Alcohol stoves in sub freezing temps

I used to be a regular winter hiker, but have slowly turned into more of a warm weather one (I think getting older did that to me!!). When I used to hike, climb, etc, in the winter, we used strictly white gas stoves. I have long since sold or given mine away, and currently have only isopro stoves, that dont work well in below freezing temps, or alcohol stoves, which I have no FIRST HAND experience with.
All research online indicates they are capable of working around greezing temps. My issue is, being in New England, we often have sub zero weather in the colder months. I am wondering if, for instance, I WERE to go camping in the insanely cold weather, would an alcohol bring water to a boil? I understand that it would need more fuel, but, has anyone used one in 0 degree weather? If so, what were your experiences? Does keeping the alcohol warm make a difference? I am looking for personal experiences with this. I have only been playing with alcohol stoves for a couple years, and still have a hard time separating myself from my gear-centric stoves

Not really sure on the Alcohol stove winter heating ability but my first thought would be to make my iso stove work instead.
Why not attach a toe heater pad to the tank, insulate the base
from the ground and use a heat reflector/wind screen to help heat your grub And the fuel tank?

Here is the best review i have found on differnt stoves in freezing weather.

And is short the alcohol stove works but is not optimal

http://forums.outdoorsdirectory.com/showthread.php?t=25042&highlight=Stove

Perhaps with a full Trangia 25 or 27 set you might be able to work get the alcohol stove working successfully at temperatures less then 10C in a moderate i.e less than 5-10mph wind. But then again a full Trangia kit and fuel is heavier than a white gas liquid stove.

Alcohol fuel by its very nature does not give enough heat to heat water is very cold conditions simply due the heat lost by the water and pan in very cold conditions.

Here is a review of the Triad Stove I carried out 3-4 months back

http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=187706

I really really wouldn't want to bet my life on such an unreliable stobe fuel/technology in sub +10C temperatures. Even then alcohol stoves take forever to bring to boil even small quantites of water.

Its just below freezing right now outside with very little wind blowing about, I'll get back to you soon (hopefully with some photo's) and test the triad stove out again.

Another Triad Stove Field test,

Now this could have been another complete disaster using this titanium alcohol stove, but this time a hexamine tablet came to the rescue.

Ok, I set this little Triad titanium stove up in the back garden, where the temperature was just below freezing i.e. about -1 to -2 C. I could not get the alcohol fuel to light in the stove even with the alcohol fuel warmed by body heat under my jacket. The stove needs preheating with a little alcohol gel. The gel took alight and some of the liquid alcohol sitting in the top of the stove depression. Ahah success I thought, the stove appears to be taking hold, only for it to go out about 30 seconds later as shown below. Back to square one.


Gel fuel primer residue is visible after the stove went out.

Hexamine tablet comes to rescue.

Ok I thought a Hexamine tablet set alight under this stove might getting it working. And so it proved. Success at last.

Here is the video showing the little triad alight. (5.2 Meg)

http://www.amfearliathmor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CIMG0177.avi

This allowed me to boil (yes boil) around 400ml of water (still took around 10-12 minutes though), enough for a Cappuccino


The Double walled Titanium Cup keeps the contents warm for a considerable time even when resting in the snow. (Recommended)

The main conclusion though, was that it was quicker, less fiddly, more reliable, less smelly, using a lighter weight fuel, and far less susceptible to actually extinguishing itself due to drafts, would be to use Hexamine tablets rather than liquid alcohol fuel.


Boil time for the Hexamine tablets was similar to the alcohol fuel but will have many advantages over alcohol fuel in a survival situation.

The Traid Titanium Stove - only a complete fool would actually risk his life trying to get a hot drink in sub zero temperatures (or in any windy conditions) just using alcohol fuel with this stove.

I have always used a Svea or MSR when the temperatures plunged, although I really like a Trangia in more moderate to warm conditions.

I am a fan of lightweight equipment, but the extra weight of a liquid fuel stove, relative to its potential utility in really cold conditions, makes for a no-brainer decision - carry the heavier stove.

Another benefit is that the gasoline/kerosene fuel makes a sure fire igniter if you go to a wood fire in tough conditions - use with extreme care!

