Kelly Kettle Hobo Stove

This simple add-on  transforms an already excellent open-country water boiler, into a serious contender as your principal stove for everything from the family pic-nic, to your wild camping trips and wilderness backpacking adventures.

Kelly Kettle Hobo Stove Accessory : The Hobo Stove fits perfectly on to the fire base

What’s it for?

A simple accessory that could turn the Kelly Kettle into your new best friend. Using only foraged fuel, the Kelly Kettle has long been one of the best ways of boiling water when you are outdoors. Doesn’t matter what you are doing, fishing, rambling, bird-watching, checking out the landscape geology, or taking a family pic-nic. Just scout around for a few bits of stuff to burn, top up the chimney with water and away you go. Boiling hot water for whatever you need, in minutes.  (If you don’t know about the Kelly Kettle, read my review).

Kelly Kettle pot support

But to “cook”, the solution was to put pot supports into the top of the chimney and put your cooking pot on those.

And I cooked a lot, boil in the bag meals, a whole variety of bean meals, stews and soups. I even grilled sausages, freshly foraged mushrooms and chestnuts.

But truthfully whilst cooking wasn’t actually a challenge, it didn’t offer the flexibility you might want on a longer trip: Bigger pans, the chance to simmer, and no solution to the simple problem, that no sooner had you popped your pan on to the supports, but the water in the supper-efficient kettle had boiled. So then you needed to use the water, and refill the kettle, before you could continue cooking.

So the lads at Kelly have come up with the Hobo Stove. Pressed from stainless steel, soldered at the single joint, safe from failure because it has no moving parts, and designed to fit perfectly into the fire base of the kettle.  Boil your water, take the kettle off the base, pop the Hobo stove on. Then pick up a pot and start cooking over your wood-burning foraged fuel fire. Perfect.

Now I’m not throwing my pot supports away they’re still handy, and I will be using them again. So really they add to the total flexibility you get from a Kelly Kettle. But the introduction of the Hobo Stove means the Kelly Kettle should now suit a new gang of those whose passion is found outdoors.

Pro’s

• Get more flexibility when planning everything from a meal to an outing.
• Use larger (eg 1.5 litre) cooking pots.
• Pack a Kelly Trekker as the principle stove for a backpacking trip of two or three.
• Easy feeding of the fire, (than with pot supports). And you can now simmer.
• Packing is easy. Place it “upside-down” inside the fire base. It adds no bulk to the size of your packed stove.
• Storing the stove this way also minimizes the chance you might soil your pack.
• And you can choose to clean the stove less frequently.
• Lighter: It saves 12 grams when the Hobo stove is substituted for the pot support (74 gram against 86 gram).

Cons…

• It’s a bit fiddly to clean. But you can wipe off the soot with moss.
• Pots and pans, may get a little more soiled in use – use more moss.
• The whole stainless steel Trekker combination (fire base, kettle, Hobo stove, bag) weighs a little over 800 gram. – But that includes everything to boil water and cook.

Best uses

• On any trip into the countryside with your Kelly Kettle,
  when you want to be a more adventurous cook.
• For the Trekker model where the water boils so quickly,
  it is a convenient alternative to the pot support
• Brilliant, when used together with the Kelly Kettle, for solo, duo
  and group, wild country and wilderness backpacking.

Kelly Kettle Hobo Stove

Useful links …

Not familiar with the great Kelly Kettle – read my review
Worried you won’t be able to light it – Watch my video

Irish/UK website: Kelly Kettle
Product page: The Hobo Stove at Kelly Kettle (Trekker Model)
Product page: The Hobo Stove at Kelly Kettle (Base Camp & Scout models)

US website: Kelly Kettle USA
Australian website: Kelly Kettle Australia

Other retailers
UK: Millets
US: Campsaver

Note: The fire base is supplied with the Kelly Kettle, not the Hobo Stove. There is a Hobo Stove optional accessory to suit each of the Kelly Kettle models.

You keep me honest: My product review policy and practices

Read about my own conversion to foraged fuel – Playing With Fire
Or watch this short video on the easy way to use a fire starter

Kelly Kettle Hobo Stove : Fuel ready, fresh soup simmering.