alcohol stove question...

[northernstorm]

i usually for a number of years have used gas stoves religiously, however i am considering making the switch to an alcohol stove. are there anyone out there reading this made the switch to alcohol from gas? why did you do this, and if i decide to switch, where can i get the proper gas to burn? and can it be sent through the mail or should i just buy it as i go?

thanks for reading and especially for the feedback.:banana

[Barbarosa]

I switched last year from a cannister stove to an alcohol stove because:

-I can resupply alcohol easier than cannisters
-It's a little bit lighter
-Denatured alcohol is multipurpose. You can use it to disenfect a cut, or put it on a foot blister after puncturing to dry out and harden the skin, etc.
-An added benefit is not putting empty cannisters in the trash heap.

Cook time is longer, but not a big deal for me.

[Rocket Jones]

Heet gas-line anti-freeze in the yellow bottle works great in an alcohol stove and is available at any gas station. Avoid the stuff in the red bottle. I use denatured alcohol, got a big can of it cheap at XYZMart.

[Raul Perez]

for hiking I made the transition to alcohol mainly due to the packability and decreased weight. The availability of denatured alcohol is also a plus.

[BrianLe]

There's also the "granularity" problem. With a cannister, you're periodically faced with the question of taking one (small or large) cannister and whether that will be enough, or taking two. With alcohol, you just take about what you think you'll need, round up as desired.

Also, cannisters tend to collect. Starting a new trip, there's a natural tendency to want to start out with a full cannister, with the result that you end up with a collection at home of partial cannisters.

But (for me at least), it's mostly about weight and fuel availability. If you're doing mostly short trips and/or you cook for multiple people or multiple times a day, your trade-offs might work out differently.

[BobTheBuilder]

The previous responses all make sense. I am far enough up the trail that I fly to get to a section hike, and you can't take any kind of liquid fuel in your luggage. I actually have had to schedule my flight around when I can find an outfitter open to get my Jetboil canister before I hit the trail. If I was till using my alcohol stove, it would be a lot easier just to find a Home Depot or Ace Hardware. Still, I made the switch from alcohol to Jetboil for the convenience. The weight difference was minor, and I don't worry about my alcohol bottle leaking in my pack or tipping it over on the table. I like the quick boil time for morning coffee or afternoon cider without all the parts/pieces in my alcohol setup, too.

[Tinker]

After having two canisters fail to reseal, leaking away all the remaining fuel, I decided to try alcohol. The stoves are basically foolproof, you just need to know how much alcohol you'll need for each use and figure out how much you'll need per trip. The downside is that alcohol cannot apply as much heat to any given pot in any situation as blended fuel canisters or white gas. This isn't a problem in warm weather, but in cold weather I've found that you must sleep with your alcohol and your water or your boil times will be incredibly slow, if boil occurs at all, meaning you'll use huge quantities of alcohol in cold weather (unless, of course, you take the advice I gave above. In winter I almost always have a warming fire at night, so often I use it to cook, and have learned to use it to heat up water in a metal flask (stainless, in my case). I put it in a sock or insulated waterbottle holder and take it to bed with me. It keeps me warmer, and the speed at which my water boils the next morning for breakfast (usually I let the warming fire go out) is sometimes nearly as good as it is in the summer. So there you have it. I also use a Supercat stove (the lightest, simplest design to make yourself) because it doesn't require a separate pot support, saving weight and requiring a shorter windscreen (which can make or break your stove, performance-wise). I'll post a pic of my cooking gear when I get a chance. Right now I have to get ready to go out.

[Spokes]

All good responses. You definitely will not have any problems finding denatured alcohol along the way. Most hostels sell it by the ounce.

Now the reality:

If you add up the "total" weight of canister stove cook kit and an alcohol stove cook kit including fuel you'll find it only saves you a few grams.

Check out this comparison chart (http://thru-hiker.com/articles/stoveweight_vs_time_14days.php) for weight savings over time.

[russb]

http://www.howardjohnson.name/Backpacking/Stove/Stoves.htm is a neat little calculator. For me, my alky stove saves much more than just a few grams. But mine is a very efficient stove.

[Boothill]

i have found "Klean Strip Green" a denatured alcohol that is supposed to be "green" and better for the environment

but what i like about it, is according to their spec sheet it's atleast 90% ethanol, which means less of the other crap they put in most denatured alcohols

i have burned "Heet" before and just don't like the fumes that it gives off compared to denatured alcohol

boot

[Doc Mike]

Save lots of money and buy your methanol by the 55 gal drum. $180 for 7040 oz = 2.6 cents per oz not meaning to highjack the thread much but what do the hostels charge per oz.

