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Friday, June 12, 2009

A minimal stove to consider, and it will cost you about a quarter.

The Pepsi can stove is a legend, Wings is the best place I know to get a good overview of the designs. It's handy in your BOB, it's handy at home, it's perfect for a warmer at the next buffet, just don't shake it too much, it can spill and that's the only reason the gelled sterno is still so popular... there must be a trick to that.

For fuel use alcohol, not gas and I'm serious, the gas will burn just fine and maybe melt your stove or 'pop' violently when you light it.

I've used Everclear and it works great and it's something you can enjoy if it's your thing, mix well with juice and ice imo. Many places say get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and use it in your stove.. well, I'm not happy with my last bottle of juice and so I'm here to tell you. I've used 70% isopropyl successesfully in several stoves of the years but the bottle I bought today will only flare and not burn. Aim for the 90% version if you want consistant results, it's cheap and about 2 oz will boil a 1//2 gallon of water.

Fuel additives like Heat do work well but I don't have stats on them, the cost a lot more than rubbing alcohol.

You can always flip over a popcan stove and burn a solid fuel like trioxalene on it's ass-end, a 50 cent 1-1/4" drain grate will extend it's life.

Here's a picture of my new stove.

I prefer the organic method for cooking, ie. FIRE, but a stove with portable fuel makes a lot of sense and works in better in my SAR pack.
I have the tryoxylene fueled flat pack stove, it works great if you scrape up the center of the disk to provide tinder.

My old can stove still works better but I think it's the fuel issue, I'll take pics of it next time and all the addons; snuffer, grill, pot holder.

Rick

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got two of these Rick. I use denatured alcohol. It works great in these stoves and you can get it by the gallon at Lowe's or Home Depot for $15. Denatured alcohol is the same at HEET.

matthiasj
Kentucky Preppers Network

Rick said...

You're right, denatured alcohol is a much cheaper and more consistent fuel, I'm just more comfortable with rubbing alcohol due to it's medical uses, denatured alcohol is specifically degraded to be non-consumable, and I wouldn't want to use it on on injuries.

Thanks for the post my friend.

Rick

Anonymous said...

Alcohol stove studies.

http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/SuperCat/index.html


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