Reviews > Cook Gear > Stoves > Finbar Folding Fire Grate > Jodi Cornelius > Field Report

My e-mail:bpskids@charter.net
Name: Jodi Cornelius
Age: 42
Height: 5'4"/1.6 m
Weight: 160 lbs/73 kg
Gender: Female
City: Derrick City
State: PA
Country: USA
Date: June 9, 2004
My area of the country: Northwest Pennsylvania

• Takes up a minimal amount of space when folded
• Easy to assemble
• Contained in a nylon casing
• Expanded - size is 18" x 5 1/4 "
• Weight is less than 8 oz.
• All parts remain attached - nothing to fall off

Field Experience:  Having this fire grate to test has proved an interesting venture into the wonderful world of gear testing.  Every so often a piece of gear will show up on the list and I think to myself "What possible good use could I get out of such a thing?"  I apply for it to get practice on writing applications and viola!  I get selected!  Now I'm thinking what am I going to do with this thing?  The product arrives and the first thing that happens is I can't even figure out how to put the thing together without going to the website to see and remind myself what it's supposed to look like assembled.  Now I'm REALLY wondering what I've gotten myself into.  I finally get out on a hike and I take the fire grate with me.  What an excellent surprise!  This funny looking piece of gear is actually quite handy.  Not only is it great for cooking over a nice little fire, it is also quite handy for drying socks and underwear over the fire!  My first trip out with the fire grate, I had to do a number of creek crossings and slogging through mud bogs.  Plus, I sat on a fallen log that was water saturated and I didn't notice until the water had soaked through my pants.

So, as I'm squishing around camp getting my hammock set up, I start thinking about boiling some water for hot chocolate as I relax for the evening.  After clearing a small spot for a fire and getting a couple of rocks rounded up for the grate support I get my fire going.  I have a 2 cup/1/2 L pot that I use when soloing so I placed the pot on the one corner and promptly flipped the fire grate end over end dumping my pot.  First lesson - make sure grate supports are outside of the area where I place my pot!  What can I say?  I had a "duh" moment.  Once I got that straightened out, the fire grate did its job quite nicely.  I was slightly concerned about the smallish size of my pot but I didn't have any balance problems and the pot sat nicely in the corner.  Another thing I found was that if I set my pot too close to the edge and it wants to flip, all I have to do is place a rock on the opposite end as a counter weight and it works fine.

Anyway, as I was contemplating my little fire as I sipped my hot chocolate, I had an epiphany!  Quickly I jumped up and found a couple of small logs and placed them by the fire.  They weren't high enough so I got a couple more flatish rocks to place under the logs, got the grate to the right height, in this case it was approximately 10 in/25.40 cm, and placed my damp socks and underwear on the grate, drying them out in short order.  I was tremendously pleased with this discovery and I feel, just for that alone, this fire grate is worth its weight in my pack.

I have also used it with my alcohol stove.  That is a bit trickier as alcohol stoves have a somewhat tight tolerance for distance between flame and pot.  Too far and I use too much alcohol.  Too close and I risk snuffing the flame.  I will test that a little more closely for the long term report.

This fire grate has been tested in temperatures ranging from 40 F/5 C to 60 F/16 C and it has worked fine.

All in all I have found this to be a handy item to carry in my pack.

Things I like:  I can dry my socks and underwear on it!

Things I dislike: No instructions included. Would have been helpful if they had been printed and packed with the Fire Grate. With a diagram on the sheet of paper, I would not have needed to go to the web site to determine how to assemble the grate. Before looking at the website again, I wasn't sure how to get the grate to work.

Reviews > Cook Gear > Stoves > Finbar Folding Fire Grate > Jodi Cornelius > Field Report