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Alcohol Stoves

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    • Thanks for the welcome! I see that Bird Brain has not been on this forum in a while. I would really like to buy one of his stoves or trade for a DIY hammock. I'm planning a overnight trip in a few weeks and will be trying out a few stoves I won in a raffle. Ill post some pictures of my first foray into this. It looks very addicting.

    • koolranch wrote:

      Thanks for the welcome! I see that Bird Brain has not been on this forum in a while. I would really like to buy one of his stoves or trade for a DIY hammock. I'm planning a overnight trip in a few weeks and will be trying out a few stoves I won in a raffle. Ill post some pictures of my first foray into this. It looks very addicting.
      A stove for a hammock is not a very fair trade. I'd drive a harder bargain. Make him throw in a pot stand too ;)

      Our make your own, since you are DIY inclined. I'm very happy with my eCHS stove. They aren't as pretty as BB's, but it works great and very easy to make with few special tools or skills needed (after a bit of practice). My pot stand is just a ring of hardware cloth. Simple and effective (but again, not as pretty).

    • Hello all, new here.

      I am a relatively novice hiker, but am planning a half thru-hike of the AT (north from harper's) next summer. starting to accumulate my gear, and am interested in alcohol stoves. i've made myself a couple pepsi can stoves. they're alright, but seem inefficient with fuel consumption and take a while to boil water. the eCHS stove that came up earlier in this thread seemed to have started to counter act that.

      I heard through the grapevine that joetotheboe and koolranch have taken up BB's task in building eCHS'. Was just wondering how this was going, and if any new iterations/changes have come out?

      Also; what are you guys using for pot stands? I've heard of using hardware cloth, but am open to other opinions.

      Thanks,
      gohabsgo

    • gohabsgo22296 wrote:

      Hello all, new here.

      I am a relatively novice hiker, but am planning a half thru-hike of the AT (north from harper's) next summer. starting to accumulate my gear, and am interested in alcohol stoves. i've made myself a couple pepsi can stoves. they're alright, but seem inefficient with fuel consumption and take a while to boil water. the eCHS stove that came up earlier in this thread seemed to have started to counter act that.

      I heard through the grapevine that joetotheboe and koolranch have taken up BB's task in building eCHS'. Was just wondering how this was going, and if any new iterations/changes have come out?

      Also; what are you guys using for pot stands? I've heard of using hardware cloth, but am open to other opinions.

      Thanks,
      gohabsgo
      Scroll back through this thread and there are a bunch of Stainless steel wire pot stand designs that are really cool. Probably about 4 or 5 pages back.

      I use a Trail Designs Caldera cone.

      Welcome to the cafe!
      Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
      Dr. Seuss Cof123

    • gohabsgo22296 wrote:

      Hello all, new here.

      I am a relatively novice hiker, but am planning a half thru-hike of the AT (north from harper's) next summer. starting to accumulate my gear, and am interested in alcohol stoves. i've made myself a couple pepsi can stoves. they're alright, but seem inefficient with fuel consumption and take a while to boil water. the eCHS stove that came up earlier in this thread seemed to have started to counter act that.

      I heard through the grapevine that joetotheboe and koolranch have taken up BB's task in building eCHS'. Was just wondering how this was going, and if any new iterations/changes have come out?

      Also; what are you guys using for pot stands? I've heard of using hardware cloth, but am open to other opinions.

      Thanks,
      gohabsgo

      Well the short answer is it only gone as far as the post. I have not been able to connect with BB about making a trade or buying one of his stoves.

      KR

    • gohabsgo22296 wrote:

      Thanks for the welcome guys :)

      Can you guys comment on whether there is any argument to make for using a canister stove on the AT?

      (i know that it is sacrilege to mention canisters in an alcohol thread, forgive me!!! ;) )
      We are experts at sacrilege and thread drift here.

