Alcohol Stoves

[romann]

It's a little drift from the topic, but I thought I ask it here...

I am trying to figure out what is best fuel for cat can stove. My local Walmart sells liquid camping fuel in 2 forms - kerosene (blue bottles) and Coleman Blend fuel (red bottles). The latter is pretty much ultra-clean gasoline, which was very good as I used it in my heavy camping stove, but tends to burn explosively in open fire. Blend fuel also has extremely high speed of evaporation, which creates a danger of igniting/exploding a vapor feet away (& it's said so on the bottle). All in all, after reading the warnings, I think that burning kerosene in open container is a much safer option than burning gasoline. But does it burn clean, and it not, is the fume very toxic comparing to alcohol/other fuels? Or alcohol is the only option here (& of course more expensive one)?

[Pnw.hiker]

... All in all, after reading the warnings, I think that burning kerosene in open container is a much safer option than burning gasoline. But does it burn clean, and if not, is the fume very toxic comparing to alcohol/other fuels? Or alcohol is the only option here (& of course more expensive one)?

I'm interested in this too. Kerosene has 50% more energy per weight than alcohol, so it's definitely a good fuel. I don't know of any light weight passive camp stove designs though.

[Lumpy]

There may be a reason they are called "alcohol" stoves. In the report I linked to about burning alcohol, the by-products of combustion of fossil fuels are hazardous. The alcohol stoves work by heating the fuel to create vapor. I have heard (I have not experimented myself, and probably won't) that petro fuels are too flammable to be burned in the kind of stoves we are talking about here and will have a "run away" type reaction (gasoline), or the fuel doesn't get hot enough to vaporize for a good burn (diesel, oils, etc.).

I'm all for doing you're own experimentation. I wouldn't recommend doing thus, but if you do, pictures or video would be nice.

[sparklehorse]

Methanol poses no known cumulative health hazard and is not classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or teratogenic. The U.S. EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards has determined that methanol offers little threat of chronic toxicity and it gives methanol a composite score of 7 on a scale of 1-100 (100 being the most toxic). EPA has likewise concluded that momentary dermal contact with methanol is not of significant concern. Because methanol evaporates quickly and cleanly, it does not adhere to the skin or leave a residue on the skin./quote]

...the primary products of combustion of ethanol and methanol are CO2 and water vapor, with only parts per million of formaldehyde or acetaldehyde (<1), carbon monoxide (<20) and uncombusted ethanol and methanol vapors (<5), all well under the published exposure standards. No measurable NOx (<1) was produced.

I'll just continue to use yellow HEET as it is the least expensive where I live, and now I know it's fairly harmless to my health.

The concern I have with HEET is that it isn't 100% methanol. I don't know what other chemicals are present in HEET, but I do know its intended use is as an anti-freeze for automotive fuel lines. It was never intended to be used as a stove fuel. My feeling is that while HEET may be safe as a stove fuel, why use it when there are other options available? Which is why I use 190 proof Everclear. It's likely the single safest fuel available for alky stoves, AND ethanol has more BTU's per ounce than methanol, which is another nice benefit. The only arguments against Everclear that I'm aware of are availability and cost. It's not available in all states, but it is widely available here in Oregon, and for me I don't find the cost objectionable at all. It costs $15 here for a 750ml bottle of Everclear. That's about 60¢ per ounce. So for a 5-day backpack trip my cost for stove fuel is less than $5. I'll pay many times that just for the gasoline to get where I'm going and back. Using Everclear in your alky stove is also on par with the cost of using a canister stove. So the cost argument has never made much sense to me. And unlike HEET or denatured alcohol, Everclear can also serve double duty as a sterilizing agent. It's also not terrible in a cup of hot chocolate. Bourbon might be better for that, but that's really down to personal preferences. YMMV.

G

[Lumpy]

The only arguments against Everclear that I'm aware of are availability and cost.

Those are my only problems with it.

[Lumpy]

The concern I have with HEET is that it isn't 100% methanol. I don't know what other chemicals are present in HEET, ...

I found and msds for methanol HEET. It's 99% methanol, 1% proprietary additive. If I use 25cc at a time, that means that there is so small an amount of whatever proprietary additive is, I really don't think that there is any serious danger in the outdoors or in a ventilated environment.

[retired jerry]

I tried kerosene in MSR Whisperlite Stove. Quite sooty on the bottom of my cook pot. Very smelly - kind of made all my stuff a little smelly.

I don't think Cat stove would work good with kerosene. It doesn't explode though like white gas. You could try it.

Cat stove - definitely not white gas like Coleman - it'll explode and you'll get burned.

[Lumpy]

I tried kerosene in MSR Whisperlite Stove. Quite sooty on the bottom of my cook pot. Very smelly - kind of made all my stuff a little smelly.

I forgot about the smell and taste factors. Using kerosene or diesel, you run a very real risk of your food smelling and tasting of the fuel, especially with diesel.

[Pnw.hiker]

I tried kerosene in MSR Whisperlite Stove. Quite sooty on the bottom of my cook pot. Very smelly - kind of made all my stuff a little smelly.

My first backpacking stove was a Colman single burner - you could buy a replacement gas generator for kerosene use. Hard to light, smelly, heavy!

I don't think Cat stove would work good with kerosene. It doesn't explode though like white gas. You could try it.

Cat stove - definitely not white gas like Coleman - it'll explode and you'll get burned.

There are kerosene stoves with wicks instead of gas generators, but I've never seen a backpacking version. It would need a good lid, because a kerosene stove won't burn itself dry like alcohol.

[Koda]

good info here, if anyone finds an alternate fuel that work please share. For now I'll stick to the recipe. I agree about HEET not being made for stove use, while not worried about it much I might favor denatured alcohol... unless it proved more efficient but I doubt it.

at some point I'd like to try everclear for fun but IIRC I'm not fond of sipping it like burbon. I have some straight moonshine at home, I wonder if that could work?

I'm still working on burner ideas to fit my pot. Would love to hear anyone's burner types and its basic construction.