All alcohols are NOT created equal. But which ones make decent stove fuel?

In this week's blog post, I try to answer "What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel?"

HJ

nice thanks. I use the Denatured stuff, you can buy at box stores and REI.

What do you mean by fuel velocity? I use a White Box Stove (mod: wrapped kevlar twine around it to light faster). I get that its the vapor that ignites and when there is no pot on top it burns fairly weak. Place a pot or kettle on top and the pressure creates a very loud and powerful flame.

I do still use the provided windscreen.

Flame velocity (not fuel velocity) is the issue.

Think about how flames shoot out of a blow torch. Try waving the flame from a blow torch around in the breeze from a fan on low. It won't affect the flame much. Now take a candle. Wave the candle flame in the same breeze. You should see a pronounced effect on the flame. A blow torch has a high velocity flame; a candle has a low velocity flame.

In like manner, an alcohol stove typically has a relatively low velocity flame. Wind affects an alcohol stove flame more than it will a gas or gasoline/kerosene stove's flame. You're making the right choice using a windscreen with an alcohol stove.

HJ

Nice article Jim. Thanks. FYI for all you alcohol stove users, Klean Strip Green is only slightly more expensive than regular denatured alcohol.

Thanks for the article. I have seen a number of other articles as well trying to answer the same question.

I have never seen Everclear grain alcohol. It's only for sale in Alberta and not my province. Probably because it would be too easy for substance abuse. But all reports say that it is the best stuff to burn.

Denatured grain alcohol has about 5% water content. However, because of the methanol additive, one has to be careful not to spill it on your hands because of the toxicity. Depending on the manufacturer it can be denatured with as little as 5% methanol or as much as 75% methanol so you have to check the MSDS sheets for the true content. It is not as common as pure methanol.

Methyl hydrate (methanol, mineral spirits) sold in the form of paint thinner has about 10% water content. It is cheap and available in convenient 1 and 4 litre quantities for about $3/$10. It is also available as chaffing dish or fondue fuel but for some reason it is more expensive! If you buy it in the 250 ml bottles as in anti-freeze or yellow HEET version you are paying a lot per BTU used. I made the mistake once by hurriedly grabbing a similar looking bottle to methyl hydrate and got shellac thinner (turpentine) which is NOT the same - it is heavy and leaves a sooty residue although once it got lit it burned like a torch!

Lower down on the list is isopropyl alcohol (30+% water), rubbing alcohol and gelled alcohol (Sterno).

The thing I like with alcohol stoves is that you don't need to transport a white fuel or canister stove when travelling by air. If you don't carry a stove, you won't get hassled by the TSA or equivalent. Simply empty a couple cans of pop or beer, cut, fit, make jet holes and add alcohol to burn! And at the end of the trip, just recycle the stove.

Sidebar: I tried a blend of Coleman fuel and methyl hydrate just for the test in my alcohol jet stove. I used three blends: 75/25, 50/50 and 25/75 with about 1 oz. of fuel. The 75/25 Coleman/MH was scary. It became a frigging blow torch and is way too volatile for a jet stove. The 25/75 blend worked great -- the added BTU value of the Coleman fuel boiled water much faster. I was concerned about the two fuels separating, the MH evaporating faster, uneven combustion, etc. Also, the hassle of mixing the fuels and storage took away from the convenience and simplicity so I never bothered with this again.

Id have say that the dual use nature of Everclear seems to make it the clear winner in my mind. Of course you have to make sure you don't get carried away and drink the rest of your fuel.

I haven't met anyone yet,that could actually tolerate drinking Everclear straight-up,though I watched a few drink crudely refined boot polish in the military,Yuck!

Thanks! I always wondered what the difference was between the yellow and the red Heet.

Sue

I thought same thing. I couldn't carry enough OJ in my pack to drink Everclear as a beverage. Way to strong and who wants to wake up in the backcountry that hung? OMG that stuff will put you on the couch for a weekend.

