I've made three different beer can alcohol stoves so far. The penny stove is the best design by a good margin. I also made one which is basically a smaller version of the Trangia stove. Both are small, extremely light and at least as effective as a Coleman gas stove in terms of how long it takes to boil a pint of water. There are only two disadvantages, namely slightly less convenient operation and relative fragility. I ruined my first mini stove when I stepped on it accidentally at my campsite one day.

I have no actual hands-on experience with a Trangia stove yet but they seem well made and stirdy. If they work anywhere near as well as my improvised alcohol stoves I would pick one over a Coleman any day.

The only stove I currently lust for is the Primus Omnifuel Titanium

http://www.moontrail.com/primus-omnifuel-titanium.php

as you can see from this photo i'm a stove enthusiast..



at home and on camping trips i've tried out just about ever sort of stove that will burn something.



kerosene..which is nasty and greasy but burns hot and go's a long way..



too alcohol which burns sweet,is easy to get and use but does not burn as hot as..



white gas or Coleman fuel which is great in cold weather,lots of stoves are made that burn it and gallon cans are easy to find.




or you could get carts of canned Gaz of some sort which are very easy to light,burn and store but like in this photo loose power in cold weather..i had to spoon warm water into the stove base to get enough heat to get water to a rolling boil..
i have a wood burning Zip Stove but i'll stop here,you get the idea.it's not the stove as much as what kind of fuel you expect to have avalable,if any past what you are able to carry with you. %90 of the stoves made are just fine with a few "dogs" out there with bad pumps or flimsy parts but for the most part any one will work..a survival stove in my view is one that will go into a pack or some sort,large or small, and be forgot until it's pulled out and fired up to save your skin..a Gaz might be best here..camping--i would say a Coleman fuel stove of any kind that strikes your fancy.they make stoves for mountain climbers to family outings..the best place for details on stoves is at Classic Camp Stoves where you will find a wealth of information and photos of stoves in use from the highlands of Scotland to..well my Midwest backyard..

A few things to consider in a survival stove:

Coleman fuel, propane and fuel canisters disappear quickly from store shelves in and near disaster areas.

Consider the inherent safety of storage and long term viability of fuels that may be kept a car trunk, etc., for a long time.

My choice is alcohol.

The stoves are small, light, and very simple, with no moving parts, and can even be improvised on the spot with scavenged materials. Alcohol is less volatile than other liquid or pressurized fuels, and it is stable over the long term. Fuel is widely available at any hardware, paint, pharmacy, liqueur or auto parts store, in the form of rubbing alcohol, starter fluid/de-icer, high-proof booze, denatured alcohol, etc. It does offer a little less heat energy than other fuels, but I've found it entirely adequate for boiling water, and for making simple meals and hot beverages.

It also burns silently with minimal visible light, if stealth is important to you. Gas stoves, on the other hand, often roar like miniature jet engines.

Something that came up earlier in the thread that I think should be discussed more: carbon monoxide.

CO exposure is cumulative. Once it binds to the receptors in the red blood cells, it stays there until the cells die and are replaced normally -- up to 4 months. Even low level exposure can be lethal in only a few hours, and high-level in less than one.

Combustion products should to be vented DIRECTLY outside. Even being in the flow from the source to the outlet will allow CO to accumulate in your blood.

I think anyone considering a bug-in situation should plan on having the stove/whatever outside, somewhere that airflow can't carry the CO inside. A fireplace with the flue open might be safe, but I don't know enough about it to be sure, myself. A wood fire produces a much stronger convection flow than a camp stove would, and I would still be concerned about CO escaping into the room.

Edit: I recognize that most of the people posting here have experience and knowledge of this. I'm posting for the people who might be lurking, and are new to all of this.

lets talk about a real survival stove,not a sit at home and wait for the power to come back on Coleman or a hide out in the woods pop can stove but one that would be in a kit that is only opened as a last resort..you have only the fuel that is packed with it and you have to use it because for what ever reason you can't start--note i did not say have,but start a fire.wet,snow,whatever.having this will mean the difference between getting on the pick-up craft/vehicle tired,hungry and standing and not carried on hypothermic and semi-conscious.

Maybe it's because it was hard to follow the ultra long run-on sentence and odd punctuation in your post, but I'm unclear what you're actually looking to discuss.

You seemed to have eliminated most options, claiming the stove needs to be something people only use in a last resort. But most of what has already been posted are stoves people DO actually keep in their BOB and plan to use as an emergency/survival stove. Most people put it into use prior because it just makes sense to test it and get familiar with it. That doesn't make it any less a "survival stove".

You stated we have to use the fuel we have on us, but then claim we can't start the stove. This doesn't make sense to me since most of the stoves already mentioned don't have trouble starting up. I mean, as long as you have a match, lighter, striker, whatever you can start an alcohol stove.

and I couldn't follow any of that last bit about "start a fire.wet,snow,whatever."

True about the CO. Almost all stove have to be outside and even natural gas and butane are better outside.
During the ice storms in Quebec a few years ago people died because they set up generators inside their houses for power.
So it is not just stoves to be aware of the risk of poisoning from.

About alcohol for fuel;

Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) tends to burn sooty and cooler than methanol or ethanol.
It is usually full of water too and unless you are going to skim it off after salting the solution you are better with methanol.

Methanol is by far the best alcohol for fuel.
You can buy clean pure methanol (wood alcohol) as fondue fuel, wood alcohol and it is in paint stores as a solvent for shellac.
You can find it as fuel line antifreeze too, but it is way to expensive that way.
It is a poison too so it must not be used for drinking.

Ethyl alcohol (grain alcohol)is the stuff that yeast makes when fed sugar. Wine, beer and whisky are all solutions of ethyl alcohol.
It is clear burning but it is usually diluted and is awfully expensive for fuel. You can buy it as Everclear which is used as booze, or as lab alcohol.
Very expensive either way.

I doubt if many of us have the skills to ferment a mash and distill our own alcohol, or the interest in doing so either.



I have a pair of backpacker white fuel (multi fuel with the 1/2 liter fuel bottles.
One is Svea and the other is MSR Dragonfly.
They are both the multi fuel versions.
They are also roarer head stoves, so yes they sound like jet planes, but they put out a hellacious amount of heat for the size of them.

I have also used can candles. Not nearly as much heat, but double as light and using beeswax means little or no worry about carbon monoxide.
This means they can be used to heat a tent or inside a car.

YT and others..sorry about the sorry state of my posting,if i was any good at this i would have a blog or something.when i said start a fire i was thinking of a open fire.you need the stove and it's fuel to get along.no BOB's,they are just camping gear by the door.i'm thinking of a overboard and washed ashore or get out of the wrecked whatever with the sealed kit that has been under the seat for years semi-forgotten.that kind of stove.
the questions will become apparent in a few weeks when i'm working out the Ditch Vest for next years canoe trips.

Canoedogs -- a remote boat mishap in Minnesota certainly would present special planning needs.

In my travels around Washington, D.C. and the mid-Atlanic, it's unlikely I'll ever be stranded more than 10 miles from a McDonald's.

Unless I'm on a camping trip or coming home from the supermarket, I won't have any groceries in the car to cook.

This discussion does renew my interest in getting the smallest Kelly Kettle, which uses twigs or dung for fuel. Would be worth leaving that in the car.

What alcohol stoves do peops recommend?