Solo Fire Pit

We don't have a Solo or anything similar, but I wonder how these would work in them vs local firewood, and or pellets?
https://www.menards.com/main/heatin...-c281-4085-8c1c-189f2478e578&ipos=1&exp=false

 

Don't see why they wouldn't work. Kiln dried hardwood. Great price too.

I've only got the tabletop Mesa XL (still awaiting shipment), but I ordered these from Home Depot to try...https://www.homedepot.com/p/2-lbs-Oak-Smoking-Wood-Chunks-07SW00273266/318077784

When I go to pick those up I'm going to try a box of these as well...https://www.homedepot.com/p/JEALOUS-DEVIL-Hickory-Wood-Blocks-JDSMOKEHICK08/319375153

Both of those products are kiln dried hardwood as well. They might be just the right size for the smaller unit. I've read a lot of reviews and watched some youtubes. Some people think chunks burn easier and cleaner regular firewood.

 

Mine has been shipped! Looking forward to checking it out. I was surprised to see the price as compared to the other available options.

 

I've used these manufactured logs before --- which are different from pellets. Pellets are about 1/4 inch in diameter and from 1/4 to 1 inch long and come in 40 pound bags.

The manufactured logs work great, just like 'real' logs with no adaption necessary.

The pellets however, don't breathe as well since they are smaller and there is only a little gap between them, so airflow needs to be greater. The hole size in the bottom of the firepit needs to be smaller as well.

The adapter plate should be here tomorrow. Good weather, and I hope to test it out

 

OK...I'm pretty impressed....I poured about 4 inches of pellets into my solostove with the new "pellet adapter" installed...

This is the 'ranger' model which is fairly small...I lit 4 of the wax paper square igniters, that I lit anst suffed 1/2 way into the pellets. At 12, 3, 6 and 9 about 3 inches from the sides, and in 10 minutes this is what I had. See the photo...

As you'll see in the photo, there is a "complete" reburn around the vents in the top, this lip of flame is doing 2.5-3 inches into the air and has been burning for about 30 minutes at this point. I'm sitting 4 feet away from the pit, and it is "throwing" a very nice ring of heat, and has been burning at this rate fairly consistently for the entire time.

A bag of pellets is $6 at the local tractor supply, which is only $1 more than the fantastic wood sold at the camp store...

I think I"m sold on it...

A bag is supposed to burn for a couple hours. 2 hours for a "full load" with pellets up to the lip of rings at the top in the ranger. I"ll have to do a "full" load to verify this --- but it seems completely reasonable. I thin I'm sold on this...


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But if you burn through a bag a night, aren't you hauling a ton of pellets around with you for longer trips? The good thing about normal firewood is that you source it at the campsite so you don't have to bring anything with you.

 

The varying park rules do make it difficult to keep up. But if the park does not specifically outlaw bringing your own, look into buying kiln dried hardwood to bring with you. Kiln dried will kill all pests as well as help the wood burn better.

I recently received my Solo Mesa XL. Due to its size I have to use small pieces of wood to burn. I’ve been trying various kinds of kiln dried hardwoods and they all light quickly and burn extremely well. I just have to cut them down for the most part. They also leave little to no ash.

Check the parks you want to visit and see it if they just recommend buying local or if it is actually a law.

 

This is a pet peeve issue. I used to believe that it was about 'ecology' when the firewood in the parks was actually fallen timber. But in Indiana the DNR is now got a vendor which services the parks. The firewood they are selling is off-fall from a local log rustic home builder.

Now, the pieces are small (no thicker than 1 inch) that burn very quickly. The bundles are about 3/4 the size they used to be, and cost more. What used to cost $5 and would burn for an hour, Now you pay $6 and it burns for 40 minutes.

In the parks, I routinely see stacks of firewood that were obviously brought in (loads in the back of a pickup) from a stack of firewood at home. Rangers never say a word.

Seems like blue laws around me...on the books but not enforced. I split the difference. I always look for a roadside near the park. Any insects are "local" and not going to potentially introduce a new menace. Frankly, in most cases, the roadside vendors have inspection stickers on them, so its no problem anyway. Then, just for "insurance" I'll usually buy a pack from the camp store just to give the rangers something to look at.

 

I had an opportunity last night to play with our new solo stove firepit "pellet stove adapter".

My initial impression is pretty positive. I only put about 3 inches of pellets in the stove as a preliminary test; I will follow up with a "full load" A 1/4 load is projected by Solo to burn for 32 minutes (not 31, not 33 but 32) I ESTIMATE that I put in about 3 inches knowing that I was already a little tired and wanted to to be in bed at a "reasonable" hour.

Starting the fire was easy. I just put 4 of the wax-impregnated firestarter squares in the pit spaced at 12, 3, 6 and 9 about halfway between the center and the sides. Next time I'll try 1 in the middle. It took about 5 minutes for things to get started but was overall a trivial task. It took just a few minutes to be fully lit with the secondary burn taking place. You can see the 'jets' coming from the sides --- this is what I mean by that. This is where the smoke is incinerated turning it into a smokeless fire.

The 'peak output is in the photo below. The camera zoom doesn't give a great sense of distance, I was a few feet away, more than it appears in the photo. The warmth was very nice.

A bag of pellets sells for about $6 --- about the same price as a bundle of wood from the campstore. If I get 2 hours out of a full load of pellets, I can easily see this as a money saver. Not to mention moving a bag of pellets is pretty easy. I sense a time lapse coming on. A side-by-side burn of $6 of camp wood next to a $6 bag of pellets...

