What is your favorite alcohol stove?

“I am currently using the Pepsi can stove, but now I have come up with a new idea. A cat food can (5.5 once) underneath a smaller one, cat food can (3.5 once), or a bottom of a Pepsi can. Then take the side of the a soda can and put it in the middle of it all, (it is very close to the Pepsi can stove, but just with large base and two fire rings. I have not tested this idea yet, but I will when I get home (I was board out of my mind in geometry class so I thought of this idea). So what are your ideas on alcohol stoves, or any suggestions on my new idea?”

“I have the smallest Trangia stove and like it very much. My friend Budder makes the pop can stoves and has pretty much perfected it. He has even made one that only simmers. I?d like to try and make my own just as soon as I figure out how he made the inner walls in them.”

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“argh, it didn't work! I'll drop the HTML.

The design I liked most was The Shane Graber Stove. Check it out here (www.wings.interfree.it/html/main.html). I played with a few of the different designs before settling on this one, then I made a bigger version. It worked great, I broke down and bought a Trangia 28 to compare it to and decided on just using the Trangia. So I guess my favorite is the Trangia. Go figure.”

“Would a bigger can, such as a Fosters oil can (25 oz. beer) work better or just burn more fuel?”

“Nigal,
I'm thinking a smaller can! Perhaps that'll allow the flame to be more to the center of my pot. My flames burn in about a 8" diameter circle. My pot is slightly smaller. I've put the burner into another can (combo windscreen/pot holder) to try and contain the confragulation (I love that word.)”

“You are probably right Flyguy. It seams when the fuel reaches the boiling point is when it really takes off. The smaller the can the faster the fuel will reach this point and the faster it takes off. I really learned a lot from Butter about controlling the flame by placing the holes in different places of the can. But I?ll let him weigh in on this himself. Thanks for the heads-up!”

“I prefer the Catfood or Tuna Can stove. It's on Wings. I prefer it because of the ability to make it simmer.”

“Are you alcohol-users satisfied with the boil times for your stoves? My understanding is that they take like 3 times the time to boil water compared to white gas or a canister stove. True?”

“Who is in a rush. Times measured only in the interest of science. Sarge has comparitive data on his site.”

“Sure I'm satified. It's so simple, quit and light. I can live with the additional cook time, I couldn't live with additional weight.”

“The Trangia is tried and true!”

“I have a windshield I made out of an old 10 or 12 cup coffee pot that my stainless steel cheepo 16 oz cup I got from walmart fit into with just enough room around the edge for breathing room for the flame. (Boy, talk about a run-on sentence.)

Anyway, this past weekend, I tried my Trangia in comparison to the new "Cat Can" stove I had just built. The Trangia came to a full rolling boil in about 8 min.
Amazingly, the "Cat Can" stove only took a little over 4 min.. I was amazed. Cooking for one I'll probably carry the "Cat Can" stove on the next trip. I still have to play with the wind screen. I think the aluminum coffee pot may be a little to heavy. But, it shore does channel the flames up and around the cup.

All that said, Cat Can stoves rule! Thanks Sgt. Rock!”

“Are smaller flame holes better, or worse. I have used in the past a push pin, but I know that some sowing needles are smaller.????”

“I personaly like the oil can idea above,espically if you leave the oil in. make a jim dandy of a fire i bet. HMMMMMMMMM.???????”

“The alcohol burner may be a little slower but it sure isn't three times as slow. My Trangia was tough to start in really cold conditions until I got the cold weather primer add-on - just like the rest of the stove: simple but effective.

Ice Tea: small flame holes about the diameter of a straight pin are better.”

“Hole diameter on a beer can stove needs to be small and you can go thru a lot trying to get them the right diameter. On the other hand the cat food can/tuna stove needs big honking holes that are easy to make without much trial and error. It's another reason I love this design, it's so hard to screw up building one.

BTW since ya'll mentioned my site, here is the URL for those not familiar with it: SGT Rock's Hiking H.Q.”

“Hey Rock, is your site best viewed in Netscape? I have tried both the inbc site and the back up one and the buttons don't want to load for me.

Also I got your site up on my links page because I was updating the trip journals page and the SWA filter review update. What am I thinking? What a whore I am! I should just post the What's New Page and leave it at that. Sorry. =)”

“I haven't tried it in netscape, but I have had problems with the buttons before on a Yahoo server if I had Frontpage open at the same time. Ive thought about scrapping the buttons all together. When you had the page open with button problems did you have a HTML editor open at the same time?”

