alcohol container malfunction!

I went hiking yesterday,temp about 80F, and I took my alky stove with me. I keep my alky bottle in outside flapped pocket on the pack. I stop to eat and find that my bottle is empty and the safety cap as blown apart. I can snap the cap back together but what did I do wrong in the first place?

How much "head space" did you leave in the container? I haven't looked this up but it would seem that the pressure in your container built up to the point where it blew off the cap. Apparently it was warm enough to do that. Might want to get another container with a screw on top.

Interesting. Did you lean against your pack or anything like that? It seems unusual that there would be that much pressure.

HJ

one and half inch below the neck..there is a dotted line for max fill...this was a screw on top...I don't know if it was a plugged vent..It is a green Energy by Optimus fuel bottle...

nope it never left my back..it just blew lol..was a suprise at lunch stop..

It sounds like a leaky lid. Is this those aluminum bottles http://www.backcountry.com/optimus-fuel-bottle-ops0006 ? You can save much more weight just using a plastic bottle.

-Barry

Yeah, plastic bottles with a flip top spout are the way to go for alcohol at least in my book.

HJ

Contact lens solution bottles work great. They have a small squirt top and don't react with the Alchohol. They also come in many sizes... Even clear ones!

yes with a push down to open lid. The two pieces popped apart and leaked somehow. the screw cap n o-ring were still tight.so must be a cracked plastic..Oh well!..glad wasn't winter and 50 miles in!

What works flawlessly for me is a soda pop bottle with standard lid. It stays screwed shut for soda under pressure, it works fine for alcohol.

To be safe, I put this in a ziplock, and carry it in the external mesh of my pack. Never had a problem over quite a number of miles, and never heard of any of many people I've known to use soda bottles to have problems either.

The Yellow HEET bottles: I typically repackage. I don't know if it's the offset design or what, but I typically find myself unhappy if I use the original yellow plastic bottle.

I've used juice type bottles and mini-gatorade type of bottles too --- these or smaller (12 oz?) soda bottles will fit in a quart rather than gallon ziplock. It's all good, and without the fancy opening top, never a problem.

I buy those flat plastic bottles at REI (http://www.rei.com/product/402028/flat-oval-poly-bottle-8-fl-oz) and then wrap Teflon plumbers tape around the threads of the bottle and put the lid on over that. So far so good.

I have used plastic water bottles for years with no problem. The small ones for shorter trips and the regular size for longer. I have reused the same bottle many times and never had a problem either.

Plastic soda bottle is best I've found.

Through much of '80s and early '90s I went through various commercial fuel containers for alcohol fuel with many problems.

I just checked my soda bottle and is doing great after several months.