Following up to the picture I posted on Sunday, I got the chance to fire the Yukon up last night and thought I would share some things you should know before buying one...
- A long list of warnings comes with the Yukon. Among them... do not use under any overhead... avoid using under or near any overhanging trees. I presume low flying aircraft are safe from this thing as they were not mentioned. I’d heed this warning; when it really gets going, there’s a lot of heat that goes straight up. You can certainly still feel heat all around the pit, but there’s a lot going up.
- Another warning... don’t extinguish the fire using water. I’d guess that quickly cooling the metal walls could warp them or do something else you’d rather not have happen.
- You can’t get as much wood in the pit as you’d think given its size. There’s a dome shaped permanent “grill” in the bottom of the fire chamber leaving a space below it that takes up about a third of the bottom of the pit. Not sure if all this space is to help air circulate or just for collecting ash. You also don’t want to pile up wood above the holes along the top interior of the pit’s wall. Doing so circumvents one of the reasons for using a Solo Stove and results in a more smoky fire.
- While getting the fire going, you still get as much smoke as an open fire. It’s not until you reach “critical combustion” (my term, not Solo Stove’s) and the fire is really going good that you get that “secondary burn” eliminating much of the smoke.
- The dome shaped grill I mentioned has a bunch of small holes rather than slots, so maybe “grill” is not the best term for it. Think “upside down colander”. This makes it a little awkward getting your twigs and other small material to stay put when prepping to start your fire. Inevitably, some of these would roll down the dome and stop up against the wall. I just left them there to burn later.
- Once the fire is out and the Yukon has cooled, you have to turn it upside down to empty the ash. Given its size, this is awkward when done by one person - particularly if you’re also trying to keep it out of the mud.
- When I was done with the fire and went inside, I could smell a little smoke on my clothes, but I don’t think it was anywhere near as strong as it would have been from an open fire.