Funny thing, with advancing age, I, too, am going out less in really cold conditions.

Well, methanol won't freeze until it's -144 degrees F (-97 degrees C), so no worries there. You might have to warm the stove a little (body heat is ok) to get some vapour to light.

The triad stove is a bit gimmicky IMHO. The Right Answer for alcohol stoves is the Trangia. Here are a bunch of very positive reviews, including reports of good performance at low temperatures. The key is to insulate the stove from the ground with a piece of wood or something, and to use a wind screen if it's windy.

http://www.thebackpacker.com/gear/stoves/trangia_alcohol_stove.php

Right now it is -21 degrees F (-6 degrees C) here with no wind so I could nip outside and try to boil a cup of water as a test. Would that be useful/helpful?

A

Well, that would be useful data.

I have fond memories of "frozen Chosen." Arrived in early January - saw no liquid water outdoors until late March.

This thread brings back moldy memories of reading something, somewhere, at some point in time, that gave the advice to only use aluminum pots with alcohol.

True? False? Maybe?

If true, is it because it would allow the contents to heat faster, or is there some other issue?

Also, do these problems with alcohol and cold also apply to Sterno?

Sue

a few years ago we had some real sub zero weather,12 below during the day and 20 below at night.i decided to do some stove testing and went down to the Mississippi river gorge in Minneapolis where i knew i would find open water from springs and ran three stoves.a Coleman Peak which i take on canoe trips,a Primus kerosene roaring burner and a Trangia alcohol burner in a cook kit with a wind screen.the Coleman after a good pre heat with fire gel lit and ran fine.the Primus even with several pre heats was very cranky but the Trangia lit and ran hot and boiled tea water just as fast as the Coleman.i assume the windscreen and the way the pot nested in it ran the heat up the sides added to the amount getting to the water and not just going off in the air..so i would say with the kit made for the Trangia burner you could cook down to the 12-15 below--at least--that i was testing in.

Umm, I see your advice concerning aluminium pots, and I raise you with "don't put jam on a magnet".



Well, Sterno's FAQ says that Sterno itself won't freeze. I don't know how well it will perform in sub-freezing temperatures.

The temperature has soared to a toasty -2 degrees C here, so it's too warm to do a useful test. I will wait for -5 or -6 degrees again.

A

If you used food grade ethanol (everclear) you could keep a trangia burner in your coat pocket to keep it above freezing. Its also helpful to remember that trangia alcohol stoves come from sweden, where it gets pretty darn cold.

Good Thread. I hope you guys find some alcohol solutions.

Use blackened aluminum pots. They will naturally blacken
over a wood fire; clean the excess blackening, but leave a
light black coating (hard finish) on the pot.

I thought kerosene had about 50% more calories than alcohol,
and would therefor be better for survival purposes.

Have you searched for DIY kerosene stoves.
One primitive stove is the tuna can with a spiral cardboard
insert, which acts as a (huge) wick.


Also, I question: do you really need to boil the water?
Would 170 degrees F be OK?

Since I hate the smell of kerosene myself, I would prefer
alcohol for inside a tent or vehicle. IMO alcohol is a
little safer in a closed space.

Also, cover the cooking pot with a lid. This helps hold in the heat

Thanks all for the advice, and I'm glad that this thread is helping out more than just me . One trick I learned years ago with isopro was that, if it was cold out, put the canister UNLIT into a shallow pan of water-the water, naturally, will be at least 32*, whereas the liquid fuel could be considerably colder. Its important that the water is NOT hot-this can cause a little boom, resulting in potential fire & puncture damage to your person. The one time I tried this method, I used water I kept inside my sleeping bag overnight, and it worked fine. I also insulated the canister from the ground when lighting it, and all the other stuff. There was significant reduced output-IIRC, it took almost 3 times as long to boil water. Mind you,this was on the shore of a pond, in Feb, with the temps hovering around 0F.
I dont plan on doing any winter hiking anytime soon, but am starting to regret getting rid of my old MSR white gas stove, as fiddly as I had to be with it.

In identical CAT (alcohol) stoves constructed of aluminum vs. steel, the steel stoves required twice as long to boil water as the aluminum. All other variables were held constant. This is evidently due to the superior heat transfer abilities of aluminum.

