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#230388 - 08/23/11 10:54 PM Re: What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel? [Re: comms]
Am_Fear_Liath_Mor Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/03/07
Posts: 3078

Quote:
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.


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

*************************************************************

Quote:
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


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 - ??

*************************************************************

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.

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#230868 - 08/28/11 09:39 PM Re: What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel? [Re: Hikin_Jim]
duckear Offline
Addict

Registered: 03/01/04
Posts: 478
Everclear.

Expensive, but multipurpose.

wink

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#230903 - 08/29/11 04:36 AM Re: What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel? [Re: duckear]
LED Offline
Veteran

Registered: 09/01/05
Posts: 1474
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.

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#236401 - 11/28/11 05:26 PM Re: What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel? [Re: Roarmeister]
Roarmeister Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 09/12/01
Posts: 960
Loc: Saskatchewan, Canada
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.

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#236418 - 11/28/11 11:55 PM Re: What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel? [Re: Roarmeister]
Hikin_Jim Offline
Sheriff
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 10/12/07
Posts: 1804
Loc: Southern California
Originally Posted By: Roarmeister
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
_________________________
Adventures In Stoving

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#236421 - 11/29/11 01:34 AM Re: What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel? [Re: Hikin_Jim]
fooman Offline
Journeyman

Registered: 05/15/08
Posts: 80
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.

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#236568 - 11/30/11 05:15 AM Re: What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel? [Re: fooman]
Roarmeister Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 09/12/01
Posts: 960
Loc: Saskatchewan, Canada
Originally Posted By: fooman
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

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