BTW I buy it that way to make Biodeisel using it in an alcohol stove is a bonus.

Doc Mike

[Miner]

I changed because I realized that even with my canister stove, all I did was boil water. The alcohol stove is generally lighter, less to go wrong, easier to find fuel for in small towns/gas stations with no outfitter. Its easy to see how much fuel you have left to judge how long it will last (ie. look at your clear plastic fuel bottle). Stove can be easily replaced on trail since the simplest type of alcohol stove are just an open can like a cat food can with a pot holder over it. There are others that are harder and more involved to make, but the internet has good directions.

[SMSP]

I've been experimenting with the alcohol option lately.


Canister wise, I have the following:

Pocket Rocket
Jetboil
The Jetboil is the most efficient out of the two above, but weighs the most.

Alcohol stove wise, I have the following:
Vargon Decagon Titanium
Gram Weenie Pro from End2End
The Thru Hiker Stove from End 2End
The Brasslite Turbo I-D

The simplicity of the alcohol stoves is cool and I dont have the patience to even try to build one. No sense is trying to re-invent the wheel since others have paved the way I suppose, YMMV. From my experience so far, it has taken about 1 ounce (sometimes less, sometimes more) of HEET to heat up 2-3 cups of water depending on which alcohol stove (above) is used.

I buy into the alcohol route because;
1. It is more available based on others experience (I'm not a long distance hiker yet, but a weekend warrior)
2. Cost less than canisters
3. It's cool and simple

I am not impressed with the weight savings though for going the alcohol route. Yes, technically speaking, the alcohol route weighs less. I'm not a gram counter, but I do pay attention to ounces and the difference is not that huge IMO.




The following are notes I've made recently:

The Thru Hiker Stove (THS) weighs .6oz
The Gram Weenie Pro Stove (GWP) weighs .7
Vargo Decagon Titanium Alcohol Stove (VDT) weighs 1.3oz
Brasslite I Turbo (BLT) weighs 2.0oz
MSR Pocket Rocket Stove (PR) weighs 3.3oz; with storage box, it weighs 3.9oz
Homemade Aluminum Windscreen weighs .3oz
End2End Trail Supply 3.5” Windscreen weighs .9oz
4oz End2End Fuel Bottle (actually holds @5oz) with fuel weighs 4.4oz
2oz End2End Fuel Bottle (actually holds @3oz) with fuel weighs 2.4oz
2oz Eye Drop Bootle (actually holds @3+oz) with fuel weighs 2.8oz
2oz Flip-up Lid Bottle (actually holds 2+oz) with fuel weighs 2.2oz
JetBoil 100g fuel canister weighs 6.8 oz
MSR Titan Kettle (TK) weighs 4.4oz
SnowPeak 600 (SP) cup/bowl weighs 2.9oz
Mini-Bic Lighter weighs .4oz
(all weights are approximate, I am using an old digital scale that was used for weighing meal portions)



The following are different set-ups I've experimented around with:

TK/VDT, blue paper towel, end2end windscreen, lighter & 2 eye drop bottles weigh @ 12.6oz
TK/THS, blue paper towel, end2end windscreen, lighter & 2 eye drop bottles weigh @ 11.9oz
TK/GWP, blue paper towel, end2end windscreen, lighter & 2 eye drop bottles weigh @ 12.0oz
TK/PR, blue paper towel, no windscreen, lighter & JB 100g fuel canister weighs 15.5oz
SP/PR, blue paper towel, no windscreen, lighter & JB 100g fuel canister weighs 14.0oz
If you take the heaviest set-up (15.5oz) above versus the lightest set-up (11.9oz) above, it's only about a 3.6oz difference. I suppose for one that counts grams, that is huge, but for me, it's not dramatic. The total of the two eye drop bottles is about 6oz, so thats about 6 burns. A 100g canister can burn about 24 times at 2cups/water (of course, in a controlled setting). Does this mean I done with alcohol stoves? No way! I got many miles to hike, so I plan to use different set-ups (alcohol & canister) as I go for my walks in the woods.

As far as having left over partially filled canisters, I will also be doing quite a bit of car camping with the family along they way, so those partials will get used then.

