Oh alcohol stove, where have you been all my life?

i made and tested my first alcohol stove yesterday, as per instructions i found here:

http://www.jureystudio.com/pennystove/stoveinstruct.html

so far im very impressed with the performance of the stove, and kind of disappointed that i hadnt heard of it sooner. For most of my camping life, ive tried to come up with some alternative to 1lb propane tanks and stoves, some have been coffee can wood stoves like the penny wood stove on that same site, but lately ive been using sterno, which doesnt perform that well for the weight.

the question i have now, is there a limit to the effective size of the stove? the one i made, as well as the ones ive seen online, are about 1.5" tall. can they be made taller to hold more fuel and burn longer?

One would imagine so, but you don't want to get too tall - stability issues. Are you acquainted with the Trangia alcohol stove. It has somewhat more capacity than most others, and it actually has the ability to simmer (which I never use). Most of us, I dare say, boil water in our alkys.

I've made a few stoves, limited usage though, just picked up a penny stove and fired it twice now. Very happy with its use yesterday, boiling water in my Foster's pot I just need to rig up a couple windscreens now for it and I will have a pretty lite stove and pot system.
Duane

I was amazed at how light and efficient these DIY stoves are too when I first learned about them. You might also want to make and test the SuperCat Stove.

Personally, I like that one better than the penny stove. I think it's easier to make, simpler in design, and easier to light.

There are lots of other stoves you can find to make here, as well as a lot of other cool DIY stuff.

I have a Supercat stove I made, the penny stove cost $2.50 shipped, off of Evilbay, could not pass that up and I could not have made it for that little. I see they start at $4.50 now.:)
Duane

I am a penny stove fan. I use it for just about all my trips under four "person-days" with me boiling two to three cups of
water for breakfast, and again for dinner.

If you made the simmer ring, it will burn a *long* time with that on it. I have used it to simmer stuff on a fill for around 40 minutes in controlled conditions. the problem I have with it is that it is a bit to wind sensitive and "fiddly" for me in the field - I tend to wanna just eat and not fool around.

For more than four "person days" - i switch to a canister stove, about 5 is the cutoff for me where the increased weight of the canister stove and canister is offset by the larger amount of alcohol I have to carry to do the same thing.

The caveat to that would be if I ever do some kind of thru hike where I need resupply.. Canisters are hard to find, relatively. I can get heet (gas-line antifreeze - methanol) at any gas station in canada anyway.

phat, old ranger, hikerduane

What is the lowest temperature you've been able to use an alcohol stove at?

I built a supercat, and am going to start cold weather testing as soon as it gets cold here - it's still only getting down to the 40s F here in eastern VA so far. If you guys have a baseline, I then have a reasonable hypothesis to test from.

Thanks much

Steadman

Sorry, no data. I have usually switched to some sort of gas stove when temps got down near freezing.

The pressurized and semi-pressurized stoves have a more difficult time when the temp drops. This is mostly due to the cold pot being placed on the stove which will suck too much heat from the stove. The supercat is a semi-pressurized stove. Canister stoves also suffer from pressurizing issues in the cold due to the vaporization point of the gasses.

A wick based alcohol stove, like the starlyte or fancee feest works much better in the cold. I have used both into the negative teens F with no problem whatsoever. In fact, my friends whisperlight was having issues so my alcohol stove (I was using the starlyte at the time) bailed him out.The added benefit of the wick based stoves is the fuel usage efficiency factor.

That's easy.. around -25 to -30C - I take the penny stove with me normally on winter day trips.. however, there is a trick, actually two of them:

1) use methanol (aka "yellow heet" or the right kind of gas line anti-freeze) as opposed to denatured alcohol which is ethanol. methanol boils at 65C, ethanol at 75C - helps to have that additional 10C.

2) (the big one) the fuel bottle, a little 2oz nalgene rides in my front pants pocket (along with my bic lighter). So the fuel is basically body temperature, and my lighter is functional. (butane lighters don't like to work at freezing or so because butane is a liquid, i.e. no pressure, at 4C - so you gotta keep them in a pocket)

Set up stove out of wind, dump fuel in top, light. works every time, at least with the penny stove. For me this usually means I stomp a flat based hole in the snow, set some wood or bark in as a base, put the stove on it, with the pot support, test the pot support is stable with the pot full of water on it, then finally, take the pot off, then take the fuel out of my pocket, dump it in, light, and put the pot back on.

