Another thing about alcohol stove effeiciency. When determining efficiency (that is the volume of fuel needed to boil a certain amount of water), this is usually measured in ideal circumstances. One downside of many alcohol systems is that people have to guess how much fuel they will need. If you use too little fuel, your stove burns out prematurely and you have to add more to get it to boil (and then probably end up using more than the minimum). If you use too much and burn off the excess, then you also burn more than the minimum. The only reliable way to actually use the minimum amount of fuel is to have a system that allows you to snuff out the stove when you are done and recover or store the excess fuel. The Starlyte (without pot stand) by Zelph is good for this. It is easy to blow out and then can be capped with the excess fuel is held in the wicking system. With my system, I cut 2" off the bottom of a 12 oz pop can. This can be dropped on top of an eCHS stove to snuff it out. Then I can suck the excess fuel out of the stove with one of these:
http://packafeather.com/fuelbottle.html
Without one of these excess fuel storage/recovery systems, you effective efficiency in the field will suffer.
Shugemery believes in alcohol stoves. He has them all but has a favorite goto
Can you juggle yours and roll it on the ground???
I think they are far and few between except for lightweight backpackers and distance hikers.
I'd be surprised if the general backpacking public (which is pretty small to begin with overall) and tends to do one or two trips a year anyway, even knows about alchie stoves. They go to at REI, get an Osprey Pack and matching pack cover, an REI branded free-standing tent, a water filter and some sort of canister stove.
The stuff is put away and then they go do a trail run, mtbike trip or what-have-you. Which was also probably bought at REI.
The Mrs and I just came back from a trip (first one together in two years. Hurray for her masters being done!) and this is, more or less, what I saw.
Paul "Mags" Magnanti
http://pmags.com
Twitter: @pmagsco
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The true harvest of my life is intangible...a little stardust caught,a portion of the rainbow I have clutched -Thoreau
I own a Jetboil, a Pocket Rocket, a stove whose name I have long forgotten that uses those smelly pellets, and at least two other stoves that use the screw on propane tanks. ( I know, OCD, but I am retired, and saved a decade for my thru hike). I tanked in 2010...but made it the entire white blazin freakin way last summer (2013). I ended up going "cold" in 2013 after less than a month. Not pushing it on anyone, honest. I just got into a Via Ice Coffee, something different most days for body fuel (sardines ended up, amazingly, being a go to, and I never seemed to tire of peanut butter on pita bread). I just never missed the hassle of cooking and cleanup. Absolutely NOT passing judgment on those who enjoyed cooking...and did occassionally covet what I smelled in camp. But, and just for me, enjoyed more the fast exit from camp rather than hot grub (nice) and clean up (ugh). Will acknowledge, I had saved enough to enjoy hostels and restaurants quite often...which I am sure made the cold food decision more "palatable". (Pun intended). Oh, I forgot. I loved the powdered Gatorade. It was like a cocktails used to be at home at 5:30 pm. Weird how your tastes change. Sawyer filtered cold Maine water and Gatorade, and I was in heaven! Thanks for letting me post so long. I expect no one to read it, but it brings back such happy memories.
My first stove ever purchase was an Optimus Nova +. I used it twice before I quickly wonder why the heck I need this massive stove. Found the best (IMO, at the time) DIY pepsi-can stove instructions and never looked back. It's been over 4+ years and I still have and use the first one I ever made.
Alcohol stoves ARE efficient and they ARE lightweight. I took it one step further and just spend a few minutes testing pot stands at different height's, etc. to get maximum efficiency out of it. It works flawlessly and I've never had a problem with it.
Smile, Smile, Smile.... Mile after Mile
Rock Creek in Chattanooga is for yuppies!! I can get **** online for cheaper and still cover shipping costs!!
On my thru hike I made an alcohol stove with a used potted meat can. Works great. Kept the fuel in a plastic V-8 fruit bottle. They are thicker. Cut the bottom out of a beer can with notches to UAE as a fire starter. Works even in a heavy rain with less than one oz. of fuel. The stove fits inside the can bottom. Weight of stove and fire starter can is 0.4 oz. It works, it's reliable, it's easy, and the best price ever. You can buy denatured alcohol along the trail.
Mingo
I can't resist updating this.
Current weight of my chs alcohol stove/screens/stand/2 oz bottle for fuel: 1.91 ounces. Add about .8 ounces per ounce of slx, depending, let's say about 1.5 ounces per day to have tea etc as well as 2 cooked meals. If you skipped the tea, it would come in pretty close to 1 oz per day real-world. I carry a bit more, because honestly, this is not weight that matters, and every day there's less of it, so really I don't care.
This is real-world, not ideal conditions. Consumption will be higher at altitude obviously, physics/chemistry being what it is and all, but so will anything else so that's roughly even.
The narrow pot I don't include since most stove setups would have pot too. The chs is just a really, really, good design, I've had zero interest in spending time on stove stuff after making mine, though I would like to do a better write-up of how to make one. I don't consider it an easy stove to make, it's tricky and picky, but only in production, and after that, it's just an aluminum can that's more solid than most since it has two layers basically. I might pick up one of those zelph self sealing stoves at some point if I find myself needing to have something very safe in high fire conditions, but otherwise my stove journey ended a couple of years ago, though I still like tweaking the materials I use, we all have hobbies, this is less bad than many.
