Looking for "secondary fuel" for Esbit stove

Esbit stoves are not available in our markets, neither their esbit fuel. Most campers here use gas stoves and gas burners in their car camping trips. I do that too but tsill need the esbit for backup and the GHB.

"By accident" esbit fuel cubes have been found in some store ( imported by mistake as BBQ fire starters). So, I may not be able to buy them again for another few years. This is when I thought of using some "secondary fuel" to stretch my stock.

First I thought of charcoal which is cheap and available
Then I thought of charcoal tablets like these
http://www.somaluna.com/prod/easy_lite_hookah_charcoal_tablets.asp

The first is cheap and available in bags of several pounds/kilos, but needs to be broken into small pieces for the esbit stove. The charcoal tablets are already ade in rectangular tablets of about 1 x 1.5 inches tabs and their size and price are similar to esbit fuel tabs.

So, the idea is that every time I need to cook something on the esbit , I would use one esbit cube plus one charoal tablet . This will extend the cooking time from 10 min to about 20-25 min and also stretch my stock of esbit fuel for some time.

Do you guys have any better ideas ???
I thought of using the BBQ firestarters (with the esbit cubes) but they give lots of smoke. Same for other homemade fire starter like cotton/pj or wax in carton egg tray as seen on You Tube.

Fire gel? If it's easy to find you could use those with the charcoal tablets you mentioned.

how about a lightweight "rocket stove" for the GHB...vertical fire box, with a horizontal feed at the base..the feed has an elevated grate that allows most any fuel to be fed in as it is consumed, and allows a good flow of oxygen underneath to feed the fire chamber... a stationary one is easily constructed of a couple of concrete blocks and half blocks...many vids on YouTube

I use a Swiss Ranger Volcano stove that I opened up the feed hole so that it can be fed with a Trangia alcohol burner, or Sterno gelled alcohol can

I have isoproply alcohol (70%) available, and most DIY alcohol stoves don't work well on it... through a little trial and error you can get a pretty good flame if you supply a lot of air, and have a red glowing preheater available.....if you have access to some 1/4" hardware cloth... a double thickness around the inside of a cola (cut 2" from bottom) can's circumference will support a pot...so that two 1/4" layer (1/2") is above the rim...use a hand paper punch to make a circumference series of holes around the can for additional air supply...start 1" from the bottom and 3 rings of holes..., and an additional single cylinder of the mesh (1/4" below the rim to make up for the dome at the bottom of the can)...somewhat concentric to act as a vaporizing column...hold in place with a piece of mesh in the bottom of the can is its position is relatively important...

paraffin and cotton rope wick stoves work well for emergency, but they are pretty sooty in the Swiss stove

it is hard to beat the Trangia if you have a supply of denatured alcohol

I think I would switch to denatured alcohol if Esbit is not available - either the Trangia or something like the CAT stove, madd from a cat food can. CAT stoves are quite effective and hot, and are much lighter than the Esbit stove

Thanks guys

I have been playing around with tuna cans and powedered milk cans to make cat stoves and rocket stoves. But I live in a desert country where wood is not very abundant. So, I will limit that to inside the house where I will burn even old furbiture or dead branches from the garden if it is SHTF situation.

Liquid fuels are not popular around here. Alcohol will not be easy to find , although I will keep looking. We do not have the (HEET) brand of fuel additives, which are explained in these forums as methanol and propanol. We have the STP fuel additives so I don't know what they are made of.

But availability of liquid fuel is not the only consideration. Gas and liquid fuels are not safe to be stored in car trunk in July/August heat. So it defies the purpose of having a GHB standby in the trunk 365 days a year. Solid fuel seems the only safe choice for me.

BTW, I don't even have an esbit stove per se. I made my own from some cans ( same diameter and half height of a coffee can ) with holes around the botton and top. Other esbit stoves I made from an electrical outlet box after opening the side holes and using a raised cover on top. The cover screws are not tightened and the cover can be sled open. Inside the box, extra esbit cubes are stored (just like the real esbit stove).

So, if it appears the only choice for secondary fuel is the charcoal tabs, they will have the additional advantage of being almost same size and shape like esbit fuel. They will be conveniently stored in there too.

Homemade cubes of sawdust and wax can be made, but again, they will be smoky. I need something that can burn clean. BBQ charcoal and charcoal tabs produce ashes, but no smoke. This is why I considered them.

Carbon/charcoal/coke has a similar energy density to Hexamine, so charcoal brickets or coke make for a reasonable energy supply.

They will store easily and are essentially inert in a wide range of weather conditions and temperatures. For long term storage you could also vacuum seal the charcoal brickets.

Disposable BBQ trays with Charcoal brickets are widely available for a reasonable cost.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PACK-DISPOSABLE-INSTANT-LIGHT-BARBECUES/dp/B004FULDF2/ref=pd_sim_sbs_lp_1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pctKepNWZTU

Getting the maximum heat from Charcoal or Coke for maximum thermal efficiency i.e. to heat water, would need a gasifier stove. These can be made from old tin cans for virtually no cost

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHtA-d9hNPk

Using smokeless fuel with a gasifier stove should produce very little smoke or carbonization of your pot bases.

Using a gasifier stove will also be safer than attempting to use charcoal brickets or tabs on an Esbit stove as well as it will burn the excess CO being introduced into the environment to produce CO2 at the top of the gasifier stove.

