Kelley Kettle Trekker

Kelly Kettles are rad.  It’s the most fun you can have boiling water, which is usually not fun at all. Volcano stoves are legitimately entertaining to use, safer than most pressurized stoves, and never run out of fuel.  The Kelly Trekker is our favorite size, but if you want a bigger one, just holler and we’ll get it for you.

Here’s how it works:  Add water to the kettle.  You can leave the cap off or cap it.  It will whistle if you cap it, which isn’t to my taste, as the whistle is in Bb, not my favorite note.  Go mosey around and get some tiny twigs, pine needles, dry leaves.  A double handful should do it.  I like to use a fire starter, and the best fire starters are dead simple to make, and really cheap.  Just take 6 cotton balls, and smush as much vaseline into each one as you can.  Then stuff them in a 35mm film canister.  6 will fit.  When you go to start the stove, put 1 cotton ball, pulled apart a bit to expose some vaseline’d fibers, on the bed of the fire bowl.  Add your smallest and driest bits on top of it, in a little pile.   Light the fire starter. Then put the full kettle on top, and start to feed small sticks down the chimney.  The draft of the chimney will get the fire going with a quickness.  Feed twigs in until you get to a boil, which will be in a few minutes.  

This past summer, friend Adam and I went on an 8 day canoe trip, and had tea 2-3 times a day.  It rained every single day.  It was very wet.  No way to get a proper camp fire started.  The Kelly Kettle was easy to light, even with all the rain.  The chimney effect is fantastic.  

This style of stove is over 100 years old.  British soldiers used them in the trenches of WW1.  They’ve been used to make tea during mountaineering trips for decades.  

Not ultra small, but again, you don’t have to pack fuel.  The inside is hollow, where the chimney is, so I use that to store stuff like my spork and knife and lighter, etc.

Makes 2.5 cups of water at a wack.