Please share your favorites, secrets and tips!

There have been a couple of suggestions lately and it's made a tink this would be a great activity night for our Scouts! I've got some survival-themed nights coming up, and they'll enjoy this.

We're going to try this one, suggested by Sue:

Try this instead of Sterno.

Oh, this is so embarrassing! I thought I knew all the homemade stoves, and I found a new one!

I don't know how I missed it. And it's so simple... it makes a soda can stove look like brain surgery. One version is even at Zen Stoves, but this one has a handy screen that keeps the contents from spilling.

Grab the rectangular Altoids tin you aren't using for your EDC anymore.

Get some perlite (expanded white volcanic stone -- from garden centers) and a piece of aluminum window screening (not vinyl).

Set the open Altoids tin upside down on the screen as a template and mark around the edge with a marker. Cut it out, and trim the corners a bit. Form another piece of the aluminum screening into a temporary cone sieve and put a handful of perlite in it, shake a bit and discard all the perlite that falls through the holes (it's too small). Put the larger stuff into the bottom of the tin. Repeat if you need to, to fill the tin. Lay your cut screening over the perlite and tuck the edges under the rolled rim of the tin.

Add denatured alcohol to the perlite and light it.

BE AWARE that burning alcohol is practically impossible to see in daylight. Let it burn out and cool completely before you close the lid. Wave your hand over it to make sure the flame is out.

Be sure to set the stove on something that is heatproof, and you'll need something fireproof to raise your food/drink container above the flame, like some regular bricks or a circle of hardware cloth. And you'll need a windscreen if you're using it outdoors.

You can use any alcohol, but as HikinJim says in his stove blog, if you use Kleen-Strip® Green™ Denatured Alcohol, it will burn hotter than things like Sterno, rubbing alcohol and Heet, so you can actually boil water. Alcohol also produces less carbon monoxide, so it's safer to use indoors (still, use some common sense).

The Kleen-Strip website and MSDS

Try this on for size
Tuna Can Stoves

Link corrected by HJ

My batch-load inverted downdraft gassifier stove made from cans:
Part 1.
Part 2.
-Blast

How about the sterno can ???

We are using all cans for stoves , why not sterno cans ???

After it is consumed fill with perlite and ... you don't even need any screen.
Use the lid to extinguish the flame.

There is an advantage to using the sterno can in particular.
You can take a sink drain , remove teh center screw and rubber ... Then put it UPSIDE DOWN on the sterno can. It sits just right and will serve as base for the pot.

Not my idea.
I just stole it from U-tube.

It's probably different in Canada, but be aware that alcohol stoves (homemade or even commercially made) violate Boy Scouts of America safety policy. I know it's frustrating, but that's their policy. Go kick a lawyer. I think homemade wood-burning stoves are fine by them and probably more useful in a pinch.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss06.aspx

Bacpacjac,

The Altoids stoves are great. Should be a fun project for the group. I would recommend using stainless steel screening though. On my stove the aluminum got brittle and melted.

Thanks Ratbert. Step 2 after initial brainstorming is always to review of the leader's handbook and the policies and procecures manual, before planning the lesson/meeting. I usually understand the limitations. Safety first!

There are Scout troops that don't allow knives, too.

Don't teach proper use, just outlaw it! Yeah.

Sue

Not out group, Sue. Once they earn their knife permit they can carry and supervise less experiencecd youth, under the watchful eye of leaders. They can loss their priveldges for violating safety rules and have to recertify.