes with everything needed except for the fuel. They offer a Small Shot and a Big Shot stove, and both seem to provide plenty of heat to cook a meal, while the entire kit weighs almost nothing.

These stoves are small, very efficient, and best of all, very affordable. The entire kit consists of the stove, a spork, fuel bottle, windscreen, and a Bic lighter, all packed into a watertight container. The stoves sell for only $20 US for the small stove and $25 US for the large stove, plus shipping, as of the date of this review.

You can order the HotShot stoves online here.

Jeff Quinn

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Click pictures for a larger version.

 

 

Small stove (left), large stove (right).