When the power goes out, your stove goes with it. So how do you cook survival food or boil water for your emergency food kits… without working burners? The answer: DIY Survival Stoves.
Let’s take a look at a few less conventional ways to cook food when the grid’s down. And some great ways to make your own survival stoves for very little money. If you’re looking for more conventional ways of cooking, check out this article.
6 Primitive Methods for Cooking Emergency Food Kits
1. Rocket Stove: This option will produce a lot of heat from very little fuel. Making it the perfect survival stove in cold weather conditions. It might be the best of the DIY stoves. Because it has so many variations that allow for cooking, boiling water and producing heat — fast. Which is exactly what you want when cooking up emergency food kits.
A simple DIY rocket stove design requires only 3 recycled tin cans. The cans, tin snips, gloves, a marker, insulation and roughly 1 hour of your time will give you a great DIY stove.
Another design uses brick, mud and a permanent build location. All rocket stove designs are known to use as little as 5 or 6 medium twigs to produce a pot of boiling water. The cost of this option should stay well below $100, with the simpler designs coming in under $10.2. Hobo Stoves: This DIY stove is lightweight, easy to make and cheap… as it uses common household items. A hobo stove works well to heat emergency food kits, water or a can of soup. This particular DIY stove is a favorite of many long-time preppers due to its simplicity. And ability to cook up emergency food fast.
The simplest design in this DIY stove category is made from a large coffee can. It can produce boiling water in roughly 6 minutes. Aside from the coffee can, you’ll also need a can opener, tin snips, drill and drill bits, metal coat hanger, and roughly an hour of your time.3. Buddy Burner: This DIY stove option is excellent for heating leftover emergency food or water indoors. You only need: cardboard, a sharp knife, an empty tuna can, wax (crayons or broken candles work) and an empty soup can.
The fuel system is simple: fill the empty tuna can with rolled cardboard. Then pour melted wax over the top. That’s it.4. Barrel Stoves: This non-portable stove will warm food, purify water and also heat a dwelling. But, it will take you an afternoon to set up. You need some more heavy duty stuff for it too. Like a 55-gallon steel drum, standard tools, screws, hinges, L-brackets and carriage bolts.
This option is durable and if made well, should last longer than the other DIY stoves. This is a more expensive item in the DIY category, but still far less money than a retail survival stove.5. Soda Can Stove: This one is amazing! This lightweight stove burns alcohol and can be made for next to nothing.
You only need a soda can and a small amount of supplies for measuring and cutting. Then you’ll have to get some denatured alcohol. You can find it at any hardware store.
The design of this DIY stove is strong and reliable, and will boil water rapidly. So if you’re looking for something cheap to cook your emergency food kits with — it’s this little guy.6. Box Oven: While this isn’t a day-to-day cooking stove, it is a simple oven that’ll help you bake without electricity. A box oven combined with charcoal will enable you to bake cookies, cakes or a pizza in six easy steps:
1) Wrap foil on the inside of a box.
2) Cut a view opening.
3) Place coals in a fire pit.
4) Position 4 cans and a cooking rack.
5) Light coals.
6) Place your pan on the rack and monitor cooking through the window.
As you can see, you can’t go wrong with any of these DIY stoves. But if you’re not a DIY kind-of person, there are some great camp stove options out there like this StarFire Camp Stove by 4Patriots. So pick your favorite and get to cooking!