Anecdotally, some are disappointed with the performance of titanium alcohol stoves in cold weather. Titanium also does not conduct heat nearly as well as aluminum.

Brass, as in most Trangia stoves, does conduct heat about the same as aluminum, I believe.

"One primitive stove is the tuna can with a spiral cardboard
insert, which acts as a (huge) wick".

I used these all the time as a scout in Indiana, but now I'm older
(I refuse to grow up)not so much. man I miss childhood LOL. The main trouble I had was keeping my hands from shaking while trying to light it.

Mike

I think that is a dangerous practice. Burning flames generate carbon monoxide. The more inefficient the burning, the more CO. That nice yellow flame you often see, whatever the source, is an inefficient flame putting poison into the atmosphere. It is sneaky deadly.

I don't know about sub-zero, but I can tell you my home-made alcohol stove works fine at 15*F.

I made a Super-Cat stove this fall and tested recently in my backyard. I put 14oz of water in my stainless steel bottle cup (enough to rehydrate a small freeze-dried meal packet plus make a cup of coffee, tea or broth). I then dug a hole in the snow and mounded the circumference to act as a wind screen. The stove went in the hole and I added 1 measured ounce of Everclear (food-grade 90% grain alcohol), then dripped some around the rim of the stove to help heat the can.

I lit it with sparks from a firesteel. I held the cup over the stove for about 30 seconds until the stove and alcohol heated up, then sat the cup directly on top of the stove. I did not use a lid.

Results:

In 4 minutes the water was steaming and developing bubbles, hot enough to make tea, coffee or soup.
In 5.5 minutes I had a rapid boil.
The stove continued to burn until just after the 7 minute mark.

The water came from my BOB in the truck. It was cold enough that ice was starting to form in the bottle. The stove and alcohol were at ambient outdoor temperature.

While this might not be indicative of how it will perform below 0*F, my research indicates good probability that it will work. Adding a reflective wind shield and a lid, or switching to a Ti cup with lid, would improve performance. Carrying the stove and fuel in your pocket would also help.

If it gets down near or below 0 I'll try it again. I also want to see if I can start with snow and wind up with boiling water at that temperature. I'll try to post my results.

Good point. Good Ventilation is required in tents, cabins,
and vehicles. "Closed spaces" must be opened to some degree.

I haven't forgotten about performing a test. It's just that the weather is still hovering around a rather pleasant -2 degrees C (28.4 degrees F) so it's not really cold enough. When I first mentioned it it was -6 degrees C, which actually feels quite cold.

For those of you watching in black and white I shall be using a Trangia burner, a Trianga triangular pot stand and a Snow Peak titanium pot with lid. I shall be attempting to boil 500ml (about one pint) of water. This week's guest fuel is methanol. A wind shield shall be employed. Good day.

A

Black and white?? Geez. I was told this was a Hi-Def channel.

IMO, alcohol is among the most volatile substances you'll ever set fire to. I don't consider alcohol stoves safe at all.

That being said, I'm a pyromaniac and will happily set fire to most substances and stoves. Given ample ventilation and meticuously attention to procedures I have no worries about doing that inside a tent or vehicle either. But I will only do that with a stove I'm intimately familiar with.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, and it is certainly not targeted at any individuals in this forum, but I think alcohol stoves are misjudged as "safe" because they are so easy and simple to use. With most other stoves you have to pay attention to procedures to get them working. With alcohol stoves, it is so easy the most obvious hazards are easily ignored. Filling an almost, but not quite empty and still burning (invisible flame) stove with liquid alcohol is my favourite example...


Personally, I'll never rely on alcohol stoves in subzero weather - too slow and too feeble heat effect. That doesn't mean they don't work - they do, I'm just not happy with what they do and the ratio of meals produced per weight or volume unit of fuel.

Backpackers who really watch the weight of their equipment generally find that after a trip reaches about five or six days, the weight of a gas canister stove is less than the weight of the alcohol stove required to perform equivalent cooking.

