Hello, all Through the years lurking in this group I’ve noticed a few references to Brazilian-made stoves and parts, usually dealt with with much mystery. I can’t say I’m a stove collector myself, but I’m definitely fond of them, especially as an avid camper using them as tools and not just as decoration. I’m also obsessed with industrial and technological history, so this is the best I could gather about our national stove industry. This wasn’t easy, as there are very few sources to search, companies don’t treat institutional history as seriously here as in some other countries, and there aren’t any organised market or collectors association for stoves specifically. I didn’t think much of pressure stoves until a few years ago. I had heard about Primus stoves from a Lebanese family member, and my grandfather had a few kerosene pressure lamps and blowtorches, one in particular from Jackwal, a brand I knew well from their camping gear as a kid. Jackwal gas stoves, lamps, burners and heaters were the apex of quality before imported gear became widespread. So much so that I always assumed from their name, it was a foreign company that manufactured goods in Brazil. Not the case. Camping is far from as big a hobby in Brazil as it is in Europe and much of the english-speaking world. Though we live in an extensive and beautiful country, through years of government neglect and lacking security, camping never really caught on. Public land is inaccessible, sometimes even illegal to camp at, and private campsites are few and far between. Camping is slightly more commonplace in the southern states and far from the big cities. Most of the stoves made by these companies seem to cater to a domestic market, in a country where, at the time, gas for cooking could be hard to come by, and most families relied on wood burning stoves, white fuel was an economical and very convenient alternative. Two out of the three companies I’ll talk about here were rooted in the southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, where a surprisingly big share of our country’s camping gear comes from, from the first caravans made in Brazil to many tents and metalwork. I can’t post this without mentioning the terrible environmental and social disasters happening there at the moment (60+ deaths from rain and landslides as of today, major rivers at 2m over flooding levels). I urge you all to please read on the topic, as I feel so much of what happens here won’t ever reach worldwide attention. Brazil: Landslides and flooding kill 60 in Rio Grande do Sul Pilling & Griebeler / J. A. Griebeler / Jackwal The company that to this day is known as Jackwal seems to have started as Pilling & Griebeler in the early 1930s, in the capital city of Porto Alegre, by J. Aloys Griebeler. I haven’t found a single reference to who Pilling was, but they did manufacture quite a few stoves before the company split. The logo used on these stoves pleases me a lot. In early May 1949 the society was split. J. A. Griebeler manufactured stoves and other equipment under his name alone. One water heater I found has a plate identifying in as “ex-manufacturers of Pilling heaters”. I haven’t seen a Pilling branded stove yet, only parts, burners, valves, etc. I believe Pilling was the branding for heaters, and Jackwal was the branding for stoves. The name used here, “Jagri”, appears on a post by a member here, about a small alcohol stove: Little spirit stove But I have never seen a Jagri branded kerosene stove. The name “Jackwal” apparently comes from its founders, Walter (Pilling?) and Jacob Griebeler, and was kept in use for stoves even after the split. In 1956, Mr. Griebeler died, and his wife Ilka Marquardt Griebeler took over the company, for a period the legal name of the Griebeler industries became “Vva. J. Aloys Griebeler e Cia. Ltda.” or “Widow J. Aloys Griebeler and limited company”. In 1971 the company finally officially renamed to Jackwal ltd., when it was already a household name. Jackwal made simple but high quality Primus clones for both stoves and blowtorches, I’ve never seen a foldable or portable stove from them. Note the silent burner, which seems to be the only one made in Brazil, as the other stove makers used roarer burners. Later, they went into bottled gas stoves and mantle lamps, and now they mostly manufacture heaters, burners and gas tubes and connections. Gasol Gasol is a bit harder to track, as nothing seems to have remained of the company. It was also based in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, but in the smaller city of São Leopoldo. Founded in the 1940s, manufactured stoves and blowtorches. Later in the 1970s it became “Promesul”, and manufactured various metal articles and other household products. In my experience, Gasol stoves are the most common to find. In addition to the standard Primus clones, they also manufactured some folding or travel stoves, like the “Pyros” in the green case (Is it a clone of anything specific?). Wolff One stove I only came across while researching for this post was the Wolff (with two Fs). Wolff is a 130-year-old company focused on metalworks in Brazil, specially cutlery and nowadays decoration. As most brazilian stoves are just clones or imitations of swedish models, parts are often interchangeable. The huge majority of Primus or Optimus-branded stoves I see for sale here now have some part replaced by a national counterpart, most often the burner. They also use a numbering system that seems commonplace with other manufacturers. As far as I know there was never a direct clone of the Primus 71/Svea 123 type camp stoves or of the self-contained square case types. All pictures in this post came from online sales. I personally only have a No. 1 Svea with a Gasol burner and a rather sad early Primus 71 in desperate need of some serious fettling. I hope that in the same way that I have found so much information in this forum, this little post helps you all on identifying brazilian stoves or parts in the future, and I’ll be here for any questions or help with research in portuguese for topics that may appear.
Thank you. That was an interesting read. You ask if the “Pyros” in the green case is a clone of anything specific?[ Well it looks to me remarkably similar to an Optimus 00, although I have not seen one of those with a chrome finish, they all seem to be just brass. The case of the Pyros seems better organised than the Optimus, maybe more like a Korean clone of the 00, the Shinabro 340.