This has been my experience thus far, YMMV.

SMSP

[mkmangold]

BTW I buy it that way to make Biodeisel using it in an alcohol stove is a bonus.

Doc Mike

Nice: multi-use! Why does it take alcohol to make biodiesel, though?
--- Doc Mike

[moytoy]

Nice: multi-use! Why does it take alcohol to make biodiesel, though?
--- Doc Mike
Alcohol is used in the chemical process of making diesel from veg. oil. You can find lots of info on the internet about making your own biodiesel. I have made small amounts of biodiesel that will run in my 86 diesel ranger.
I have never bought a 55 gal drum though. I use yellow bottle HEET mostly in my alky stove.

[Wil]

you can't take any kind of liquid fuel in your luggageI had no idea. Thanks. Been including a container of alcohol in my checked luggage for backpacking trips for years, several times a year. This _is_ in fact against regulations as I now research it. No flammable liquids, not even beverage alcohol over 70% (140 proof). I suspect a lot of backpackers didn't know that.

I feel I should turn myself in, but it's early in the morning and I don't want to wake anybody up.

[Daydream Believer]

I switched recently from gas to alcohol. I bought a Packafeather stove the XL version:

http://www.packafeather.com/ I was quite pleased with the stove and used it on my last section hike. It did fine in near freezing temps and the windscreen they sell is easy to use and very light. What I like about this stove is that you can simmer with it unlike most alcohol stoves which are full blast or nothing. I cooked one morning beside my tent at a gap and it was quite windy. It never blew out and while it took a tiny bit longer to boil water, it was not a big deal.

My ONLY complaint is their bottle top system for your fuel bottle. I found it leaked even with the "right" bottle (which is hard to find due to the change in low profile lids). It was not a big deal to pour the unused fuel back into the bottle when I was done though so that is what I ended up doing after the first day.

[Doc Mike]

mkmangold, methanol combines with triglycerides using lye as a catalyst to form methylesters(biodeisel) and glycerine(soap) this gets rid of used oil and makes 2 useful products.

Doc Mike

[Spokes]

.....

My ONLY complaint is their bottle top system for your fuel bottle. I found it leaked even with the "right" bottle (which is hard to find due to the change in low profile lids).....


I carry my alchy fuel in a Tropicana Orange Juice bottle. It's never leaked.




http://s7.thisnext.com/media/230x230/Tropicana-Orange-Juice_C6EB6BBC.jpg

[Grampie]

During mu 2001 thru I started with a Wisper Lite stove. It worked very well for me and had no problems getting fule along the trail. While in Erwin, TN a hiker made me a alcohol stove from a soda can and I started to test use it. It worked fine for my needs, mostly Lipton sides, so I sent the MRS home and used the alcohol the rest of my hike. My main reason to switch was to save weight.

[northernstorm]

thanks for the informative advice everyone! i guess its just up to me and weigh the pros and cons. ill be leaving for my thru march 5th, so it will still be cold. someone mentioned the cold affects the alcohol burners. i dunno, i have a little over 5 months now to decide.

[mister krabs]

thanks for the informative advice everyone! i guess its just up to me and weigh the pros and cons. ill be leaving for my thru march 5th, so it will still be cold. someone mentioned the cold affects the alcohol burners.

Cold affects canister stoves more than it affects alcohol. Iditerod racers use alcohol stoves.

[northernstorm]

i have taken all of your advice and watched a youtube video of a guy making an alcohol stove from a beer can, i have tested it and am very pleased with the results. alcohol burns fairly fast however.

[russb]

Have fun. Remember not all alcohol stoves are the same. Some are very efficient, some not so much. In my experience any of the designs which use "jets" are less efficient (defined as fuel usage) when compared to open top or wick based stoves. The jetted stoves are also less effective in the cold. The wick stoves, like the fancee feest, work even in sub-zero weather. I have used one at -11F to melt snow. In "normal" temperatures the fanacee feest will boil 2 cups with about 1/2ounce of alcohol.

[mweinstone]

marine fuel. thats why it is used in the cabins of ships. no fumes. not explosively combustable. can be used as first aid. why i switched years ago.05 maby.

[Spokes]

i have taken all of your advice and watched a youtube video of a guy making an alcohol stove from a beer can, i have tested it and am very pleased with the results. alcohol burns fairly fast however.