Note however, that I normally take this because I like the ability to have a quiet cup of tea or soup without smelly fuel, noisy stove, or fire. the stove and the fuel weigh very little and are nice to have a hot pickmeup mid-day in my daybag (especially at those temps).

It's probably also worth noting that the penny's design kind of favours this, with it's lid becoming a base keeping the stove off the cold whatever-you-have-it on, and it's dump in the top
sort of fuel load acting as a starting burn and prime kind of just works well.. I've tried with a supercat and had issues with them going out, but there's a bit more thermal (cold) mass to a supercat stove to overcome. Probably explains my preference for the penny, that and I find it a bit more wind-tolerant than the supercat.

I do *not* take it as a primary stove in winter on multi-day trips - becaue then I normally need to melt snow for water. At that point I take white gas (Svea or Whisperloud)- ya just need too much fuel otherwise.

You probably didn't have to force yourself and a friend to drink several six packs of Heineken to have stovemaking cans either.

I have used my alcohol stove down into the teens. It will take a little longer to get started unless you keep the alcohol warm.

I didn't actually build the "Penny Stove", I made a "Pop Can" stove, which is slightly different. Mine was more like this:



I found I consistently used too much fuel to prime it, sometimes having to prime several times before it lit off, especially in below freezing temps. This problem could certainly be attributed to the person operating it.

In spite of my ability to not light the Pop Can stove, the SuperCat lights every time. There have been a few times when it burnt out before boiling my 2 cups of water, but adding a bit more fuel after that quickly got the pot boiling. I think that in most of those cases I just didn't use enough fuel the first time, but I can't say that about the Pop Can stove. Could very well be that my problem with those was that the fuel was cold. The SuperCat seems to overcome that problem better, if that is the case.

Ewker/Phat

Thank you. I'll test the Supercat with Yellow HEET when I get out someplace cold.

Steadman

Steadman I'm an avid super cat user if you cut a little square of cardboard and wrap it with foil it makes a fairly decent insulated base. Another thing you can do is cut the cardboard slightly larger than the stove. And use a full can to press down on it on carpet or a foam mat and then you have a insulated pad that will double as a priming pan as the indentation made will hold a small amount of alc

Nope, I'd attribute it to the design, and the fact that it has that silly filler valve. if you look at how to operate a penny, it's just pour the fuel in the top and light. the "priming" happens from the fuel burning under your pot (and therefore not being wasted) while it dribbles down past the penny that blocks the hole in the middle. then it works as
a pressurized stove.

that's what makes it work good in cold weather, with warm fuel.

priming a stove that you fill up, and then prime externally, that is pressurized - well, yeah, you need a lot of fuel.

My Fosters pots were produced the normal way.:) By the way, over the weekend, I used a hardware cloth pot support, set a few pieces of foil, inner one off the surface, around the stove and set a Fosters pot with 12 oz. of water in it and the stove consumed 1/2 oz. of fuel and seemed to bring the water to a boil faster than my Caldera Cone, but I did not time it nor use cold stream water.
Last Winter on an early Sring trip, a friend used his Caldera Cone with the 12-10 alky stove and it did fine, even during the snowstorm. All I can see with using denatured alcohol, based on my use priming my vintage bp stoves, is the flame has to be real close for it to catch.
Duane

I still regularly fiddle with new designs to see how well they work at altitude. I live at 13500 feet so it's a good test of efficiency and priming time. I still prefer my penny stove, but am seeing which works best with my aluminum coffee kettle.

thanks for the info everyone! im not familiar with the Trangia, but i have since researched and made a super cat type stove, and liked how simple it was. ill probably keep the super cat with my coffee cup and use the penny stove with my mess kit.

another question, some of the sites ive found say that, because methanol is toxic, theres a risk of contamination from the soot on the pots and keeping your stove in your pots. can you just wipe em or rinse em out, or do they need to be cleaned with soap?

I put my stove in a ziplock sandwich bag to protect both the stove and the inside of my pot.

Soot? no soot.. methanol burns clean, and you're not going to have anything toxic coming off it any more than any other sort of liquid fueled stove. (may I remind you that white gas, gasoline, kerosene, and yes, even ethanol are also toxic and will kill you if you drink them, or drink enough of them )

*I* don't worry about this - and my stove lives in my pot.

I wouldn't get *liquid* methanol into my food. (wouldn't mix it with white gas either.)