Originally Posted By: jzmtl
I know, I just like to mess around with it. Last winter I tried to light a fire with firesteel and wood shavings made on the spot in -20. :p

I did discover something useful though, at this temperature lighting alcohol with firesteel requires a whole different technique than warm weather. One need to drop a burning glob of metal directly into alcohol to ignite it, spark shower won't do. This means if alcohol is used for preheat for liquid stove, a light/match is absolutely necessary since due to location of the preheating pads dropping a glob onto it is next to impossible. Haven't tried coleman fuel yet so don't know if firesteel is going to work with that.
Ah, I see where you're coming from. I just didn't want you to be disappointed if you didn't get to the "magic number" of 15ml of fuel for 500ml boiled. In colder weather, your pot, burner, windscreen, fuel, the water, etc. are all going to be colder and will absorb heat. Getting 500ml of cold, cold water to boil on only 15ml of fuel is a pretty good trick. None of my stoves can do it.

HJ
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Adventures In Stoving