I run Trangias, tried making a few other. Things to consider:
First, respect it's limits. You aren't going to make pancakes on it, but you can boil water and heat canned food.
Ethanol and methanol have relatively high temperatures of vaporization. That is a fancy way of saying they can get kinda quirky below freezing. I have a spacer made from a tuna fish can (fits wonderfully) I use to keep it off the ground, and in colder weather I've dropped a cotton ball or two into, burned them about half down, and then put the Trangia on top of so that everything is nice and warm. It is a little risky to then fuel it if it gets too hot, but I've literally run a Trangia on a block of ice with air temps right around freezing that way. But in any kind of cold weather, carry the stove in your jacket wit you, keep it warm.
Always have a wind screen, wind screens make these work so much better.
Getting one lit properly takes some practice. Fortunately, fuel is cheap. Priming is critical, otherwise you have pool of fuel in the bottom of a can burning openly, which isn't very effective.
Always carry a fuel measure. In my Trangia, I've got a cut down film cannister, but there are some other ways that are very cool like
this guy, although I prefer an aluminum bottle. And always have a pin or a sewing needle around- if you see one of the burner holes being off kilter, you probably have carbon built up there and just need to clean it.
Fuel- once it goes in the stove, unless you have a good snuffer, it's going to get burned. And even with a good snuffer, draining all but the most basic stove (which is a can full of fuel) is a pain and never quite complete.
Feed it ethanol and methanol, or a mix there of (denatured alcohol from the paint section of a hardware stove). Some people have concerns about methanol's combustion products, but it has slightly higher energy than ethanol. I try to run denatured, but I always carry a bottle of yellow HEET as a back up to that. In either case, you need a good bottle, as both want to absorb water from the atmosphere which lowers the quality of the fuel.
Advantages are, ethanol and methanol occur naturally, so if you spill a little, it's not like it was white gas. IF it leaks in your pack, spread your gear out in the sun- it will evaporate much more quickly, although you'll want to wash it, then line dry it, then wash it again. If you do choose to run dentaured, or ethanol, you can use it as a disinfectant, although if you just going to be decontaminating something after being exposed to a possible BBP methanol should kill everything to, I just wouldn't use it on anything that might be going into anyone.
Use ONLY ethanol/methanol. Isopropal (sp) and things like witch hazel liniment that have an alcohol base work, sorta, but badly. Very low temp, very dirty burning, and burns very cool. And don't even try a petrochem or turpentine or mineral spirits. Assuming it doesn't explode or turn into a rocket, it will probably turn your stove into a puddle of slag.
And mark your fuel bottle as fuel, not alcohol. Methanol can make you go blind if you drink enough of it, and your liver will want to beat you. I know you've got it together, but every troops has a couple of people who do stupid stuff. They might try to liberate your "booze". And don't recycle a small soda or water bottle- it works, but they aren't very strong and people do stupid stuff.
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