Alcohol stove - info overload

(I posted in back country beginners to begin with but think I should have posted here)

I see a bazillion stove designs out there but am having troubles figuring out how they actually perform compared to each other. Any sites focusing performance comparison? Basically, I'm looking for a solid stove design that can boil 1l of water, 1-2/day for up to say 4 day. Nasty cat? Penny stove? Gram weenie make says his isn't a good fit. I need help narrowing the choices. I think I would prefer a sideburner since that eliminates the pot stand, but I'm open to anything so long as it is light, efficient and can do a full liter.

I've had good reliable results with the simple homemade CAT stove that Jim Woods introduced. The one I use will boil 500 ml of 50°F water in about 5 minutes on about 0.7 fl. oz. of denatured ethanol. I also have a Trangia Mini that is heavier (5.8 oz with windscreen) and slower cooking (500 ml in 8-9 min) but comes with a simmer ring/snuffer and a cap that lets you save any unused alcohol. The Trangia also comes with a separate wind screen/pot support. As long as you are not in a hurry to boil water and don't mind carrying a few extra ounces, the Trangia is about as foolproof an alcohol stove as one can get. But, the CAT stove is pretty foolproof too and only weighs 0.23 oz.

I don't really understand the question but I've used a Trangia Mini 28 set for more than 20 years with great satisfaction. The pot is 0.8 liters.

Trangia makes other, heavier set-ups with more effective wind screen & larger cookware. Can't speak to economics.

My impression is that alcohol stoves in general, all offer very similar performance characteristics, but I have zero experience with other models and perhaps I am incorrect.

With my admittedly limited experience, the side burner stoves I've tried at home have been unstable, especially for larger volumes (like a liter). So one with a separate stand might be better for you - but heck, the Cat stove is easy to make and give it a try.

I like the penny stove - very fast to boil, easy to light. We've used it for our 2 person trips and have been very pleased.

Looking over zen stoves it looks like I'll be building a penny stove to test. I've played a little with a cat stove + virtual wick, but not enough yet to test. Think I'll build a penny stove too and test them side by side.

Unless you're a stove hobbiest or the hyper competitive type, I don't see the point of having the most optimally efficient alcohol stove. Different overall stove types (alcohol vs. white gas vs. wood, etc) have significant trade-offs between them. But with some experience with three different alcohol stove designs now, I think that the difference in efficiency between whatever is "best" and other "quite good" options just isn't that much.

If you don't already have one, I recommend that you follow the very easy directions that Andrew Skurka offers here:
http://andrewskurka.com/how-to/how-to-make-a-fancy-feast-alcohol-stove/

Skurka has huge experience and uses this one, and it's virtually free to make. And dead easy.

I've used one of those quite a bit too, and it's a great stove.

I realize that I'm not responding to the question asked --- and I generally hate that, so apologies. But I think it might be helpful if you stated why you're so focused on "performance". From my own experience it's just kind of a weird question to ask for any but the stove aficionados.

I cast another vote for the simple cat stove from Jim Wood's site. Unless you have a very narrow pot it should work just fine. I made mine in '06 and it's still going strong. Give it a whirl. If you don't like it you're only out 40 cents.

Every design is a compromise on something and you can go crazy trying to save .004 ounces of alcohol. This stove is tested and proven.

I'll build a fancy feast stove too. Easy and cheap.

Really, efficiency isn't important to me all that much other than the fact that I want to be able to boil 1l of water. Some of the stoves simply can't do this due to capacity, efficiency, design, whatever. So long as I can boil 1l of water in my 5" pot, I'm good. I'm never out more than 3-4 days or in very cold weather so alcohol usage isn't much of a concern.

If I have heated a full liter (or more) at a time, it's been a while. Even cooking for two, typically the most I'll heat up at a time is two cups or so.

Are you cooking for group, or perhaps you're cooking both dinner and a hot drink at the same time, or maybe you're factoring in some clean-up water, or ... ?

