Amount of Alcohol

Generally speaking, many ounces of alcohol you guys use to boil at most 2 cups of water? Assume the elevation is never higher than 6,600 feet and denature alcohol from painting department of a hardware store is used. I've been getting various amount of boil time using cold water. (Creek water is cold, so I use cold sink water for my tests.)

Around half an oz. if I recall the marks on the measuring cup thing for one of my Caldera Cones.
Duane

How far can I drive my car with a gallon of fuel ?
It really is exactly the same thing, it depends on your exact set up not so much on the fuel used.
With my Caldera Cone 550ml pot, I boil 60f water in about 6:30min with about 1/2 oz of 95% Ethanol.
Now change any of those specs and at best you will use a fraction less (using a wider pot, everything else the same ) at worst you will burn three/four times as much fuel
(20f, narrower pot,no windscreen,wide flame burner...)
The trick with alcohol is to have a system, that is use a burner/pot/windscreen and fuel combo designed to work as a kit.

The experiment continues. The DIY Penny Stove I made can hold 3oz of liquid. This is when liquid starts coming out the jets. I haven't been able to make a windscreen. Either tomorrow or tonight, I'm add 3oz of denature fuel and see how long it burns as well as how long it takes burn 2 cups of cold water. I would like a titanium cook mug from Evernew with a lid and insulated handle. I could avoid all of this hassle and experiments by buying a Vargo titanium alcohol/solid fuel stove which is cheaper than Caldera, but what the fun in that?!?! I made the pot support out of a Bush Baked Bean can. I cut three wide holes to allow enough air for the flame and yet have enough aluminum to hold a full mug of water. Picture is coming soon!

Yup. Probably best to keep measures and notes over time to accumulate emperical data about your kit and your circumstances and habits. Alcohol stoves seem especially susceptible to performance drop from wind.

My very crude rule of thumb is it takes twice the amount of alcohol to perform the equivalent cooking as done on a canister stove.

Happy experimenting!

I still haven't found an efficient plan to make a windscreen. I could take aluminum foil on every trip, and plant sticks around the stove then wrap the foil around it... Otherwise I don't know how to make a reusable and non-bulky windscreen. Good thing I don't work in product and development.

Depends on how cold it is.. In winter, I may drink half a bottle to stay warm before the stove kicks in...

What's your setup (stove, pot, support)?

Cheers,

Hah! (Some of us recall what industry you're in.)

Cheers,

I am in the happiness industry. Full of warm personalities!

Tonight's result:

I boiled 2 cups of water in roughly 9 minutes. It burned for 14:34 minutes. I used between 2-3oz of denature alcohol. Pictures:

This is the set up, when I pour fuel into the burner/fuel cap any excess that comes out the jets is caught on the base that I made from wider can.


This is the beginning when flames are very large

The 9th minute mark

The flame eventually settles into more steady heat until it died at the 14:34



I just need to cook a meal on it next and have a windscreen plan. I'm brain storming ideas for a shorter pot support and wish I had the cash to buy this

You need to do some more research. As has been stated, a number of factors come into play. You are off base with your setup, but a windscreen to direct heat around your pot would have helped the most I think, I've only been doing the Caldera Cone setup on a couple week long bp vacations. Two cups of water should boil a whole lot faster and use a small fraction of the fuel. Less fuel = less packed weight. For the amount of fuel you used, I used that much fixing dinner for 6 nights and one hot breakfast last Summer on my vacation, that is how efficient the Caldera Cone setup is. Distance from flame to pot is very critical. I've only experimented with a potted meat/cat food can a few times and my penny stove a few times with my Fosters pot and hardware cloth pot stand. The Fosters pot ran circles around your setup and I only had a quickly rigged windscreen, testing at home on my work bench. Something for you to test with the cold and short days.
Duane

I do realized I need a shorter pot support and windscreen. I think one reason is I have 10 jets, thus, it not as pressured which is reducing fuel efficiency? I think another reason is perhaps uneven edges from when I cut the aluminum is causing some poor performance in comparison to stove made commercially, I think? I need Walter White to help me. (if you don't watch Breaking Bad, you won't get this. )

You can see on those photos how a lot of the flame is wasted heating the stand and just going up the sides.
A very much maligned (but it works...) way of determining the optimal burner to pot distance is simply to bring some water to a boil
(just use your stove...) then hold the pot over the flame and move it slowly up and down .
At some point you will see a more vigorous boil and that is the right distance for your burner/fuel combination.
Start at about two inches away.

That's a huge amount of fuel. Your stove/stand/pot combo are pretty poor as you've discovered. Mine isn't great either, but I still only use .6-.7 oz of heet for 2 cups using a Super Cat and Heineken pot.

ETSU,

I have very little experience with alcohol stoves, but used a Trangia for about ten days once. I used it with a homemade pot stand and windscreen, with the pot about 2 inches above the burner.

It took a little less than half an ounce of alcohol to bring about 2 cups of cold water to a rolling boil in about four or four and a half minutes. As noted above, you must be wasting much of your heat. Hope that gives you something to shoot for.

Best, jcp

I thought alcohol would perform better in colder temperature compared to cold canister. Which is the primary reason to successfully build one beside boredom. Vargo's website claimed, " Alcohol is difficult to light in cold temperatures." One night, I left my canister in my pack, which was hanging on the bear cable, when it was 18 degrees. The end result the next morning was a lot longer time than usual to boil a cup of water to have a morning hot chocolate.I left my canister in my sleeping bag the next time and I kept kicking it around, I got annoyed by this.

Methyl alcohol's flash point is 52 degrees F, so it takes coaxing to ignite when cold. Ethyl alcohol (our friend) is 55 degrees.

And yeah, I hate cold cartridges. Best solution for those is an inverted cartridge stove setup for liquid feed to a burner with a generator tube.

Cheers,

Ah, didn't know that, thanks! Vargo makes a solid and alcohol stove in one. I have an Esbit stove but I haven't used it in the backcountry; I don't have a windscreen, yet. http://www.vargooutdoors.com/Titanium-Triad-XE-Alcohol-Fuel-Tab-Stove It looks big enough to put two fuel tabs when you remove the alcohol fuel cap. It seem fuel tabs and alcohol have a lot of potential to be easier all around fuel sources, but I would miss the convenience of gas where you can just light it and cut it off any second..

I have the vargo triad, it is a pretty cool stove.

“Vargo's website claimed, " Alcohol is difficult to light in cold temperatures."”

Wow that’s a big myth. You definitely have the wrong stove if that’s the case. I can light my 0F alcy even when I haven’t kept it warm. The secret is you just touch the lit match tip to the surface of the alcohol—with the correct stove.
Some things that might help:
1. Don’t use tall thin pots unless you’re using the Caldera system. Too much heat escapes.
2. Don’t get excited about a titanium stove. They don’t seem to work in the cold. Titanium is just a heat sink so you lose a lot of energy warming it up. That’s why thin Al cans are faster and more efficient for an alcy stove
3. Your steel bean can also takes up heat. I used one of those for a year. I then went to hardware cloth as a stand and gained 45 seconds heating time.
4. A penny stove is tricky because you can’t see how much you poured in and you can’t see how much is left. Plus it requires an extra loose piece. The open-jet pressurized stove is more versatile.

Just some ideas. Good luck.
-Barry
-The mountains were made for Teva’s