But with radically more ethanol content (less than 50% with regular Klean Strip vs. over 90% with Klean Strip Green).

HJ

Thanks for your entire post, but for this in particular:

These days, that's a really practical consideration.

Add to that the fact that alcohol can be pretty easily obtained even in towns without a "mountain shop" type store.

HJ

Now, who would go and do such a thing?

Everclear is at least a dual use item. Triple use if you use it as a wound cleaner although some people have said that one should not use Everclear for cleaning a wound. I'm not sure about this last application.

HJ

The way I keep them straight is by comparing them to traffic signal lights:

Red = Stop! (Do not use at all!)
Yellow = Proceed with caution. (Don't spill it on your hands or breath the fumes, but it's a decent stove fuel.)

HJ

It would probably be safe to use it as a disinfectant for swabbing the area where you intend to lance a boil, blister or abscess, and use an antibiotic afterward, not the alcohol. That high of an alcohol content might do damage to raw tissue.

And it could be used to disinfect contaminated tools. If an 80% isopropyl alcohol soak will do it, 190-proof certainly should!

Sue

Great review.

When you come to Australia you will find "metho" readily available from supermarkets, camping shops, and in small country towns, so its an easy source of fuel. However you can pay between $5 to $10 per litre ! But if you shop around you can buy a bulk (4 or 5 litre) containers for about $15 (on special); that's when I pounce.

I use the metho “neat”, ie undiluted and straight from the bottle, but a few folk swear by adding a small amount of water to thin it down a bit before using. They claim a “cleaner” and hotter burn. I can’t say I’ve really tried.
Any comments Hikin_Jim ?

Water it down and add some sort of powdered drink mix. As for a hangover, don't drink that much.

Generally adding a bit of water will result in a bit less soot; you'll generally get a bluer flame. But hotter? I doubt it. The water acts to cool (slow down) the combustion process, resulting in a cleaner but not hotter burn.

I haven't experimented with the exact proportions. Generally the alcohol I'm using for fuel already has about 5% water in it, and that alcohol burns pretty cleanly.

HJ

Yellow Heet is the cleanest burning alcohol fuel I've found in my Trangia burners. It is also easy to pour the fuel into the burners from the Heet bottles. Considering it's easy availability from the auto parts store near my house, it's my fuel of choice, unless I just wanna hear the roar from one of my old Svea white gas stoves.

Nothing wrong per se with methanol (yellow HEET) as a fuel. Works pretty well.

Two possible considerations:
For someone who is an ounce or gram counter, ethanol has about 25% more heat content by weight than methanol, so you can carry less ethanol for the same result.

For someone who has to cook in his tent or a shelter due to weather considerations, methanol fumes are toxic whereas ethanol fumes are not. High ethanol content denatured alcohol (check the MSDS) will be far less toxic than methanol.

HJ

wow. I NEVER use my alcohol stove in my tent. I set it up in vesty or under a covered area. If there's a chance of getting socked in, I'll bring my jetboil.

I was looking at Jetboil and it seems to be a good system, being able to store the stove and gas canister inside the one liter cooking pot. And because of its design, it can boil twelve liters using a single canister. As for complete systems, this seems to offer the best bang for its size. What is your experience with it?

Jeanette Isabelle

There are most likely people that have used theirs more than I have and would ask them to chime in too. I definitely like it. It is compact. Boils waters really quick, especially for low water meals like instant oatmeal or instant coffee. No need for windscreen. Low fuss set up on uneven terrain. I do actually use the little cup that protects the burner unit.

Only con in my book is that the gimmicky heat gauge on the side that shows you how hot the water is, gets really hot when you grab the insulated side to pull the 1 liter pot off. Have to be careful with it. Sometimes I have a problem twisting the pot out of the detent buttons connecting it to the burner unit, but YMMV.

Its a good buy in my book. Pretty much only use a JetBoil or White Box Stove now.

I have the original Jetboil. It's neither as compact nor as light as an alcohol stove, but it's a good stove.