Mostlyharmless, I think that by "safe" they mean storage wise, and ease of use. If you are simply putting fuel into a cup, and buring it, that is safer than dealing with a gas under pressure (in theory). If a lit alcohol stove spills, well, you have buring fuel now. But, it will go out relatively quick. And, you wont have flame ups, as you do with most other stoves. Fuel storage is also a little better-although not sure if that would count as safer or not.
When it comes down to it, alcohol stoves are safer than most others, IMHO-the only thing you need to be careful of is knocking the stove over. Almost all others there are numerous issues that can crop up.

I think that this weekend I am going to take all the stoves I own out, and do some field tests. Not sure what the weather will be, but I want to do a comprehesive test. I will try the following:
minibull designs alcohol stove.
homemade CAT stove
canister stove (forget the maker)
wood burning mini paint can stove.
Brass alcohol stove

Will get boil times on all of them, using the same amount of liquid each time. Besides, I need an excuse to get outside

I did another test of my alcohol stove this weekend. If you recall, earlier tests in my garage and outdoors with no wind at around 15-18*F were excellent, bringing about 14oz of 33*F water to a rapid boil in 6 minutes using less than 1 oz of Everclear.

This time it was 11*F with a constant 5-10MPH wind and gusts to 40MPH. Also, instead of starting with nearly freezing water I started with chunks of frozen snow that I mashed down as much as possible in the cup, and added a piece of HD aluminum foil as a lid. I made a 3-sided wind screen from a HD aluminum foil and also wrapped a scrap of cardboard in foil to insulate the stove from the frozen ground.

I started the stove using 1 oz Everclear and held the cup over the flame until the alcohol was heated. Then I put the cup directly on the stove. The stove burned low and unevenly, I think because of the wind. As the gusts increased the stove must have cooled down and lost pressurization, as I had to lift the cup off the stove repeatedly to get it burning properly again.

After 6 minutes I had less than 8 oz of warm water, so I added enough snow to yield 14oz of liquid. After 15min the stove ran out of fuel and the water was only warm. I added another 1 oz of alcohol and resumed. This lasted another 10 minutes and the water was bubbling but still not boiling.

Result: Fail. While I could have got the water to boil if I used another oz of alcohol, the amount of fuel and time just don't make sense. I will work on a better wind screen and try again.

Ice (snow) versus water (at freezing point, but still liquid water) makes a HUGE difference. Melting that ice/snow requires the same energy as raising the temperature from 0 to 60 deg C (140F).

And yes, in anything but totally still air the performance of the windscreen has a huge impact on the result. That goes with all stoves, but the effect of wind screen design is so much more apparent with low effect alcohol stoves. Which is why I love the trangia cookset design... (Use a different burner in that design and then you can talk about performance... but let's not distract, shall we?)

Also, I want to apologize for clogging the debate with safety of alcohol versus other stove types. That discussion is worthy of another thread, but here it is only a distraction. I'm a big fan of informed users making rational risk assessments. I don't have anything against alcohol burners themselves - they're fine for what they are and what they do. But I do think a large number of people use them with only a faint idea of what they're dealing with. But this forum does not fit that description, so let's move on...

I'm anxious to see more results!

MH, nothing meant by it. I do concur that "safe" can be subjective sometimes . But, yes, lets stay OT.


I need to find a thermometer...I need to get ambient temps for this weekend. We are expecting a storm too, so this could be fun

A Swedish Trangia Burner and a German Tatonka burner stand arrived today - time to test this alcohol stove and compare it with my previous Triad Titanium alcohol stove test attempt. Both the Trangia burner and Tatonka burner cost around £14.10 or about $22.50 from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tatonka-Stainles...mp;sr=8-2-fkmr1

Time for another test.

The Trangia Burner is well known and construction is from brass whilst the Tatonka burner stand is manufactured from Stainless Steel. Both the Trangia burner and Tatonka burner stand weighed in aroun 205 grams, so the combination is no lightweight. A homemade Titanium sheet wind shield adds around another 40 grams for a total approaching around 250 grams without including the fuel weight, so this combination is no where near a lightweight stove for an alcohol burning stove when compared to the Triad Titanium stove for example. The main other difference between the Triad and the Trangia/Tatonka setup is that the Trangia/Tatonka actually works to what I consider an acceptable stove solution.

