Wood burning stoves?

[retired jerry]

I think alcohol stoves can be used just as safely as canister

Last year the Sierras agencies didn't allow alcohol stoves, but this year they mostly do.

There are a few stories of wild fires started by alcohol stoves, but I think they were not used properly. If you were careless enough, I think you could start a wildfire with canister stove.

I think canister and alcohol are both good. Different people prefer one over the other. Try them both and use what you prefer.

I used Kerosene in my MSR white gas stove once. Much smellier than white gas. I didn't do it again. The smell permiated everything. It's safer - doesn't flare up like white gas. Some places in the world it's more available.

[Lumpy]

I think alcohol stoves can be used just as safely as canister

While I mostly agree with you, a gas fuel canister cannot be spilled, and the flame can be almost instantly extinguished. If an alcohol stove or the container of fuel is tipped over and its fuel spilled and ignited, you now have a potential wildfire on your hands because the fuel is not contained and cannot be shut off. The only way the alcohol fire ends is the alcohol fuel is used up. The flame is nearly impossible to see in the daylight, so one cannot be immediately sure the flame is extinguished.

Like we have agreed, everything has its particular dangers, but the risks of an alcohol stove are greater than a gas canister stove, e.g. JetBoil, which is why they get banned before a JetBoil type stove is banned. Not because they have a history of starting wildfires, but because of the potential risks.

[Koda]

canister stoves double as great tent heaters on cold mornings...

[AAdamsPDX]

I'm also fairly newly returned to backpacking (a little over a year now, with about 8 trips), and I really only have recent experience with one type of stove, but since no one has mentioned it yet, here goes.

We've been using the Esbit stove and tablets. Pluses:
+Very low-cost entry makes it cheap to try out (a "stove," basically just a simple pot stand, plus 6 tablets, will only run you about $15).
+Easy to know exactly how much fuel you have and to budget accordingly. We use 2 tablets to boil enough water for two dehydrated meals. So I imagine solo hikers could get by with 1 tablet per meal.
+If you don't need the entire tablet, you can cut it in half, or better yet just blow it out when your water is hot enough, and relight it later.
+Light weight for overnight or several-night trips.
+Doesn't seem to leave behind any burn marks on rocks, even when stacking rocks around the stove to serve as a wind screen.
+You can use any pot you want, and the accompanying stove/pot rack allows several different configurations to direct the flame differently.
+Minimal pack-out weight. Once you've used the fuel, the only weight is the tiny foil containers the tabs come in. No fuel canisters to carry out, or to dispose of afterwards.

Minuses:
-The smell. Smells kind of fishy. We always keep the tablets in a ziplock, then it's not too bad at all.
-The mess. Leaves a crust on the bottom of your pot. Frankly, this is close to a deal-breaker for me and I'm investigating other options, which is why I'm reading this thread. (The crust cleans off easily with soap, but then you have a filthy rag. Or, you could wrap a piece of foil around the pot and store it folded in on itself in the pot. So it is workable, but I wonder about the environmental impact of whatever is in the stuff.)
-The uncontrolled flame. No simmer here - for boiling water only. Also, while you can blow out the tab fairly easily, I do worry about fire safety were the tab to land on anything flammable. Extra care to choose your cooking area wisely. Fairly certain this wouldn't meet the fire ban requirements of an off switch, as mentioned above!
-While this is a lightweight choice for short trips, I imagine weight (not to mention cost of the tabs!) would definitely start to add up for longer trips.

Would love to hear your experiences if you do try the wood stove. (I built one using cans based on instructions I found on the web - supposed to mimic one of those gassifier thing-y ones. Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it was fun to build!)

[Guy]

Not sure whether this belongs here, or in the Time Traveling group!

Rummaging around in the attic, I just found this marvel of 1980's UL technology:

• 

It does have a 10oz. tank, though, so no need to carry extra on short trips.

I used to have one of those. Used it a lot especially in my early backpacking years, its a true workhorse. I called mine the "lunar lander". Sadly it somehow disappeared.

Hauled one of these around Mt. Hood several times in the 80's along with it's sister the Peak Lantern. Still have both & both still work. I still use the stove on car camping trips.

[Lumpy]

[quote="AAdamsPDX"
We've been using the Esbit stove and tablets.

Minuses:[/quote]
In a fire ban that requires a positive shut off valve, the Esbit type sold fuel stoves are banned, even though you can blow out the flame.

Everything has is pluses and minuses. Your list of pluses was good, you just missed one minus.

[Pnw.hiker]

...We've been using the Esbit stove and tablets...

Haven't used Esbits in over twenty years, but I think it's similar to alcohol stoves in that a really good windscreen/potstand vastly improves performance.

[sparklehorse]

I had one of those Coleman Peak 1 Multi-fuel stoves like Pnw.hiker's back in the 80s. It worked OK, but as others mentioned that white gas fuel is pretty smelly & unpleasant. I have a good canister stove. I like it well enough I guess, except for the noise. It makes me feel like I'm on the tarmac at Miramar Air Force Base instead of at the edge of a quiet lake. So I hardly ever use it for backpacking. I like it for car camping though. I tried Esbit once. It's convenient and lightweight, but it stinks to high heaven and leaves a sticky residue on the bottom of your pot that's very hard to clean. Not for me. I tried a Bushbuddy wood stove on one trip. That stove is a nice piece of kit, I really wanted to like it. But I found the extra hassle of gathering and preparing fuel at the end of a long day was more than I wanted to deal with. And I wasn't at all fond of the soot that cakes on your pot and quickly transfers to other stuff, including your hands and face. I quickly sold that Bushbuddy on eBay. For the past five or six years my favorite stove by far has been my little alcohol stove. It's a Caldera Cone type built to fit my little Snow Peak 600 mug. The whole cook kit is very small and weighs about 5.5 ounces for the mug, stove, cone, lid and ti stakes. I use Everclear for fuel. I don't find the cost prohibitive. About $15 for a bottle which will easily last me one backpack season, sometimes two. I'll spend many times that on food, other gear, gas to the trailhead, etc.

[drm]

Jetboils now come standard with an orange three-legged thingee to prevent tipping it over. But it does weight almost an ounce.

And my new Jetboil is so fast that I have to have the food sitting there ready to go. No going and pulling it down from the hang while the water is boiling. But the speed almost seems a novelty since I'm never really in that much of a rush. It mostly makes a practical difference on cold spring or fall mornings when the old stove was real slow. It's amazing how well the Jetboil regulator does with nearly empty canisters in keeping them going at full blast till within a few seconds of being empty.

I've also become quite experienced at estimating how many days of fuel are left in a canister just by shaking it. I camp enough days per year to have tested this many times over.

But there is always the issue that with canisters you either have to carry two on occasion, or else have a stack of nearly empty ones at home. I know the latter happens to many people but I just carry two on the shorter trips when my pack is light anyway. So I can understand the appeal of alcohol stoves. I do too many trips to the alpine where would is scarce to use a wood stove. And even with a windscreen, I wonder how wind-tolerant they are.

[Koda]

a little off topic but does anyone have a source for info on the comparison of fuel weight between canister stoves and alcohol stoves?

I'm curious if alcohol stove fuel weighs less over longer trips say 3 nights and longer.