Alcohol burns at a fairly consistent rate in open vent stoves.

However the biggest problem with closed vent styles is over-priming them to achieve a bloom. It takes some experimenting to get it right.

I use to love building and using closed vent stoves but finally figured out they were really a hassle.

The simple cat food can stove is bombproof.

[northernstorm]

awesome. i see what you mean about fuel efficiency with the "jetted" stove. its a pain in the a$$ to get lit too!

[Odd Man Out]

The pro's and con's of each type of stove are generally well documented. However I suggest that the term "efficiency" when applied to stove usage is not well documented or used consistently. Correctly, it should refer to the amount of heat delivered to the water per volume of fuel burned. Unfortunately, I often see the time to boil used to imply efficiency, but this would be correctly defined as power, which is often inversely proportional to efficiency. To claim that pressurized jet stoves are less efficient because they need to be primed is also misleading. Top jetted stoves (which use a pot stand) can have the pot over the stove while priming, so the heat produced during the priming process is not lost. At this point the top jet stoves are burning like a chimney/wick stove so there is no inherent disadvantage. Side burning stoves (super cat e.g.) burn for a while (30 sec?) until you can put the pot on so all of this heat will be lost, cutting way back on overall efficiency. But a priming system that allows you to get the pot on the stove sooner should help a lot with efficiency.

As I have played with a bunch of home made stoves (all kinds) over the past couple of months, it has occurred to me that the best and easiest way to measure efficiency would be to put a standard amount of fuel in a stove (measured very accurately) and heat a pot of water that has more water that will boil for that amount of fuel. Heat delivered to the water will be proportional to the temperature increase. Thus with a fixed volume of fuel and water, stove efficiency would be proportional to temp change (max temp minus initial temp) and power would be inversely proportional to time to max temp. With this system, it would be easy to do an "apples to apples" comparison of stove, as well as to assess their relative performance in different conditions (wind/temperature/pots size/wind screen). Note that when doing this, it would be important that any fuel used to prime the stove come from the fixed volume, and not added to that to make the test fair.

[Spokes]

... To claim that pressurized jet stoves are less efficient because they need to be primed is also misleading. ....

They're only "less efficient" when over-primed resulting in flash burning of the main fuel.

A dead give away is when a closed vent stove looks and sounds like a jet engine taking off and a befuddled hiker with singed eyebrows says "Golly, wonder what happened"?

[Skidsteer]

The pro's and con's of each type of stove are generally well documented. However I suggest that the term "efficiency" when applied to stove usage is not well documented or used consistently. Correctly, it should refer to the amount of heat delivered to the water per volume of fuel burned. Unfortunately, I often see the time to boil used to imply efficiency, but this would be correctly defined as power, which is often inversely proportional to efficiency. To claim that pressurized jet stoves are less efficient because they need to be primed is also misleading. Top jetted stoves (which use a pot stand) can have the pot over the stove while priming, so the heat produced during the priming process is not lost. At this point the top jet stoves are burning like a chimney/wick stove so there is no inherent disadvantage. Side burning stoves (super cat e.g.) burn for a while (30 sec?) until you can put the pot on so all of this heat will be lost, cutting way back on overall efficiency. But a priming system that allows you to get the pot on the stove sooner should help a lot with efficiency.

As I have played with a bunch of home made stoves (all kinds) over the past couple of months, it has occurred to me that the best and easiest way to measure efficiency would be to put a standard amount of fuel in a stove (measured very accurately) and heat a pot of water that has more water that will boil for that amount of fuel. Heat delivered to the water will be proportional to the temperature increase. Thus with a fixed volume of fuel and water, stove efficiency would be proportional to temp change (max temp minus initial temp) and power would be inversely proportional to time to max temp. With this system, it would be easy to do an "apples to apples" comparison of stove, as well as to assess their relative performance in different conditions (wind/temperature/pots size/wind screen). Note that when doing this, it would be important that any fuel used to prime the stove come from the fixed volume, and not added to that to make the test fair.

You might be interested in this article on the subject:

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19616

It has an excel spreadsheet to automatically calculate pretty much what you're talking about.

[tuswm]

I use canister, gas, camp fire, and alcohol stoves. I have had issues with the walmart canisters not opening unless screwed on super tight with my MSR pocket rocket.

One thing that made resupply easier was switching from white gas to regular unleaded right out of a gas pump. I have never had any clogging issues with my MSR simmerlite.