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Pedestrian
03-31-2003, 09:18
My daughter and son-in-law were at Siler Bald Shelter, NC Sunday Morning (3/30/03). The temps were in the teens with lots of snow on the ground.

They were unable to get there homemade photon stove to light. They said the denatured alcohol would not light. I knew preformance would deminish in cold weather. I did not Know that there could be a total failure to light.

I've used denatured alcohol stoves for years but never in extreme cold temps. Does this sound right to yall? I plan on testing my stove now by placing the fuel in stove in the freezer and allowing its temperature to drop and then trying to light it.

If anyone already has test data on this condition I would love to see it.

Thanks

earplug
03-31-2003, 10:14
This winter at the parking lot of Newfound Gap it was 20 degrees and I tried to make hot chocolate and ended up with slightly warm chocolate. It fired up fine but with the mass of the side of the pot even with the lid on it did not get hot even after 20 minutes. Have been told many times since and read some that this is common. I personally only this one situation I can talk about.

chris
03-31-2003, 10:27
I've never had an alcohol stove fail to light in cold conditions. I have used in when the ambient temps were in the 20s. There is a serious performance drop off (in terms of boil time) when temperatures get down to around freezing. The type of stove I use, though, is an open-burner design: It is just the bottom third of a beer can. Photon stoves are more closed up and I had problems with the first few that I made. I could never get them to work quite right. My guess would be that the cold temperature affected the rate at which the alcohol was evaporating. What is lit (and burns) are these fumes. With a closed design, this might make lighting hard, as your fire source is further away from the few fumes that do exist. An open design should be easier to light. Of course, I haven't had chemistry for many, many years. There are some people with training in chemistry on this board. Any ideas?

Pedestrian
03-31-2003, 11:01
Thanks for your replies. I have exprienced the same loss in efficiency but have always been able to light the alcohol. It could be thier own incompetence. I just thought I would check with the group here and see if that is a posibility.

chris
03-31-2003, 11:05
From my own experience, most of my problems are caused by some form of my own incompetance.

slabfoot
03-31-2003, 11:35
on a snowy hike presidents day weekend near huntington pa i had good luck with my pepsi stove made to sgt. rocks specs. it was 10 deg. F breezy and snowing about 2 inches per hour. my fuel bottle had ice crystals clinging to the inside and the water i was about to boil had chunks of ice floating around in it. three capfuls of denatured alchhol got the water steaming, i relit with another two capfuls and got a full boil with no trouble. made a nice hot lunch in the cozy. i was surprised the little pepsi stove did so well considering the conditions.

DebW
03-31-2003, 15:29
Originally posted by slabfoot
on a snowy hike presidents day weekend near huntington pa i had good luck with my pepsi stove made to sgt. rocks specs. it was 10 deg. F breezy and snowing about 2 inches per hour. my fuel bottle had ice crystals clinging to the inside

Ice crystals in your fuel bottle of alcohol? The freezing point of methanol is 70 K (that's -183C). Maybe if the fuel was ethanol or isopropanol with some water content.

tlbj6142
03-31-2003, 15:50
Could have just been water vapor in the bottle.

I had crystals form inside what I thought was an empty Nalgene.

Jumpstart
03-31-2003, 17:28
On a ten -degree night in the Smokies, using our Trangia Westwind alcohol stove, we boiled a pot and half of water for cocoa, with no problems. Haven't ever had troubles with alcohol, despite the temperature.

jlb2012
03-31-2003, 19:42
A couple things:
1.) if one has a problem lighting an alcohol stove due to cold one approach that works well is the Buddur method - pick up stove and hold your lighter under it for 15 seconds then proceed to light it normally. This approach is known to work well with the typical pepsi can type of stove but I am less sure of its effectiveness with the photon type of stove - I think it should still work however.
2.) make sure you are using an insulated pad under the stove if it is cold - ex a foil covered mouse pad reflector
3.) with respect to the ice crystals - that is just water vapor separating out of the alcohol - a similar effect to freezing hard cider to concentrate the alcohol in the remaining liquid - there is some small amount of water in almost all alcohol, pulled out of the air if no other place - since there is some water then there is also some water vapor in the bottle - get it cold and the water vapor will start forming crystals

Youngblood
03-31-2003, 20:22
I think the problem is that the alcohol does not vaporize as well at cold temperatures. I place the alcohol and lighter close to my body for a few minutes to warm it up a little before using it.

With my Trangia stove I just tilt and lite the alcohol at the edge of the burner.