Just curious. But depending on your needs, you might find it works in some ways easier to just cook half a liter at a time, even if you really need a full liter in total. The nice thing about that approach is that a stove like the fancy feast is more stable with a smaller diameter pot, and you also have a smaller and lighter pot to carry. Whether I'm hiking alone or together with my wife I find that an 850 ml mug is plenty of cookpot.

None of this is good reasoning or necessarily bad reasoning, but it's my reasoning.

My cooking will be for two somewhat large eaters. So that means 1.5-2 cups each for Mountain House meals plus hot water for tea. We both like 1.5-2 cups for tea so that is like 2 1l boils between the two of us. We could pack two stoves, two pots and go to 2 simultaneous boils or even 4 x 2 cup boils, but keeping it single with 2 1l boils in 1 pot/stove seems easiest. We are both coming from car camping so maybe our expectations are a bit excessive, but I'd rather appease them now and let time trim the fat.

For the amount of boiling water you need, you might find that you're better off with an isobutane/propane mix canister type stove. Normally the break-even point for weight between alcohol and canister stoves is at 7 days, but that's for one person boiling a pint once a day. Reference

The canister stove will allow you to boil all the water you need at once in one large pot.

I tried alcohol but decided that I far prefer the convenience of the canister stoves, even just boiling water for myself.

“I'm looking for a solid stove design that can boil 1l of water”

When I’m cooking for 2 I do this all the time. The White Box stove with a 1.3L evernew Ti pot works great. With 40F water, ~1.5 mass oz of alcy, it takes about 9-11 minutes to boil depending on other conditions.

These are easier to light with a match, rather than a Bic.

Good luck,
-Barry

Slightly more complicated than the supercat but much easier than the penny is the zelph designed fancee feest. This will easily do the job. Some usage calculators do not show that canister stoves ever "break even" with alcohol. Check this one out: http://www.howardjohnson.name/Backpacking/Stove/Stoves.htm you can adjust the values in the spreadsheet.

OK, both the White Box and Fancee Feest look like exactly what I was looking for. I had seen references to both, but not looked at them specifically yet.

Thank you both!

The larger White Box was made to boil water for groups. It works well for boiling, though it would be inefficient for melting snow.

Defying all protests that I am crazy, I have also fried an egg with it - but this is not recommended if you are not willing to hold a frying pan over a tall pillar of uncontrolled flame to adjust the heat. Making a SuperCat and SimmerCat meets the cooking needs more adequately.

Those spread sheets are interesting but nothing more than suggestive for practical use.

Fuel consumption by Trangia Mini-28 kit is quite variable depending on wind conditions & can't be calculated in advance with any real precision, especially on a beach or in open country, etc.

Also one can be quite wasteful. Although stove is designed to contain & carry fuel, I tend toward distrust and mostly just burn off excess.

Similar stoves are probably similar in this regard, though I've no experience.

In recent years I've gone back to Trangia as primary stove, for very light cooking; not least due to availability and cost issues regarding canisters.

When practical I frequently use a camp fire for more involved (though still crude & primitive) projects.

One other suggestion I would make are the range of stoves made by Trial Designs. Some can burn both alcohol and wood. They are a bit pricy, and they aren't the most fuel efficient, but I have found them dead simple to use and very consistent in highly variable conditions. Wind has a bit effect on many alcohol stoves, but the integrated windscreen on the Caldera Cone seems to keep the stove performance very consistent. That said, I have to admit that I mostly don't use alcohol anymore. On solo trips I have been using esbits in a Caldera cone, and when I go with groups I am often cooking for 4-6… I just don't have the patience for alcohol… I use a stove that burns iso-Butane.

--Mark

Trangia Mini is wonderful for one person, or two in pinch, for very minimal cooking.

Other Trangia set-up, with its deluxe windscreen (& cookware), could be far better, and might even lead category by significant margin regarding efficiency.

It isn't adequately known or tested by cognoscenti, and I have no experience with this equipment.

However, it is, perhaps, unacceptably heavy by slight margin.

I am another fan of the Mini - just the right size for one or two, and very inexpensive. I often pair it with my Pocket Rocket.

I ended up buying a Zelph made Fancee Feest to play with. I'll let you know what I think once I receive it and have played with it a bit.