Note that I could go lighter, and was, with the toaks ti wind screen cut and shaped to fit, which is super thin ti foil, with folded edges and cut to size for your pot, that's maybe 7, 8 grams lighter, I just picked up some 0.004" ti foil from china, that's about 2x (or more, hard to measure stuff that thin) thicker than the toaks foil, but about half the weight of aluminum flashing, which is also really good, cheap as heck, and sturdy (though this 0.004" stuff is nicely stiff too, just thinner), and I think I'm going to stick with that, plus the toaks outer lower screen to keep the breeze out of the main screen/stove system.
For anyone interested, this is the ti foil: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They call it 0.1 mm which is around 0.004" That is enough for roughly two stoves I think, depending on how wide your pot is. I don't know how thick thick the toaks stuff is, much thinner than 0.004" for sure, but to me, it's kind of flimsy though totally usable. That's about $11 for enough for one pot plus a base piece if you want to make one of those (helps efficiency, reflects heat back up from ground).
I find this setup almost comically easy to use (slot screens together, put stand together, put base/stove down, fill stove, light, put screens around it, light, squirt in a bit more fuel if you need more, light), there may be a few minutes difference in boil times between that and a natural gas powered stove, but honestly, I'm not very busy when I'm cooking, and the silence is pure bliss, which makes any actual argument impossible for me to actually engage in, since that level of aesthetic beauty is just not something I'm capable of debating, or wanting to.
Being able to gauge fairly precisely my fuel load for each trip is a nice bonus too. With the screen setup, wind isn't a big deal, though with all other alcohol stove types I used it was a huge deal for sure. If I were going longer than 2 ounces of fuel, I would add a 2 oz bottle, a 4 ounce, or an 8 ounce, depending. Once you get to over 8 ounces of fuel, the advantage in weight of an efficient system like this isn't even something you can debate anymore, at that point, just admit you want to use fossil fuel stoves and call it good, daily average carry weight can't be argued any longer, it's just preference at that point. Plus my entire setup fits nicely into my pot.
Since actually the individual weights make no difference, the real number is the pot/cozy/spoon/fuel bottle/screens/stand/stove/cup, all of it, that's 7 3/4 ounce. Add in .8 to 1.2 ounce per day of fuel, and that's the real number you carry. Add in weight of bigger fuel bottles, which is almost nothing, for longer trips. You can go lighter on some pieces, but it doesn't change the overall numbers much. Weigh the whole thing when you leave, and weight it all when you come back, then find the average per day you carried. That's the real weight, everything else is just a game. The math is difficult to really get around, so I don't try anymore, it is what it is.
The real drag is, the dryer our fossil fuel use makes our climates in some regions, the bigger the fires, droughts, etc, the more we'll be pushed to use fossil fuel stoves, which is ironic if nothing else.
It takes a bit more practice to use these alcohol things than flicking a lighter to light a natural gas stove (though not much, really not much, setup, squirt in fuel, light, put pot on), for sure, and I don't ever expect to see the stuff hit the mainstream (but I also don't expect tarptents, zpacks, enlightened equipment, etc, hit the mainstream, nor the big dig cat hole trowel or whatever other lovely things the cottage people can come up with), but I have a sneaking suspicion that at least one commercially available alcohol stove may be a chs design, but I'm not sure, as I said, I stopped the stove stuff once I found what I was looking for, but I've seen at least one that I thought might be that design.
But the silence.... words have a hard time conveying my feeling about that, made me lose interest in trying to argue it anymore, now I just appreciate every moment of it when I'm fortunate enough to be out there, and let the arguments etc merge back into the ether they came out of.
Here's hoping we have nature to enjoy in the coming years. Even if that might require making some sacrifices at some point...
Last edited by Harald Hope; 04-04-2019 at 21:39. Reason: formatting
And some people can't use them due to regulations.
Nice set up. If it works and you like it then great. I've tried alchy stoves and yes they work but no I didn't like them. Too much fiddle factor for me, & I don't like invisible flames. I just feel more comfortable with a canister.
Also IMHO you should include your pot in the weight because it is part of your cooking system. Different stoves call for different pots.
If you want an alcohol stove with greater heat output but far easier to make than CHS, try a Groove Stove.
I combine this with Sterno Inferno pot and myog pot stand/windscreen. Boils 2 cups in 4-4:30 depending upon water start temp.
Sterno_Inferno_01.jpg
The Five Basic Principles of Going Lighter ~ Cam "Swami" Honan of OZ
Is the myog pot stand/windscreen a luxury or necessity? Indoors, the stock windscreen works well, but outdoors, stove with stock windscreen sometimes flames out early. Do you know of a way to improve the stock pot stand/windscreen? Not sure I'm ready to invest in titanium.
The stock one is very heavy, so yes I consider myog needed, as well as the stock lid which is super heavy. Basically, buy the Inferno setup and throw away everything except the pot. And yes, the myog one works very well in the wind, although as usual any stove system works better when well shielded from wind.
As for Ti, the Ti sheet (.004") linked above by Harald H is absolutely perfect for the job and that is the best price I've ever seen. (I 're-linked' it because it was not well highlighted above and buried in a wall of words. ) My pot/stand windscreen is exactly 3" tall and joined with a tab and slot, holes made with a puncher from Home Depot.
The Five Basic Principles of Going Lighter ~ Cam "Swami" Honan of OZ
The Five Basic Principles of Going Lighter ~ Cam "Swami" Honan of OZ