I am looking for information on alcohol stove like the Trangia brand stoves. It says alcohol but what does that mean? Does anyone have any experience with them or would I be better off with another type of stove and if so which ones. I have a MSR Pocket Rocket. The second one I have owned left the last one in Iraq with some buddies of mine. I would like to get something that would burn multple fuels.

well a alcohol burn alcohol, many kinds of them. I use "brand spiritis" which is a alcohol mixure thats avaible everywhere in the Netherlands for low prices, like 90 euro cents for a liter. I personnally like alcohol stove's, they are very simple, there are no moving parts, so not much can fail. You can also make a alcohol stove yourself out of a cola can very easily. Disadvantage is there lack of power, but i haven't find that annoying. I never boil much water, just enough to cook my meal. But if you use it to boil large amount of water, than go for a more powerfull stove. The use of a good windscreen with a alcohol stove is vital or else you can wait a long time...

>> I would like to get something that would burn multple fuels <<

The MSR XG-K has held the crown for expedition stoves for a long time, and I have been using one for 20+ years. Bit awkward to pack, a primus-type burner (noisy), and it throttles between blowtorch and melt-the-pot settings, so it's pretty much a snow-melting, water-boiling fiend rather than a simmering tool. I liked the old-style pump better <shrug> at least a new spare one is reasonably priced.

Some folks hate the XGK. It's my hands-down favorite for extreme winter / alpine conditions but I've got other stoves I prefer in more moderate conditions.

There is a "new" (comparatively) Optimus multi-fuel out that some folks like - IIRC, Aardwolfe has one.

Single fuel theater, right? JP-5 or maybe JP-2 this time of year - JP burns fine in the MSR, but all those kerosene/diesel type fuels are a bit more hassle (and potentially messier) than white gas.

HTH,

Tom

I second the MSR G/K. Mine has given me perfect service for about as long as has Tom's. Hot, burns just about anything, easy to maintain, and reliable.

I have used a Trianga alcohol burner in a Swedish cook kit and it is slow slow slow compared to the MSR.

For water boiling only using natural found fuels I really like a Kelly Kettle....you may want to take a look at my article over at JM Outdoors.

http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=126

I have owned 5 backpacking stoves in the last 15 years and broke every one of them.

They ranged from coleman to MSR to trianga.

After the last one went back my father said to me why are you using those new POS stoves that have plastic and all these connnections. Why don't you get a SVEA 123 like I used in the 50's. After I laughed I researched them and found out they are the worlds most reliable stove ever built and are still in service 100 years after they were first developed.

Sounded good to me so I picked up an early 70's model on ebay. I replaced some criticle parts that still worked but for safety reasons....

That was 3 years ago and I haven't looked back. They are still made today under the Optimus climber name. They are the timex watches of stoves.

They are small light and boil in no time flat as well as being a fuel miser.

Research it yourself.

http://www.outdoorreview.com/outdoor-equ...rx.aspx#reviews

Flip.

(I gotta get a word in here befor P_L beats me to it, hehehe...)

I bought a Svea 123 in 1972 - probably from EMS, but perhaps REI - and I'm still ticked at my brother for selling it a few years ago... I loved that little stove and took it places it was never designed to go.

BUT

It's white gas only. US Theaters are usually single fuel - Jet Fuel. It runs just great in diesel engines, helicopters, USAF aircraft, etc... Sure, you can scrounge whatever, and I have, but the intent and effect is to reduce logistical complications. A Svea will not burn JP for beans. You would have to custom machine a jet with a smaller orifice. On an MSR XGK, you change to the "K" jet... (Kerosene jet).

The Svea sucks in cold weather. Before you protest, let me tell you that I used mine in the interior of Alaska for years; the coldest part of North America; in the winter time. I had a little plywood plate that I made that clipped onto the seam of the fuel tank and a scrap of ensolite and windscreens and I did an Optimus conversion (replaced fuel cap with one that mated to an aluminum syringe-like pump to let me put some pressure in the fuel tank) and... well, I know all the tricks about using a Svea in cold weather and probably a few of my own.

And I was so estatic when I got my MSR XGK. And later, for other purposes, a Coleman Peak I (so original that even Coleman doesn't carry the exact parts for mine anymore)... and there are other stoves between then and now, all of which I still have and use. Except for the Svea.

Like I said, I'm still ticked at my brother for selling the little brass guy. I was looking forward to giving it to one of my sons. As long as white gas is available, your water heating needs are modest, and the temps aren't too close to 0-deg F, it's a beaut. (and not too much wind). And I found that it is best used as a PERSONAL stove - add a second person and things can really slow down unless it's calm and not too cold out.

Glad you like your Svea - they are as elegant as you claim, IMO. Totally cool. But not a good stove for the poster who posed the question, just on the multi-fuel issue alone.

Fire away... <grin>

Tom

Funny,

I use the pump and pump it 5 times no ensolite no windscreen and it boils in -35 no problem and I live in the coldest country on earth for 40+ years <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />. There are few tricks to this stove prime it and light it.

I burn regular car gas in it no problem. I think thats easy enough to get a hold of.

I guess my experience is different.

Its nice to have a stove that burns water but I will never need a stove or want one other than the SVEA as all other stoves are disposable and unreliable. Call me in 80 years to tell me how your stove is doing. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Flip

>>Before you protest, let me tell you that I used mine in the
>> interior of Alaska for years; the coldest part of North
>>America; in the winter time.