      The canister stoves are quick and efficient
      Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
      Dr. Seuss Cof123

    • I'm deciding on which cook set to take on my next hike so tried BirdBrain's center-burner stove. I used 15 ml of heet. My water didn't quite boil but that's my fault. When I went to put the pot on the stove, I realized the tap water was hot so I poured it out and measured out two more cups, wasting some heet. The water got hot enough for coffee but not for rehydrating a meal.

      The stand worked great, the imusa pot from Zelph was very stable, but the stand glowed red in a few spots. Is that ok?

      Lost in the right direction.

    • It's perfectly all right to use 20 ml instead of 15 so as to be sure to get your boil without fussing with letting the stove cool, refueling, and so on. Just don't tell BirdBrain. (Just kidding, BB!) I routinely use extra when the water is very cold or the day is windy. Yes, I use a windscreen. It isn't perfect.

      As for whether developing hot spots on your pot stand is a problem, it depends on what it's made of. You can burn through some of the flimsier ones. That looks like one of the stands BB made. I'd ask him what it'll stand up to.
      I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.

    • One of the advantages of the eCHS stove is that it is easy to recover unburned fuel if you have a snuffer to put it out. So there is no need to guess how much fuel you will need based on water temp, water volume, air temp, wind, etc... Load it up with more fuel than you will need. When you are done, snuff out the stove, let it cool, and suck the excess fuel back into you fuel bottle. This is a significant part of the effective efficiency of this stove. For a snuffer, I cut off the bottom of a 12 oz pop can. Just drop it on top of the stove. The stove sets inside the snuffer for travel.

    • AnotherKevin wrote:

      It's perfectly all right to use 20 ml instead of 15 so as to be sure to get your boil without fussing with letting the stove cool, refueling, and so on. Just don't tell BirdBrain. (Just kidding, BB!) I routinely use extra when the water is very cold or the day is windy. Yes, I use a windscreen. It isn't perfect.

      As for whether developing hot spots on your pot stand is a problem, it depends on what it's made of. You can burn through some of the flimsier ones. That looks like one of the stands BB made. I'd ask him what it'll stand up to.
      It is and he says it's fine.
      Lost in the right direction.

    • Someone on the the OS asked if you can use the Olicxamp XTS pot with an alcohol stove and if the heat exchanger saves enough fuel to make it worth the extra weight. Since this is the system I use, I can answer the first question, but never tested the second question.

      So I did some testing this PM. Tests were done in my kitchen. I know these are not field conditions but for testing we want consistent conditions. I used 20 mL of denatured alcohol (50/50 mix of ethanol and methanol) and 16 oz of room temp water. My thermometer battery died so I don't have water temp but I took the water samples from the same pot so they would be the same.

      First I repeated the boil test with my standard system which is an eCHS stove, olicamp XTS pot, 3 1/18" tall pot stand, aluminum flashing wind screen that comes about 3/4" above the bottom of the pot with 1/4" air gap all around. The bottom of the pot about 2" above the top of the stove (1/2" higher than the pot stand because of the 1/2" tall heat exchanger.

      For the other test I used a Kmart Grease Pot. It is a lightweight, thin aluminum pot with a flat bottom. It is slightly larger in diameter than the XTS (5 3/8" vs 4 1/2"). Because there was to heat exchanger, the bottom of the pot was 1/2" closer to the top of the stove (1 1/2" vs 2"). I have a larger wind screen to give about the same air gap and coverage up the side.

      So for the results:

      The Olicamp XTS test boiled in 3 min, 45 sec (in my last post I meant to say about 4 min, sorry). The fuel burned out in 6 min, 0 sec. Assuming a linear rate of fuel consumption (which I know to be reasonable from previous testing), it used 12.5 mL of fuel to boil the 2 cups of water (20 x 3.75/6.00).

      The Grease pot test boiled in 4 min, 15 sec with the same burn time. Thus it took 14.2 mL of fuel to boil 2 cups or about 14% more fuel than the XTS.