“No just M$ Explorer. I'm bummed too because you have a lot of good content that I want to check out. I also like the fact that you're keeping it updated too.”

“That settles it, if you have problems, others will as well and won't be able to tell me. I'll scrap the buttons for regular links. I need to do an update this week anyway. It should be fairly easy because of how I embed another HTML document (the links) into all the other pages. That way I can have one page for all the links, and not use frames.”

“My idea did not work well, but i think I know what is wrong.”

“Awesome thread!!!

Had to try making one myself after seeing an AT throughhiker with a alcohol stove. Never saw a homemade stove before...and his worked well.

Thanks larock for the link to homemade alcohol stoves. Did a net search and only found ~4 different stoves, but never found a site for the stove I saw. Turns out to be the "Pepsi can stove" on your referenced link.

The walls of my stoves are 3cm with the total stove height 4.5cm including the top and bottom lips. When the burner holes are on the sides, the flames heat the stove walls greater, which volatilizes the fuel more and you get more flame. I found a knife point slit (16 of'em) cut vertically ~3-4mm long just below the top lip and on the upper portion of the sides gives the best flame for boiling.

I have found a pinhole configuration (8 of 'em ~1mm dia) just above the sides and on lower portion of the top lip makes for an excellent simmerer stove, as the flames are just enough to keep a pot of hot water boiling. Turns out this hole configuration burns the same amount of fuel for twice as long as the burner hole configuration.

Scissors make the best cut for the cand and the inner wall. A sitckpin and pointed pocket knife make the best holes...try to make them all the same size so the flames will also all be the same size. Good luck trying to cut out the can bottom for the stove top as it ani't easy. I just make small pokes with my knifepoint connecting each poke with the next till the bottom is cut out.

Made many stoves the same size, but different hole types and configurations (was laid off and had lots of time on my hands). Timed each of them boiling 2 and 4 C of water, and using 1 and 2 T of de-natured alcohol. The fastest boiling time won the Boiler Award, and the slowest boiling time won the Simmerer Award.

Oh yea, the inner wall I believe creates a carburator effect like the Whisperlight in order give the fuel a place to volatilize and vapor to exit through the burner holes. Just cut a strip of can side of equal width that'll fit in side the stove when the top and bottom are fit together. Don't forget to cut small holes/triangles on the bottom to let the fuel to enter the side compartments.

Each stove weighs in at 0.4 oz. The de-natured alcohol doesn't leave soot on my pots like coleman fuel from my Whisperlight. You can pretty much figure out how much fuel you'll need for a hike, and not bring any more fuel than needed. Cut more than a pound off my cookset and everything fits into my 1.5L pot. Added about 1.5 mins to my boiling time as opposed to my Whisperlight...but hey, who's racing?

I use a heavy duty chicken wire like fence strip (~ 3in x ?16 in) as a pot holder. This can be rolled up for storage, and then unrolled, formed into a circle and placed around the stove to hold the pot just above the stove and for better pot stability. A windscreen is a must, and a top screen to hold in more heat is also a plus.

Holy chit..sorry for the message from hell. I hate it when I ramble :)

...and Nigel...I'll have some stoves for ya next time we hike.”

“Bud,
I too had trouble cutting the bottom out of a can, but found a quick effective way to do it. Use a drywall screw to scribe around the ridge in the bottom of the can. These screws are sharp and hard and will score the aluminum pretty well. Go around a few times applying greater pressure each time. Don't try to cut the can all the way through. Now use you HD utility knife (the kind with retractable razor blade) to cut out. The blade will tend to follow the scribe line as long as you don't "get greedy." This is the hardest part of the whole stove building so I do it first in case I goof up. Try it. You'll like it.”

“See, I told ya Buddur knows a thing or two about alcohol stoves. LOL! Thanks for the stoves dude!”

“Yah my idea at the top of the thread, sucked ass! I still remember looking over at my left arm and seeing it engulfed in flames. Scary sh!t! Luckily I did not get burnt. I doesn?t think alcohol can burn you if you douse your arm in it, it is like sterno(sp?), it will just burn the fuel and not what is under it. It all happened when I had to quickly put out the stove so I grabbed it (I had a glove on) and flipped it upside down to lessen the oxygen and I must have got some fuel on my arm.”

“Sterno is alcohol, just a different type, and yes, only alcohol vapor burns, so the falme is actually not on your skin, but heat can still radiate downward.Just keep your hand pointed upward so that the flame doesn't rise up onto skin that is not coverend in fuel or onto your clothes.”