Not to be picky, but the coldest temperature ever recorded in North America was in the Yukon. Only a few miles from Alaska, but still, on Canadian soil.

Can't let you Yanks take credit for *everything*, now, can we? <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

>> Can't let you Yanks take credit for *everything*, now, can we? <<

Aardwolfe,

I wasn't. No doubt you are correct. As I'm sure you know, the coldest region in North America, commonly refered to as the "cold triangle", is described by drawing imaginary lines between two points in Alaska and one point in Canada. I didn't write that I was at the specific coldest dot on the continent; merely that I spent a fair bit of time inside that region. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Frankly, I don't have a clue what the specific lowest temperature ever recorded in North America was, or which side of the border. I do know that my fan belts shattered more than once when cranking over my cold-soaked truck - usually accompanied by 2 or more flats due to the shrinkage of the steel rim away from the bead of the tires.

The coldest I have personally been in where the temp was recorded by precise instruments was -69 deg F with god-knows-what windchill (not much wind; I don't remember the velocity, but there was some). Temps continuously in the -50s for 1 - 3 weeks of the year were de rigour, of course. The coldest temp I know I've been in with significant winds was -58 and it was darned cold. None of those temps were at any significant elevation above MSL (perhaps 1,500 ft?). A temperature lapse of about 5 deg F per 1,000 ft is tossed around, but any big rock up there makes its own weather anyway, so... anything below -40 is cold, anyway.

Most of the winter, except for the wind, was like most places in the interior of Canada and Alaska, with temps staying somewhere in the -20F to -40F range (and an occasional Chinook to mess things up by bringing temps way up to +10 or even +30). But there are relatively few permanently instrumented sites in that region, so who knows what the temp may be at some deep frozen pothole lake lost in the black spruce and hidden from the sun all year? We had 4 seasons there: June, July, August, and winter. It is reportedly the region of the world with the greatest annual temperature spread - it hit over 90F for a day or so nearly every year in late June or early July. It would not surprise me, though, to hear that somewhere in northern Asia or Europe experiences the same extremes. In any event, I loved that place!

Can't tell which country you're in in that region unless you're on the highway near a roadsign.

If you say Canada had the coldest spot, I'm certainly not going to disagree with you!

Tom

No offense taken, my response was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> (I do get a little tired of being told that Starbucks invented coffee, though. Everybody knows it was Tim Horton's. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

I did an "Ask Jeeves" search for "what is the coldest temperature ever recorded in North America?" and came up with this site:

www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF16/1630.html
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...[temperature] at Snag had dropped to minus 81.4 degrees F, the lowest official temperature ever recorded in North America. ...
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and this one:
www.thecanadapage.org/Canadian_Myths.htm
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The Yukon holds the record for the coldest temperature
ever recorded in Canada -63 degrees Celsius!
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Which would be, let me see - minus 81.4 F.

Interesting note on the first page - the thermometer at the Canadian Weather Office was only graduated to -80 F, so the meteorologists filed a notch in the glass to record where the mercury had dropped to and submitted it to Ottawa, where scientists were able to identify that the notch corresponded to -81.4

Btw, the coldest temperature ever recorded in Alaska was minus 80:
http://sled.alaska.edu/akfaq/aksuper.html#wea
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The coldest Alaska temperature ever recorded was minus 80 at Prospect Creek on January 23, 1971. NOAA records (through 1977) show that to be the lowest temperature recorded in any of the 50 states. The state with the next lowest recorded temperature was minus 70 in Montana. Not surprisingly, Hawaii has the highest recorded low temperature at plus 14. Every other state has a minus temperature as their recorded low.
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However, with the exception of six months spent at an Armed Forces station on Ellesmere Island, where everything was pretty much self-contained, I've never actually been to the Arctic, so you obviously have a lot more experience with this type of weather than I do. <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Interesting tid-bit: Hawaii has the lowest high temperature (100F) and the highest low temperature (14F) of all the 50 States. <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Amazing the stuff you can find on the Internet. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

You wanna talk about cold.... we got down to 32.3F last week and had a light frost! Took me almost 5 minutes to heat the truck and defrost the windshield! I was freezing my butt off! Sure am glad it warmed up to a chilly but livable 58F by afternoon. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Ah... and to think I almost took a job in Juno a couple years ago. So glad I didn't after hearing these stories.

Several years back, a colleague and I went on a business trip from Calgary to New Orleans in early December. The temperature when we left Calgary was -30 C (-22 F). The overnight low in N'awlins the night we arrived was 31 F - it was the first time in more than a decade that the temperature had dropped below freezing.

And yet, bizarrely enough, my co-worker and I felt like we were freezing because of the dampness in the air. I had never before quite believed the stories about "dry cold vs. damp cold" making such a huge difference. But it really does - dry cold feels bitterly cold on the skin, but the damp cold felt like it went right through to the bone. <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

You should come to southeast Texas!
90% at 33 deg.! a lot of the time.
It is actually GOOD when the temp. drops below 32deg.
It dries the air out!

I spent a lot of years in houston ... not much better in the summer either. If I hadn't lived there for 11 years I would have never believed 99 degrees 99% humidity was possible... and without rain. Walk outside with a book of matches in your pocket and they are soaked in minutes! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> ah the memories ... LOL