      So does the heat exchanger work? From this test, I would say yes, a little. Is it worth the extra weight and cost? That would be up to you. But keep in mind, in this test, the XTS pot used about 2 mL less fuel which is about 1.6 g or 0.056 oz of fuel savings. On my scale (which is crappy) the XTS pot with DIY handles is 6.25 oz plus 1 oz for the lid. The grease pot is 2.5 oz (no handle) plus 1 1/8 oz for the lid.

    • Skurka put a nice article on his blog about alcohol stoves. He has promoted the Super Cat for a long time (with the wrong name). He has cleared that up and has figured out that this stove has some limitations. He has correctly pointed out that the whole system needs to be considered (not just the stove) and that all the parts have to be optimized to work together and this takes time, knowledge, and experience (what he calls stove geeks).

      andrewskurka.com/2015/super-ca…king-alcohol-stove-flaws/

    • wlb007 wrote:

      As a coffee holic I usually boil a little over a liter in the am. I have been using a canister or an Element wood stove. Which alcohol stove would have enough capacity to heat that much water without refilling it?
      I can boil 2 cups on my cat can stove with 1 oz of alcohol in about 6 minutes.
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    • wlb007 wrote:

      As a coffee holic I usually boil a little over a liter in the am. I have been using a canister or an Element wood stove. Which alcohol stove would have enough capacity to heat that much water without refilling it?
      I'm with JJ, I only heat 2 cups of water.

      But since you only need to heat water for coffee, not boil, you could possibly get away with any alcohol stove. If I remember right, it's better to use a pot that is wider than it is tall. IMO, the weight of carrying a larger pot and the inefficiency of heating that amount of water would make it worthwhile to refill. :)

      BTW, what kind of coffee do you drink?
      Lost in the right direction.

    • Last night i built a chs e but folded the edge over instead of using jb weld then I build an e frevo.
      They both leaked around the folded down lip, bloomed real quick but took almost 8 min to boil. Made them both with 5.5 oz cans. These both seem to take experience to build. I pulled out a traditional beer bottle stove with the inverted cone I built a couple years ago and it boiled 32 oz in a 1 l evenew pasta pot in just under 8 min and used about an oz and a half of alcohol. I built that one right the first time. I wish BB would consider selling his stoves, as efficient as they seem to be, it is hard to duplicate without experience and investment of money in special tools.

    • wlb007 wrote:

      Last night i built a chs e but folded the edge over instead of using jb weld then I build an e frevo.
      They both leaked around the folded down lip, bloomed real quick but took almost 8 min to boil. Made them both with 5.5 oz cans. These both seem to take experience to build. I pulled out a traditional beer bottle stove with the inverted cone I built a couple years ago and it boiled 32 oz in a 1 l evenew pasta pot in just under 8 min and used about an oz and a half of alcohol. I built that one right the first time. I wish BB would consider selling his stoves, as efficient as they seem to be, it is hard to duplicate without experience and investment of money in special
      is the 7 min boil time for 32 oz in a 1 liter pot? If so that is equivalent to 2 cups in 3.5 min. If that is for 2 cups it is slow. Be sure to give volumes so we can make comparisons. Also note that BB use a cone wind screen. I get similar results using a heat exchanger pot. The wind screen is part of the whole system and affects performance.

    • It was for 2 cups with no wind screen as it was on a cutting board on my kitchen table. I used the pot stand from the top of my bushbuddy which gave about 1" clearance from the top of the stoves to the bottom of the pot.

      It appeared they both were slightly under pressurized because of the leaking around the top edges from being rolled in too loose. The jets were barely evident. They bloomed quickly but the flame shape was more of an inverted cone than defined jets. With practice I could probably get it right. There is just a higher level of difficulty building these.