“Read the other post on the Pepsi stove and came home and made one. It went great! I used a utility knife around the inside of the stove like was before mentioned and it fell right out. I did however make my holes WAY to big in the top, I used a 3/32 in drill bit, only about 12 holes, but I think still to big. It works, so now I have to just make a new top that has smaller holes!

Just wanted to see if I could do it. COOL!

Of course when I took it into the Wife and said "She what wonders I have created with mine hands!" She just gave me that wifee look, like I was one of the children....you know the look guys...."I love him anyways" look! LOL!

Great websites, thanks, people at work thought I was crazy when I said I was heading home to make a stove for hiking.....LITTLE MINDS!!!!”

“Yah I got that look from my family too, my friends think it is a bong.”

“while in the house, i got mine to shoot flames two feet tall!

i was drunk and jen was NOT happy! LOL!!!!”

“Yep, I learned that you don't blow on it with your face real close......hey, what't that smell???”

“sterno on a stick”

“Lagavulin...oh, sorry--missed the 'stove' part.”

“There are so many homemade stove designs out there these days, I was wondering if anyone had a preference?

My thru hiker buddy came into town and was using one made out of an aluminum Bud bottle, with the neck end of the bottle serving as the inside wall and inverted i.e. it was more narrow at the bottom of the stove. this was the kind of stove that has the burner holes BELOW the top lip of the stove and doubles as the pot stand. I guess putting your pot on top creates pressure. He could get two cups of water boiling with barely any fuel.

what do folks like and why?”

“The best design is whatever works for YOUR needs.”

“stalking rosey too asshat?”

“I use the run of the mill pepsi can design. However, I sealed the top seam where the inner wall meets the rim of the outside wall with JB Weld. It definately helps build pressure between the walls. When it gets to the vapor burn, the pressure causes bubbles to blow back through the vents in the bottom for the fuel feed.

I am working on one with a pepsi bottle (aluminum). I am going to JB Weld and pop rivet the top to see if I can get it to build more pressure.

Howver, I am pretty much convincec that once you hit a level of efficiency, trying to gain more is a battle of decreasing increments.”

“Pepsi can for me. Light and simple.”

“

Trangia. I like the screw on lid ans simmer ring.”

“Yah, I do the trangia because I can easily keep the fuel in. I'd like to get the amount of water to boil w/ the amount of fuel down to an exact science for weight reason (always been rather casual about fuel/cooking supplies weight) and shave some weight off the pack.

I am thinking one of the side burner stoves that doubles as a pot support is the way to go. Some people make these out of the large Foster's can because of the increased stability. I'm not sure about the efficiency of the bigger stove tho vs. a pepsi-can sized stove.

Anyone got any design links for the stove I am describing?”

“google has plenty”

“Yah, yah, yah.

OK, so I came across some cool stuff during lunch.

For the ready-made cooking set up:
http://www.ultralightoutfitters.com/stove.html

My favorite low-end, ultralight, easy to make stove:
http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/SuperCat/index.html

My second favorite stove:
www.zenstoves.net and the simplified sideburner with insert (site is down for the minute and couldn't get the full addy).

totally cool and both really simple with built in stand design.”

“My experience in making the side-burners is that you have to get the stove going really good to make sure it doesn't go out when you put your pot on top. The Foster's cans are a great idea for stability though.

As far as efficiency, large vs. small, dunno.”

“I made the the super cat last night in about 10 mins (plus gathering the materials). I fired it up and got 5 cups of water to a rolling boil for several minutes on 1.5 ozs of fuel before it extinguished. At .25 ozs, it's a keeper if all you are doing is boiling water.

Tonight I think I will try the other stove I mentioned above http://zenstoves.net/SimplifiedZenStove.htm. However, I'd like to get something that has a longer burn time/reservoir and can simmer, yet retains the combo stove/pot stand characteritic. Hmmm.”

“Check this out... must be alot of others out there, too... variations on a theme...

http://wings.interfree.it/html/main.html”

“Saw a cool review of this stove and was surprised at the relative low price. It has some cool features and accessories too.

http://www.packafeather.com/index.html
last edited: 7/23/10 11:30:59 PM”

“Interesting. But at 30 bucks I want you to get one first and let us know how it works”

“Pretty cool stove. Just don't step on it...”

“LOL@rosey...yeah I am waiting for a certain member to "STOMP" in.....

OKAY...I want to know...if this stove can really simmer...”

“Somebody buy one and test it.”