Esbit is just a brand name for hexamine tablets. Bleuet and Coghlan's are others.

http://www.agsbrands.com/bleuet-large-solid-fuel-cubes-12-ct/

You don't say where you live, but Academy Sports sells Bleuet for probably the best price available on hexamine tablets.

I believe that the OP is in the Middle East - Saudi Arabia? So I would think that the regular supply sources (including online) available to most of us would not be available to the OP to order from.

Yes, I am in Saudi Arabia

I do buy a things online time to time, but when I subscribed to a mail forwarding company here ( for the U.S. companies that won't ship outside the U.S.) the list of no-no's included flammable stuff , which I guess would include stove fuels.

However, I do have esbit fuel now as I mentioned above. Someone imported it by mistake and I bought a few dozens. The purpose of this thread is to investigate the possibility of finding a secondary fuel to supplement what I have already in case I don't get another chance of finding it again.

Reading thru local forums, it seems that esbit stoves have been found around but at totally unexpected sources like one guy who found them at a propane gas supplier !!! He bought a few and told everyone on that forum. Why that propane gas supplier had them ?? No one knows. Where can they be found locally in the future ?? Maybe in a bicycle shop or a cosmetics shop, LOL.

As I said, the overwhelming majority of campers here use gas stoves , and wood off course, but no liquid fuels ( neither alcohol nor petroleum based) and no esbit type fuels. There is no demand for these , and this is why they are hard to find. My need for the esbit actually is not for camping, it is for prepping. We don't have many preppers around here, and this is why I found myself at ETS

Can you get Purell hand sanitizer? It burns very well in my CAT stove and my Trangia. I mention that particular brand because not all similar brands will necessarily burn the same. Just another possibility.....

I have seen it somewhere but don't remember where.

I am trying to avoid liquid fuels, but adding a cat stove to my bag isn't a bad idea just in case. Now I remember buying a 1-liter can of some solvent a few years ago for my daughter's art class, which I think could have been denatured alcohol. I have to investigate that.

Some of the sanitizers (GermX, Dial ..etc. ) in my preps have 63% ethyl alcohol as active ingredient. Can you please tell me what are the contents of Purell ?


Thanks

that is the percentage contained in Purell. Should work just fine...

Thanks hikermor

I will stock up on GermX, and Purell, if I find it.



Edited to add :

WOW!!

http://www.delish.com/food/recalls-reviews/teens-drinking-hand-sanitizer

I have found and used fire gel sometime ago and propably can get it agian. However, if GermX or Purell can burn, they will be better because they are multi purpose. Maybe Fire gell is cheaper I don't know, but I will not be using these regularly. Only as backup to gas stoves , or emergency use.

Now I am getting greedy for more advice.

My question is : assuming I have the DIY skills necessary, can you suggest me a stove design for both esbit/hexamine AND alcohol, whichever fuel is available.

I already have homemade esbit type stoves and cat stoves. But none of them will work with both fuels. Plus the cat stove seems too small for for anything but a steel cup.

How about if I put a smallish CAT stove inside the homemade esbit ( a larger - half height coffee - can that has holes around the top and bottom. ) Advantags is more stability for larger pots. CAT stoves work on the principle that flame will come out from the side holes. However if the pot sits on teh larger ( outer ) can , flame will come out of the top of the CAt stove. Is that bad ?

I have seen on you tube something like this when someone filled a tea candle aluminum container with sand and alcohol and used it as a candkle or micro heater. Maybe I can fill the CAt with some sand and alcohol and put it inside the larger can.

Your thoughts ???

Thanks

if you have access to 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol, the small stove I described works pretty well for a pot to sit on top... takes a minute or so to heat up the screen

http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbn..._NAME=snapfish/

http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/slides..._NAME=snapfish/

Thanks Teslin. I think others have mentioned denatured alcohol. You could also use gasoline additive containing methanol (yellow heet bottle in USA).

Purell works well as a fire starter and I'm sure you could cook with it. I think that fire gel burns hotter and longer.

can stoves seem to work pretty well and alcohol of some sort ought to be readily available just about anywhere.

if you come up with another fuel for that stove you may as well just buy a stove to match the fuel,alcohol-get a Trangia burner,so on.
here is my off-the-wall idea.first off the Germans in WW2 had Esbit stoves and they were a treasured bit of gear even with no tabs to go with them.on the Eastern Front where the stove was just about a life saver no tabs were coming on the supply trains,it was all ammo and fuel.
that folding stove however was a dry place to set anything that would burn,had a bit of a windshield and a pot rest.that means you did not have to fool around making those things.
now what i would have you try is to carry that stove around and find fuel for it.no joke,you don't have to light it if you don't want to or are someplace where you can't like a bus stop.
there should be a world of litter,man made or natural that you could put a flame too and feed under the pot as it burns down.
that what survival is all about,making do,you can of course pack away some sort of fuel as a back-up when nothing else is at hand to burn.

+1

That is why I used cans to make my own esbit stoves. Let's say half height hobo stoves that will fit esbit tabs very nicely. Othr types of fuels will fit there just as good, from coals to small container of alcohol

The charcoal you have already located looks ideal.

You probably don't even need to do the half and half with the hexi because charcoal will usually take light directly from a match.

If it is difficult to light, a simple strip of newsprint screwed up should be more than enough to get it going.


I've found a brand of firelighter made from compressed wood chips which works OK too; and does not "go off" with storage.