alcohol stove efficiency

[MuddyWaters]

IME, I don't think this is true for a Caldera setup, which envelops the sides of the pot, coupled with the 12-10 stove that has a very narrow flame. My wife has an Evernew 640ml "tall" pot caldera setup. I have a Evernew 900ml squat caldera setup. We never timed it, but she can boil 2 cups of water considerably faster than me.

If you have a big enough flame to take advantage of the surface a wide pot provides, two things work in you favor. One is much larger area, it increases as the square of the diameter. The other is the much shallower depth of water provides faster heating throughout by natural circulation than deeper pot. Increasing heat uptake. This us why a supercat works well with a wide pot , can boil water in close to same time as cannister, 3 min, but is very wasteful with fuel too at that rate and takes 0.75-1oz.

If you dont match flame to pot, you arent going to be as fast as possible, unless engulf pot and use excess fuel. Sucks to pick up boiling pot with flames up sides too. I pick mine up by wrapping with bandana, pretty much no-no if flame go up sides. Have that happen occassionally on unlevel ground whwn I dont get a flat rock level or such and have to wait extra 30 sec for fuel to burn out. I normally snuff it with pot lid and suck that lil bit back up.

For 2 people we use a large tealight cup with an evernew 1.3L. It uses 0.95 oz fuel to boil 4 cups in about 8.5 min. But it will boil 2 cups in 5 min on 0.5 oz. A little less efficient than the 0.4 oz used by my small tealight and small pot, but 2.5 min faster due to larger bottom, and larger flame.

A ccf pad held wrapped around pot (well away) also makes windblock that works in windiest conditions as long as you willing to squat and hold it for a few minutes .

Funny thing about alcohol stoves like the tealight, they work better with more fuel in them (more wetted surface transfers more heat and speeds vaporization rate), and you can put some bent flashng in to do same thing to increase power by wicking more heat in. So overfilling, and recovering fuel after is way to go for speed.

The super-awesome large tealight-bent flashing-1.3evernew combo, sans tight windscreen

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[MikekiM]

I was a hardcore canister stove'r.. loved them for the technology behind them. But they contradicted the essence (for me) of getting out on the trail. Now I use only alch stoves because of the lack of technology behind them. I am not in a rush when I am trekking and most certainly don't want to poison the sounds of nature with sounds of the space shuttle lift off. Alch is fast enough, dead silent, easy to track my remaining fuel, no moving parts, blah blah blah

FanceeFeast stove is in my multi-day kit.

Gram Weenie Pro is my UL/day hike kit.

Never tried the CC though I have pondered it many times..

[Rex Clifton]

I was a hardcore canister stove'r.. loved them for the technology behind them. But they contradicted the essence (for me) of getting out on the trail. Now I use only alch stoves because of the lack of technology behind them. I am not in a rush when I am trekking and most certainly don't want to poison the sounds of nature with sounds of the space shuttle lift off. Alch is fast enough, dead silent, easy to track my remaining fuel, no moving parts, blah blah blah

FanceeFeast stove is in my multi-day kit.

Gram Weenie Pro is my UL/day hike kit.

Never tried the CC though I have pondered it many times..

I don't get the "lack of technology" thing. Why don't you use a wood stove?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[MikekiM]

I don't get the "lack of technology" thing. Why don't you use a wood stove?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

So which part don't you get.. the lack of technology inherent in an alcohol stove or why I don't use a wood stove?

Not a lot of technology in an alc stove.. it's a tin can and a flammable liquid.

I've thought about wood stoves.. a lot. My Amazon Wish List has about four in it. But truth told, I don't want to deal with the soot on the pot bottom. I've cooked over wood many times, but that was more BBQ style than anything else.

[cmoulder]

I've also tried to get used to the idea of wood stoves and did shorter trips using an Emberlit, a CC with Inferno insert and 1 or 2 others... just never made peace with the soot and the smell it imparted to other stuff in the pack and the hassle of preparing wood and tending the fire.

Much easier with alcohol (Fancee Feest with myog cone) for gentle 3-season or canister for winter or when I'm with others. Usually solo, however, and I do appreciate the quiet of alcohol.