The Jetboil has a lot of in-built wind resistance whereas an alcohol stove is very vulnerable to wind unless you've got a good windscreen. On convenience, speed, and wind resistance, a Jetboil wins hands down.

On price, reliability, compactness, weight, and availability of fuel, the alcohol stove is the clear winner.

HJ

For the same size as a Jetboil cooking system, how many liters of water can one boil using an alcohol stove?

Jeanette Isabelle

With the JB, everything fits into the 1.0 L cookpot. In order to have an alcohol stove have the same dimensions, you'd have to also have a 1.0 L cookpot, which means that there would be no real difference between the amounts that you could boil.

HJ

You said on compactness the alcohol stove is the clear winner. The Jetboil system, which fits in its own 1L pot, will boil twelve liters of water. For an alcohol stove system that fits in a 1L pot, how many liters of water will it boil?

Jeanette Isabelle

If you use a an Etapower l ltr pot and a Standard Trangia and Click stand this would leave around 700ml of space for the alcohol/meths Bottle (assuming a perfect fit). This would boil around 30 litres of water.

http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_Efficiency.htm#Physics

Meths - 18ml to boil 1 ltr of water assuming 80% efficiency

i.e. (700/18)*0.8 = 31.1

Butane/propane mix - 7.54 gms to boil 1 ltr of water assuming 80% efficiency

i.e. (100/7.54)*0.8 = 10.6 (which is near enough to the spec of 12 litres.)

Is there a bottle that will hold that much that would hit in that space?


The numbers are not adding up. Jetboil uses 8.33g of an isobutane/propane mix to boil one liter of water.

Jeanette Isabelle

The Jetboil doesn't specify the temperature of the water when the test was started.

7.54/0.8 = 9.425 gms to boil one litre, the fuel physics table has the following note



The heat exchanger pot systems have raised the overall stove efficiency from around 50% to around 80%.

So it may be that the difference of 9.425 - 8.33 gms = 1.09 gms is just the fact that Jetboil started their water temperature around 20C rather than 10C.

It really doesn't matter, its only for a ball park comparative analysis.

Remember though that the 3 to 1 ratio of alcohol to isobutane/propane mix per unit volume says nothing about the weight difference. The Jetboil + 500 gram gas cartridge will still be lighter than the alcohol setup which boils 30 Litres and will get you 50+ litres of boiling water.

If you are getting around 10-11 gms or less per real world litre boil using cartridge gas your doing pretty well.

No way I can comment on BTU or all that math mumbo jumbo above to boil water but I'll chime in on overall weight under the pretense of a Friday night to Sunday morning backpack trip. To do this, I just this moment decided to weigh out my two kits, a Jetboil and my alcohol stove set up. Here is what I got. Incidentally, 1 meal for me is 2 cups of water for a dehydrated or ziplock meal and 1 cup for hot beverage like tea of Starbuck Via.

JetBoil
1 liter pot w/ lid = 8.5 oz
burner =5.2oz
used 100g fuel can w/ tripod = 7.1 oz.
plastic nesting cup = 1oz.
Total weight= 21.8 oz.

Due to canned fuel, regardless of how many days you go out you cannot adjust how much you carry which will of course decrease as you use fuel. Also you're pretty much stuck on using the 1 liter pot thus have a immovable weight amount. But you have a fast boil time.

Alcohol Stove
3 cup aluminum tea kettle = 5.2oz
White Box Stove w/ provided windscreen = 2.2 oz
5 oz of fuel in 8oz kids plastic water bottle = 5.3oz
Total weight= 12.7 oz

A benefit (or trade off) with an alcohol stove is taking only the fuel you need for your trip. Based on my previous use, I need roughly 1oz of fuel to boil 3 cups of water. So I can carry 4 oz of fuel for 4 meals (Fri night, 2 Sat, 1 Sun)plus 1oz for spill or back up. I use a White Box Stove which is considered a 'heavy' alcohol stove at 1.2 oz (not including windscreen). Other options including making your own can/will decrease weight. There is no set size or style, thus your personal set up could use a much lighter pot,cup, kettle.