With my home made stove (two tins from tea light candles for burners) I use a pre-heat plate made of aluminum foil. Splash a little alcohol from a burner to the pre-heat plate and lite the alcohol on the pre-heat plate, the alcohol on the pre-heat plate is much easier to lite than the alcohol in the burners. This will warm the alcohol in the burners and also lite them.

Youngblood

Virginian
03-31-2003, 22:09
Ive got one word for you all "Whisperlite"

brian
03-31-2003, 23:13
*sticks tongue out a virginian*

I feel the same way when my buddies say the word tent instead of hammock. I scoff at their petty knowledge

Brian

slabfoot
04-01-2003, 01:09
is it worked fine for the sort of trail meals i'm used to cooking even under relatively adverse cold weather conditions so i'll continue to plan my benign expeditions based on the known(by me) conditions that allow a half ounce homemade stove to fill my gut with a hot pot of noodles!(i do have an assortment of msr products on the shelve).

Pedestrian
04-01-2003, 08:55
Thanks for all of the great advice & tips. -Wisperlight?-Done that.-No thanks!-:)

I talked to them today & found out that they had hung their stove & fuel in their bear bag overnight. They said they actually extinguished their matches in the alcohol trying to light it.

When I got home yesterday, I took your suggestions & tried them out. I placed my stove & fuel in my freezer and took my son to ball practice. When we got home, we retrieved the cookset poured some fuel into the stove & tried to light it. No good. I then poured a small amount of fuel onto my heat reflector and that fuel ignited easily. I then replaced the stove on the heat reflector while the fuel was still burning and the stove ignited. I then placed the stove and fuel back into the freezer for about an hour.

After about an hour I took the stove and fuel back out and filled my stove back up. I then held a lit match under the stove for about 10 seconds. After placing the stove back onto the cold heat reflector the stove ignited easily.

Thanks for the 2 great tips. I have always kept my cook set in my tent with me at night and never left it out like they did. It's always great to learn a new trick or two.

tlbj6142
04-01-2003, 10:01
Originally posted by Pedestrian
I have always kept my cook set in my tent with me at night and never left it out like they did.You must do a good job of cleaning up after you eat. I would think the food smells in the cookware would be quite strong.

chris
04-01-2003, 12:26
Just keep the bottle of alcohol with you. On very cold nights, put it in the foot area of your sleeping bag. You can do the same thing with a water bottle to keep it from freezing overnight.

Pedestrian
04-01-2003, 12:47
You must do a good job of cleaning up after you eat. I would think the food smells in the cookware would be quite strong.

You don't clean up after every meal? hummmm!

tlbj6142
04-01-2003, 14:25
I typically just clean-up after breakfast. I heat up a bit more water than I need for oatmeal, grits, tea, etc. And use the warm water (no soap) to clean off the scum from the night before.

After dinner, sometimes I swish around some "extra" cold water in the pot/bowl to get rid of the "big chunks". I hate to run 2 boils for dinner just to clean the pot/spoon. And frankly, I'm more concerned about getting the runs from the soap than I am from bugs. I just find that you need too much water to completly rise off the soap.

Up 'till now the most time I've spent in the backcountry is 4 days (3 nights), but I assume I'd use the soap at somepoint when I had a short day with plenty of water around. But, then, would I have to treat the rinse water?

chris
04-01-2003, 14:44
If you are very strict about treating water, you would only have to treat the rinse water if you were planning on eating out of the pot without first cooking it in. For example, in the morning you use the pot as a cereal bowl and have corn flakes, or some other cold cereal. The most common thing, in this vein, that I see is people rinsing out their cups with untreated water, but being fastideous with most other aspects of sanitation. Or, jumbling the inflow-outflow tubes of their filters together. I don't think it is super important to be this clean on the AT, but some people do.

tlbj6142
04-01-2003, 14:54
Originally posted by chris
If you are very strict about treating water, you would only have to treat the rinse water if you were planning on eating out of the pot without first cooking it in.Of course, this assumes you bring water to a boil while cooking.:banana

chris
04-01-2003, 15:37
One does not have to bring water up to a full boil to achieve a great measure of sanitation. I must confess igorance as to the exact temperature at which giardia dies, but for homebrewing, bringing the wort (liquid) up to a temperature of around 160 degrees (F) is sufficient to kill off most of the bacteria.

Dirtyoldman
04-03-2003, 06:13
170 degrees for 10 is garanteed to kill in all conditions.

warm the fuel up in your jacket will make lighting easier.