The Kettle I used in the test was an MSR Stainless Steel Kettle (also known as the MSR teapot), which is pretty robust and has a reasonable capacity of around 1 litre.



Trangia burner, Tatonka Burner Stand, MSR Teapot & Titanium Windshield.

Preparing the Trangia stove was very simple, first assemble the Tatonka Burner Stand, then pour 45ml into the centre of the Trangia burner (this was much much easier than the previous Triad Stove and could even accomplished in low light moonlight conditions, something that is almost impossible with the extremely fiddly Triad burner) then drop the Trangia into the Tatonka stand. Lighting the Trangia burner was simplicity itself compared to the Triad as there was no priming required using Hexamine or Gel fuel. Even with the Trangia burner effectly sitting in some snow the Trangia took hold without any further intervention. The Trangia jets then began to come alive after around 2-3 minutes in the colder conditions than the last attempt with the Triad Stove. The temperature was around -5 to -6 C with slight wind gusting to around 5-10 mph.

The Trangia/Tatonka combo was then able to boil around 500 ml of cold water in around 14 minutes (from first lighting the Trangia burner). Around 300ml was used to make a cup of Coffee Latte and the rest of the 500 ml from the 1 litre water bottle was added to the MSR Tea pot. The 700ml boiled around the 23-24 minute mark or about 10 minutes later from the first 500 ml being boiled.



Here is a another little video showing the Trangia well alight.

http://www.amfearliathmor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CIMG0189.avi

The Trangia went out about the 26 minute mark and was able to boil a litre of water in around 22-23 minutes in reasonably difficult sub zero conditions.

Overall the differences between the Trangia/Tatonka setup and the Triad Titanium were light and day.

The Trangia/Tatonka setup was much more stable than the Triad Titanium and can take a wider range of pots, pans and kettles.

The Trangia burner is also much easier to light and much more difficult to extinguish in windy conditions. i.e. the gust of wind at the end of the little video would have surely blown out the Triad stove.

The Trangia has very little fuel wastage compared to the Triad as virtually all the fuel is usable, with the triad having excessive fuel spillage and the difficulty of getting the stove to light and remain alight in windy conditions. The Trangia also comes with a fuel cap to store the reminder of unused fuel in the burner together with a simmer ring.

Overall this was much more impressive demonstration of an alcohol stove setup, but again in really difficult conditions I still would have to go with a gas stove as the weight differences are now very slight but the Gas stove (with the appropriate low temperature isobutane/propane mixture) will still have the advantage in boil time and a gas stove can be used inside a tent without much worry as to the safety issues when compared to any alcohol stove.

Excellent. Thanks for the test. I wonder if a few minutes might be shaved off if the burner was warmed up a little first.

I found this quote:

"According to the Wilderness Medical Society, water temperatures above 160° F (70° C) kill all pathogens within 30 minutes and above 185° F (85° C) within a few minutes. So in the time it takes for the water to reach the boiling point (212° F or 100° C) from 160° F (70° C), all pathogens will be killed, even at high altitude."

on this page of survival topics:

http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-long-do-you-need-to-boil-water/

Problem is you may not have a thermometer with you, hence, bringing the water to a boil to be absolutely certain. Sorry to digress, now back to your regularly scheduled topic.

They are incorrect in part-water at high altitude and low
barometric pressure water will be boiling at lower temperature.
It will likely kill living pathogens as they say.

IIRC, the boiling point at 29,000 feet (summit Mt Everest) is 170F. You will be able to kill the bad guys in your water. At really high altitudes, water contamination should not be problem, except in exceptional situations.

Just don't eat yellow snow.

Although not common water borne pathogens, 160/185 degrees F will not kill spore forming bacteria (Cloistral and Bacilli), nor heat stable exo- and endo-toxins.