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      This was 5 minutes ago in the adjoining office, they keep there's too neat so I make coffee over there instead near all my well organized clutter. Didn't time this one, but I brought 2 cups of cold water straight from the fountain to a rolling boil with one ounce of 80/20 ethanol/methanol (I make my own mixture here in house and the 80/20 seems to perform well :D) and had exactly 2 mins of burn time left over.

      I like to make my alchy stoves such that they act as their own pot stand. This one is from a diet dew can. I have a drawer full of them because I'll get bored in here and start making them every now and then.
      If your Doctor is a tree, you're on acid.

    • I get that, but I'm in my office inside a factory, I'm not using two pots to make a cup of coffee indoors :D A couple more things, I have access to all the ethanol and methanol I could ever hope for here so fuel consumption isn't an issue, but even with that being said, I'm bringing two cups of water to a rolling boil in ~4 minutes (I had 2 minutes of burn after removing the pot, and that I did time).

      Outside, yes I will use the bigger pot and my windscreen, etc.
      If your Doctor is a tree, you're on acid.

    • I am eternally grateful to BirdBrain for the last stove he sent and hope that I can repay him properly one day.
      It's a little centre burner (CHS?) and works beautifully with my mug for solo cups of hot chocolate or soup. I rarely have coffee on the trail anymore. I satisfy my need for caffeine with cola.
      Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.

    • OzJacko wrote:

      I am eternally grateful to BirdBrain for the last stove he sent and hope that I can repay him properly one day.
      It's a little centre burner (CHS?) and works beautifully with my mug for solo cups of hot chocolate or soup. I rarely have coffee on the trail anymore. I satisfy my need for caffeine with cola.
      what mug do you use? I'm converting from FBC to cooking in my pot. I'd like to use the pot as my mug also but it gets too hot to drink out of.
      Lost in the right direction.

    • I have a stainless steel mug with a lid I bought from a Salvation Army store for a dollar. It is unknown manufacture but is single wall and about 550 ml in volume.
      I have made a cozie for it. I put half my Evernew stove set windbreak inside it along with half a dish cloth, my BB stove and my lighter. It's pretty minimalist but is my personal UL setup.
      If I am hiking on the Bib where the shelters have firepits (about 3/4's of them) I often taken my 4 litre billy can (which also has a cozie) and just boil water above the fire as long as the fire is going and all can use it.
      I generally carry at least 300ml more alcohol fuel than needed for any section I am doing. I'm a lousy fire starter - so I cheat.
      :)
      Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.

    • If you Google Evernew Stove Set you can see what I had before (still have).
      I use one half of the circular surround as windbreak and pot stand. It's titanium and weighs effectively nothing as does BB's stove. The mug being steel is not UL but the lid (just like a pot one with a central knob of ceramic or similar) makes it very efficient in boiling. The Evernew surround has the mug about an inch above BB's stove and the central flame makes it very efficient.
      It's really only good for solo use as I can just fit enough in to make a Mountain House type meal (different brands over here). It is perfect for a cup of coffee, tea, chocolate or soup.
      And I think it looks pretty damn cool when I pull it out of the pack at a table where people with 50 pound packs start their Jetboils and plastic plates.....
      :thumbsup:
      Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.

    • Yeah I am a big fan of the Evernew stove set.
      The titanium stove is pretty much indestructible.
      my biggest issue is that in windy conditions it is adversely affected.
      I find the centre burning of the BB stove along with the whole set up being a bit lower means wind is less of am issue.
      And of course it looks cooler to have the superlight stove.
      I would post a pic but I am not at home for a few days.
      Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.

    • I've used this cook set on my last two trips and love it. Everything except my mug fits into my small pot. The pot and mug are stored in my freezer bag cozy for easy packing. I'm going to make a pot cozy and start cooking in my pot instead of using freezer bags.
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      Lost in the right direction.

    • Pot cozies are one of my strongest recommendations.
      They can keep the pot hot as an alternative to a simmer, let you hold the pot without burning your hands and keep the soot etc on the pot from soiling your pack contents. They help stop rattles too.
      Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.