While the Jetboil is a faster, less finicky system, it weighs nearly 2x a comparable alcohol stove set up for a weekend trip. That being said, depending on where, when and with whom, I will seriously debate the merits of taking either one. And in some cases I take both with a less experienced person carrying the jetboil as a "2 is 1, 1 is none" principal.

I know this thread was not to compare Jetboil vs. alcohol stove, but it sort of begged for this weight comparison after the turn that it took. I appreciate all the info on fuel here b/c it does impact my decision making process.

Litres boiled = 10 - 12 ,unable to fry an egg and some sausages. (or at least very tricky)
Boil water inside a tent - yes
Time to boil 2 cups 0.5 Litres - 2 min

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Litres Boiled = 4 - 4.5, unable to fry an egg and some sausages. (or at least very tricky)
Boil water inside a tent - No
Time to Boil 2 cups 0.5 Litres - ??

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1 Litre Etapower power Pot. (295gms) - 10.5 oz
Titanium Gas burner - (49gms) - 1.75 oz
Ti Wind shield - (60gms) - 2 oz
250 gms Fuel Canister (330gms) - 12 oz

Total - 27oz

Litres Boiled - 23 - 25, and can fry an egg and some sausages.
Cook inside a tent - yes.
Time to boil 2 cups 0.5 Litre 1min 30sec

Alcohol stoves certainly have their advantages but only really for trips lasting less than a few days, where the weight can be minimised by tuning the fuel weight. Alcohol stoves are very cost effective as well. Going for a heat exchanger pot to increase the overall efficiency of the rather poor specific fuel energy capacity of alcohol fuel might well be worth it as well but this would I suspect be marginal when compared to a wide base Titanium Pot with lid.

Again its the story of capability over carry weight. This is mostly defined by the type of outdoors activity and the weather conditions that can be expected. I have tried very lightweight Ti alcohol stoves but have been disappointed as they are just too tricky and fiddly to use in poor weather conditions.

Everclear.

Expensive, but multipurpose.

Everclear also makes it safe to store the burner in your cook pot without worry. Even if some spills, or is not completely evaporated, its no big deal. You have to be more careful with the denatured stuff.

Just an update on ethanol availability in Canada. It appears that Canadian Tire is offering a new product called Bio-flame. It is denatured ethanol but a pretty potent blend of 95% ethanol / 5% 2-propanol. I can't wait to try some and compare to methyl hydrate. Only problem is that currently sell the 3.78litre size and not the 1litre size locally. And its not cheap - $25 for a jug which is more than 2.5x the price of methyl hydrate which in itself has gone up in price.

Still... I gonna have to investigate and compare, just to satisfy my own curiosity. They claim that ethanol burning is safe to use indoors because of the cleaner burning and the byproducts of burning are basically CO2 and water.

There is one trick to this whole thing. The higher ethanol stoves burn hotter. Not all stoves can handle it. It's not so much that your stove will melt down into a puddle of metal, not at all. Rather, you may get a sooty, yellow flame on high ethanol content alcohol. The greater heat content IS there, but you need to be getting clean, blue flames in order to be assured that you're getting all of the potential heat out of a given type of alcohol.

I'm currently working with a stove designer on just such a thing. I hope to have a blog post up about it in a couple of weeks.

In the mean time, please let us know how this new fuel works vis a vis methyl hydrate (which I think is mostly methanol -- that name isn't really used in the US).

HJ

Over here in Borneo, I buy alcohol in 1 liter plastic cans or recycled beer bottles. The lables will generally say Spirit or something along those lines. Don't really know what's in them but they seem to burn fine in my Trangia so far.

It is likely an denatured ethanol (ethanol/methanol blend) based on the following chart. Does the lable say "spiritos"? International Fuel Names