Pete

I did prelim testing on the stoves I plan on trying out this weekend, in sub freezing weather. I put it in my blog in my sig, but here it is if you dont feel like linking:

Good afternoon, its been a while since I updated this blog. Without going into detail, suffice it to say that life just sometimes gets crazy, and you cannot always accomplish everything you want to do, so you make sacrifices where you can. This was one of them. But, I want to put something in here, and TRY to post monthly. I had asked a question on the ETS forums regarding the use of alcohol stoves in below freezing weather. Well, I decided to take it upon myself instead, and do a practical test. This is by NO means a definitive one-this is simply something that I wanted to try & test out to gather some general data. I am using the following equipment for my test:
a GSI 1L cookset-filled consistently with 16 oz of water (measured from my nalgene bottle)
A Snowpeak Gigapower piezo stove, with a small gas canister (full for this test)
A homemade cat stove
A Mini-Trangia brass stove
A Minibull Designs mini Atomic stove
A Pepsi Stove

The first of the two tests I am doing is the control test. What I did was simply boil 16 oz of water on each stove, and timed the stoves until it reached a rolling boil. Note; yours may vary. The fuel I used was standard denatured alcohol, that was about a year old. I also picked some up for this test, as I only had enough left to test indoors. Which means that the outdoor test will be done with relatively fresh fuel (canister stove being the exception.). I measured out the 16 oz of water, for each test, using a standard nalgene bottle, filling it up to the hash mark. I used tap water, cold, for each test. Additionally, I cooled the cookpot in between each test, so as to minimize possibly skewing the results with a warm pot (I simply ran cold water into it each time, until the pot was cold again-nothing fancy). Here are the results of my indoor control test:

Gigapower canister stove-reached rolling boil in 3:56. Of course, thats the advantage of these types of stoves-a rolling boil, fast. This was by FAR the quickest of all boil times. The fuel is isopro, so I am anxious to see what the outside performance will be, as they traditionally dont operate well at low temps.

Homemade cat stove-reached rolling boil in 10:42. I used a heat reflector shield with this as well. The design for the stove is simple-its an empty cat food can, with holes punched in it. You fill it with alcohol to the bottom of the row of holes, light it, and set the pot directly on the top. The boil used ALL the fuel for this-I suspect that, when doing this test outdoors, it may not reach boiling, due to the lower temps. But, right now, that is only a suspicion.

Mini Trangia-reached rolling boil in 10:46. This only consumed roughly 1/3 the fuel in the stove. This is the standard brass Trangia alcohol stove, that has been in use for damn near ever. Honestly, these are my favorite alcohol stoves, due to their heavy duty build. And, you can keep alcohol within the stove itself, with its lid. This also came with a simmer lid, which I find completely useless, as I am of the mind that cooking, while hiking, consists of boiling water & adding it to the dehydrated food. But, again, this is personal preference. Your experiences may differ. The simmering gizmo is simply a lid that restricts some of the heat output, by limiting the amount of jets being used.

Pepsi Can Stove-reached a boil in 5:23. This was a LOT faster than I expected! I used a pot stand for the test, as this type of stove isnt a sit-on-top kind. It took about 15 seconds for the jets to ignite. Used about a 3rd of the way up for fuel, which seemed to be maybe just a little too much, by about a minute's worth of burn time.

Minibull Designs mini Atomic-reached boil in 5:34. This was surprising, as I expected it to hit boil before the pepsi can stove did. The first time I tried, I didnt add enoug fuel-its hard to judge how much you put in it without graded measuring lines on your fuel dispenser. So, the second time, I filled it with more than I thought I would need, which worked (I cooled the pot off in between too-in fact, I ate dinner between the first & second tries).


My control experiments left me with a few thoughts-first, canister stoves are quick & easy. But, that is expected. The downside is that you need to pack out empty fuel canisters, which are still heavy (comparitively speaking). Also, if they break, you are pretty much SOL, if it cannot be fixed immediately.
Alcohol stoves can be lightweight, and with the correct design, are within acceptable boiling times-comparable to my canister stove-at least inside. We will see what changes, if any, to boil times outside, in the cold. The great thing about alcohol stoves is that they are simple-pour fuel in, light, and go. No moving parts, nothing to clog. Fuel I keep in an empty soda bottle. They are delicate though (with the exception of the Trangia), and can be easily crushed if stepped on. Of course, if you can find another one, and have something small to poke the jets through with, you can make another one. The design is insanely simple. From everything I have read, the downside is that these will not work in sub-freezing weather. I have no first hand experience with that-which is what I will be testing this coming weekend!

Look for another post shortly after the coming weekend with post-outdoor test information.