If necessary—say if I ran out of fuel—it's easy enough to make a small twig fire in the middle of 3 little rocks.

[zelph]

I've created a nice kit using the wide bottom Toaks Light 700ml pot. The pot is a short 3". The windscreen covers 1" above the bottom of the pot.

The titanium pot support is dual purpose. Provides a means of focusing flame to bottom of pot. If there is a breeze that gets past the windscreen, the pot support provides added flame protection, keeps it focused on pot bottom. A full size original Starlyte burner is used to hold fuel, non-spill is an added safety feature and has a lid to retain unused fuel.

People come in all sizes and shapes.....so do cook kits. Some folks move fast, need jetboils and others use alcohol or solid fuel, sit back, relax and smell the flowers, live longer

The handle on the pot makes for easy real cooking

[Kaptainkriz]

That's a pretty cool setup!

[zelph]

That's a pretty cool setup!

Pot, windscreen and pot support are made of Titanium. Under ideal conditions, 1/2 ounce of denatured alcohol will boil 2 cups of water. The pot support is the main reason for the efficiency. Windscreen is secondary and important in all cook kits.

[Harrison Bergeron]

If you ask me, the purpose of an alcohol stove is to give AT dreamers something to tinker with while they are dreaming about their future hike. A valuable thing in itself.

But in all my wanderings, I have never seen anyone on the AT actually use one. My theory is that by the time you get there, most people do the math and discover that when they add up the weight of a week's worth of alcohol, plus all the accouterments necessary to cook with it, they can buy a Jetboil and cook a meal in half the time, while still saving about an ounce in weight. Plus, you don't have to mess around with a highly toxic liquid that can be absorbed through the skin, or spilled on your gear.

But I will admit that I had a lot of fun trying out all the various designs and carefully timing the boil time of each one. The first time you see flames jetting out of a popcan stove you made yourself, you feel like you've discovered... well, fire.

Homemade alcohol stove.... 0.3
Homemade wind break....... 0.8
Homemade Reflectix cozy... 2.3
Titanium cook set.............. 4.7
12 oz bottle of "Heet"......... 11.5

Total: 19.6
Cost: $53 (if you ignore the cost of a can of pop, aluminum flashing, reflectix, and "Heet")

Jetboil Zip stove................ 11.8
Jetboil 100gm fuel canister.. 6.8

Total: 18.6 oz
Cost: $85

[zelph]

But I will admit that I had a lot of fun trying out all the various designs and carefully timing the boil time of each one. The first time you see flames jetting out of a popcan stove you made yourself, you feel like you've discovered... well, fire.

I remember the feeling when I made the Cobalt blue stove and Bill made the Whitebox.....fun times

[Venchka]

If you ask me, the purpose of an alcohol stove is to give AT dreamers something to tinker with while they are dreaming about their future hike. A valuable thing in itself.

But in all my wanderings, I have never seen anyone on the AT actually use one. My theory is that by the time you get there, most people do the math and discover that when they add up the weight of a week's worth of alcohol, plus all the accouterments necessary to cook with it, they can buy a Jetboil and cook a meal in half the time, while still saving about an ounce in weight. Plus, you don't have to mess around with a highly toxic liquid that can be absorbed through the skin, or spilled on your gear.

But I will admit that I had a lot of fun trying out all the various designs and carefully timing the boil time of each one. The first time you see flames jetting out of a popcan stove you made yourself, you feel like you've discovered... well, fire.

Homemade alcohol stove.... 0.3
Homemade wind break....... 0.8
Homemade Reflectix cozy... 2.3
Titanium cook set.............. 4.7
12 oz bottle of "Heet"......... 11.5

Total: 19.6
Cost: $53 (if you ignore the cost of a can of pop, aluminum flashing, reflectix, and "Heet")

Jetboil Zip stove................ 11.8
Jetboil 100gm fuel canister.. 6.8

Total: 18.6 oz
Cost: $85

Texans drink alcohol and burn hydrocarbons. The way it should be.
Wayne

[righand]

i always just used the denatured alcohol pop can stoves they work great! cheap and light, no complaints..