Silvio De Leonardo Red stove

[Kontiki]

Just wanted thoughts on this. I will be using an alcohol stove. Just haven't decided which one yet. I'm a rookie at this, never cooked on an alcohol stove. All I plan on cooking...is boiling water.

[Kookork]

I am a long time alcohol/wood stove user. I watched the video. The stove is very unstable and uses a lot of alcohol and takes a lot of space and possibly it is hard to make and I guess not cheap to buy. The most important fault that really concerns me is stability or the lack of it if you wish.

The pro of it: It is cute and fast to boil two cups of water( if you ignore the priming time the stove needs to start working).
I will go with a safer and cheaper and simpler alcohol stove . We have a member here that makes awesome trail tested alcohol stoves in very nice price. I am sure he will chime in when he sees the thread here.

In short: No thank you .I would avoid such an unstable, heavy and complicated stove.

[Franco]

It looks unstable to me too.
Looks also that you need to use a wide pot otherwise a lot of the flame would be wasted up the sides.
The boil takes about 4 minutes and 10 seconds because you do need to take pre-heat into consideration.
However even at that it is VERY fast and, given he started with 20ml of fuel and the flame went on for another 2:30, looks like it boiled those two cups with less than half an ounce of fuel and that is about the same as for a stove that takes 6-7 minutes to boil the same two cups of water at around that initial starting temperature (16c/61f)

[Kookork]

It looks unstable to me too.
Looks also that you need to use a wide pot otherwise a lot of the flame would be wasted up the sides.
The boil takes about 4 minutes and 10 seconds because you do need to take pre-heat into consideration.
However even at that it is VERY fast and, given he started with 20ml of fuel and the flame went on for another 2:30, looks like it boiled those two cups with less than half an ounce of fuel and that is about the same as for a stove that takes 6-7 minutes to boil the same two cups of water at around that initial starting temperature (16c/61f)

I do not question the efficiency and fast boiling of that stove but the water was 1.5 cup and he injected 25 cc of fuel plus possibly 5 cc of alcohol was used for priming.

My small version of cat stove does boil 1.5 cup of water of 16 degrees centigrade by using 2/3 of an ounce in 8 minutes ( in indoor situation )and it weighs 0.6 oz and costs 25 cent to make.

[Odd Man Out]

Seems to be a lot of uncertainty about the test results. If I'm looking at the right video, that is a giant alcohol stove and as many have stated, looks unstable. I would not use it.

If you are interested in a high power, high efficiency, easy to use alcohol system and are willing to learn how to DIY, you could consider what I am using (Easy Capillary Hoop Stove with an Olicamp XTS pot). This will bring 2 cups of 70 degree water to a full boil in less than 4 minutes with 13 mL fuel. It takes no priming. You just squirt fuel in and light. It comes to full power in a few seconds. When done you can snuff out the flame and recover unused fuel. It weighs just a few grams. It is made from part of a single small V8 juice can. No special tools are needed to make it (except maybe a 0.8 mm drill bit and some JB Weld). With practice you can make one in less than an hour. You also need to make a combo wind screen/pot stand from some aluminum flashing. You could use other pots, but without the heat exchanger you would not get the same performance (but it would still be quite good). If you are interested I can post more detail.

[Kontiki]

Kookork, Franco and Odd Man Out.

Thanks for the advice! After thinking about it. I'm going to try the fancy feast stove w/ 32 holes. There's really not to much difference in boil times I guess. I mean a minute or two isn't going to matter, to me anyway.

Has anyone used the fancy feast, tomato paste can with carbon fiber setup (Hiram Cook)?

Odd Man Out, I like the capillary hoop stoves and if you get a chance I would like to know more about that set up!

Thoughts

[Franco]

Good decision.
In the bush (on the trail) you want simple and as safe as possible because you are not always going to be thinking straight nor have a nice flat table out of the wind to do your boiling.

[Odd Man Out]

Google easy capillary hoop stove and you should find the instruction video on how to make it. To use with a conventional pot you need to make a pot stand a few inches tall. I have used hardware cloth rolled to a circle just a little smaller than the pot for maximum stability. Then make a wind screen out of aluminum flashing. I fold tabs over on both ends in opposite directions so the lock together in circle one half inch larger diameter than the pot. Make the screen as tall as you can but still able to store inside the pot when rolled up. Punch air inlet holes around the perimeter of the bottom. It's important that all the parts work together as a system.