Thank you all for the warm welcome to the group! @Dean the Shinabro is a close match. I'll definetely be hunting for a Pyros instead of a portable Primus now. A few things that came to mind since I posted this: Both Jackwal and Gasol seem to have manufactured plated stoves as a differentiated product. Gasol called them either Super Gasol or Pyros. I believe “Jackwal” branded stoves were manufactured during the entire existence of the stove line, from the 30s to the 80s (?), and Pilling & Griebeler was used as a brand only in special models up until the split, so there’s no easy way to date them. Here’s a picture of the daughter of the owner at the Jackwal showroom in the 1957 Caxias Grape Fest. I wonder what happened to that very portable model on the left! It’s really amazing how the widow of the founder and her daughter were able to expand the company from 30 workers to over 100 in a couple decades, and have the company stand the test of time with a product line more or less adjacent to their roots. They now employ over 300 workers and export to a few other countries. In a more social note, from what I heard first hand, these stoves were never of mainstream usage in the kitchen. Most families near the city were cooking in large enamelled wood burning stoves until the 50s or 60s, then on bottled gas, that still is the absolutely preferred in Brazil to this day. Farther from the cities, on brick stoves that are still a cultural icon, specially in the northern states. Here’s the wood burning stove my grandparents have in their house from the 70s. It always stood besides a gas burning one, and they only light it in winter to warm the kitchen. It’s great to cook in it, very easy to control and very economical on wood. Much of what I read places pressure stoves on popcorn vendors carts, institutional use in general. There was surely a domestic usage, but most of what I heard about portable stoves from older people was about when you didn’t want to heat up the entire wood stove just to warm some milk or food at night. That’s where the cheap and simple espiriteiras come into play. I did focus this post on pressurised liquid fuel stoves, so here’s a bit on the alternatives Espiriteiras are the small spirit burners that are more common to find. I heard a lot about their use for heating water for chimarrão or coffee. I’ve used many different models for cooking while camping. I have one very similar do the Jagri posted here, but with no branding. It works on the same principle of the Trangia, and it’s a great little companion to my Svea. I made the cap out of the bottom of a spray can. Another interesting model a cast iron one from Marumby, the same makers of my grandparent’s stove. After it starts it’s very hard to put out, since the iron heats up and the alcohol starts boiling. This style seems to be the most common and they’re made new to this day. I’ve seen them used in churrascarias as a way to serve barbecue on a sizzling cast iron tray. Fogãozinho Jacaré This is what I believe most older brazilians will associate with a kerosene stove, it was made by Esso on the name of their Jacaré (alligator) brand kerosene. It's a simple wick stove made from thin sheet metal. I've also seen a few gravity-fed stoves with the spherical reservoir, but no brand name comes to mind as more prominent. A cultural glossary A bit on brazilian portuguese that may be useful for identifying stoves. Firstly, on the words for stoves. I had english as a second language from a very early age and I still get very confused with the difference between a stove, a hob, a range, and a cooker. We use the word "Fogão" to denote the big thing in the kitchen that heats up to cook on (fogo = fire, -ão is a suffix to make things larger. Simple, huh?). "Fogareiro" is usually used to denote something you can take away, something smaller, most of what interests us, HOWEVER the "Fogãozinho" from Esso literally means "small big fire", as -inho is a suffix for small things. Curiously nowadays we unfortunately borrowed the word "cooktop" for any set of burners integrated to a kitchen counter. Kerosene will be written as querosene, kerozene or just as in english, it will depend on when it was written. Naphta was never big as fuel here, our hermanos from the south sometimes call their car fuel nafta. Gasolina is the word for what we feed our Fiats here. But beware! it's almost 40% ethanol. Espiriteira is the word for spirit burner, but "espíritos" as a word for the solvent has seen almost no use in the last hundred years. You'll get álcool to burn in it. A burner, as the individual unit to measure the size of a stove, is called a "boca", the word for mouth. A four burner stove is "um fogão de quatro bocas". In a more technical way it can also be called a "queimador", that literally translates to burner. Made in Brazil will usually be written "Indústria Brasileira" or earlier "Inústria Brazileira", "Ind. Brasileira", etc. "Feito no Brasil" is a more modern but possible alternative. As the case of the three stove manufacturers I wrote about earlier, they all specify the city they were made in. Again, hope this helps! I'm here for any questions and I will post more if I ever find about any other manufacturers or different national stoves.
@Trompczynski . Thanks for the comprehensive article on Brazilian stove manufacturers. To tell you the truth, this is the first time I have seen so much information on this subject. Therefore, all the more appreciation. I'm sorry to hear about the many victims of the disaster that hit the Rio Grande do Sul region. Warm greetings. Stanisław.
@Trompczynski Welcome! I have had a request to move this to the articles section of the site. Unfortunately I can't see any Google hosted images in the opening post. If they could be uploaded directly in a reply here in the order they should appear I can edit them into the original post. Thankyou!
Hey @Spiritburner sorry, it's been a while since I last posted on a forum. Luckily I wrote this on a doc first. Hope this works. Thanks for the help.
Hey @gieorgijewski thanks for those pictures! I've never heard of the Cleverson, will search for it. That Wolff seems to be an export model? Very interesting indeed. The "prata Wolff" mentioned on the other thread is the same company. Never seen a Bacchi stove either, but Bacchi is an old metal company that operates to this day. It only manufactures paper clips nowadays.
You're very welcome! All images are now local to the site. Thanks for uploading them! Apologies for the delay - I've been on holiday & still catching up!
Hi @Trompczynski I’m from south Brazil(RS) and i have a lot of stoves, more than a hundred. Actually several photos that you posted here are from my collection. From Jackwall, i think i have all models( n1,n2,n3, two burners, three burners and 4 burners) From Gasol, i have n10, n100,super 1000, super 2000, i dont know if gasol produced any stove with more than 1 burner. And yes gasol produced all models with 2 types of burners. From Pilling Griebeler i have n1 with roarer and silent burner, 3 burners and 4 burners. But i never saw a pilling n2 or n3. From Wolff i only have seen n1, actually the one that you posted is mine. I’ll post some photos in another day. Great post, thank you. Cheers