My only question at this point is, will a full load restrict airflow more and perhaps lower the flame volume? Not sure. We'll see. But my first impression is pretty good and I'm looking forward to a 'full test'



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So, does your 1/4 load constitute a 1/4 bag of pellets? It would be interesting to see if a full load lasts longer than 4- 1/4 loads, due to a decreased air flow through the larger mass of pellets. Your flame in the pic above is probably more than you might want on average, so a lower flame volume with a full load may be welcome, the flip side is that it would give you less control of how long your fire burns vs adding more as needed, as your fire-pit party ebbs or progresses. Be interesting to hear your test results.

 

Thanks for the info. We received our pellet adapter and will use it next week at Blackwater State Park in Florida. The bundles of wood near us are up to $8 or 9. So the pellets should realize some savings for us. Florida State Park Rangers forbid collecting firewood within the parks.

 

The bag to stove size depends on the stove. The capacities are on the table below. My bag of pellets weighs 40 pounds, so in the ranger a full load about half a bag.

• Ranger - 25 lb
• Bonfire - 45 lbs
• Yukon - 77 lbs
• Canyon - 94 lbs

A full load (~ 1/2 bag) is around 125 minute --- so $6 for a bag of pellets is bar far cheaper than camp firewood. Heck, even if I had to buy the super premium smoker fuel ($20 a bag) it might come out to about the cost for the camp store firewood.

I actually think I do want that high of a flame --- once the flames go below the top of the lip, the stove doesn't radiate much heat...so a larger flame is actually somewhat desirous to me. The hight didn't show up well in the photo...remember too that a lot of flames there also include flame from the secondary burn --- the smoke burning.

I'm going to do a side by side comparison on my next trip....should be interesting. But I'm really happy with this new adapter....

 

Sweeney. I just bought a bag of these hardwood cooking pellets (20lbs - $8) to try. Pit Boss 20lbs Bbq Hardwood Pellets : Target

I believe they are better quality (cleaner and possibly burn hotter?) than the 40lb $6 bags made just for heating. I'll be trying them in my little Mesa XL tonight.

In my brief experimenting with different firewoods (all hardwoods and all kiln dried) I've been very pleased with how easy the good quality stuff lights and burns. They also leave almost no ash (at least in my size fire). I think the good stuff may be worth it to pay a little extra.

 

We have a pellet stove we use for winter supplemental heat -- I love having a warm living room, and a cool bedroom, 80 and 60, respectively. The only trouble is keeping the thunderstorms from starting in the hallway. We go through almost exactly a ton of pellets each year. The 7 or so bags I have left will likely be used next winter since you can't cook on softwoods.

Since you can cook on hardwood, I'll switch over to pitboss pellets and throw a grill grate in the tow vehicle. The cost of burning the expensive hardwood is still cheaper than camp wood. From my initial test, pellets work at last as good as logs.

As for ash, in the home pellet stove, the ash from a ton of pellets doesn't even fill the Ash Can I have --- 18 inches tall, 12 inches in diameter? I'd fill that 5 or 6 times a season with the old wood stove. In the bottom of my solo stove after my experiment...what is left is not worth even emptying...

 

I burned the pellets last night. A few thoughts...

They took longer to get started than real firewood. 30 minutes vs 3 to 4 minutes.

Once they did start flaming the fire ran longer without me needing to feed it more often. That was nice. However, you have to be careful adding more pellets to an existing fire as it can be easy to smother the fire and then create a cloud of smoke. But if you light the smoke, the fire seems to come right back.

Once the fire dies out, there was a large amount of pellets just sitting and burning as embers. They won't relight as a fire. In my small unit it took 3 hours for the pellet embers to finally burn out. When I burned wood sticks the embers went cold 30-45 minutes after the flames died out.

Obviously larger units will have different response times to everything, but the fact that the pellets took forever to finally die out is probably the biggest issue to me. For the record I followed the Solo instruction on burning pellets, to the letter. I filled them right up to just below the upper air holes and put the fire starter on top, in the middle.

I'm sure it's going to take more practice to decide how I want to use it and what fuels make the most sense for my needs. There are pros and cons to each.

Final thought...I'm quite enjoying sitting out on the patio and watching it burn each night as I test it. I can se it getting used summer nights at home just sitting on the patio and sipping on an adult beverage. It's a nice toy. ;-)

Oh and in the words of Inspector Columbo, just one more thing...I specifically bought this smaller unit to take camping. But I did so with the intent to be able to burn a fire for a lesser amount of time than the normal campsite fire would burn. I like having a fire. But I often don't get back to my campsite until after dark and still need to eat. I just don't have time to set a regular camp fire to run 2-3 hours and tend to it as well. This little unit is really awesome in that it starts quickly, can run as little or long as you want based on feeding it more wood or not and then goes out quickly too with no real mess to clean up. It's a winner!

 

Great reivew. Sounds like our experience was very similar, how many starters did you use?

I used 4 starters, and had a full fire in less than 10 minutes. It seemed your took slightly longer.

 

Because my unit is smaller, I have only needed one starter to light wood. I ended up needing two to start the pellets the first night.

I tried again last night but this time I only fulled the canister half full. One starter worked fine and it was flaming in 3-4 minutes. I have a feeling the pellets tend to keep air from circulating more than wood. As such it's always harder to get the fire going and it is so temperamental when adding more pellets during a burn.

 

Solo Mesa XL is quite a bit smaller for sure. I share your concern over filling and smothering the fire, I think this is probably the only real drawback...plan ahead to what you need.

 

The pellet adapter is amazing with the heat deflector on the Ranger Model.

 

Wow it's so beautiful!