Beer can stove

[LandSailor]

Havent seen this particular design before..looks very light, simple and effective.

How to turn a beer can into the only camping stove you'll ever need

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[michael_p]

Thanks LandSailor.

That's an interesting variation on an open bath stove design. I've got some uncut cans in my box of stoves, might be a good rainy day project.

Cheers,
Michael.

[Franco]

nice, I have not tried that exact design.
I find that you really need a "system" ( matched burner/pot/windscreen) not just a burner to get these stoves to work well in most weather conditions.
That is why I like the Caldera Cone because it works in the wind as well as below zero although not that efficient then.
Ignore the "rubbing alcohol" comments (that is usually isopropyl and you do not want to burn that) as well as the "medical alcohol" our Mentholated Spirit from the supermarket works best and it is way less expensive.
(in the US , 95% or close to it Ethanol is hard to get but available from marine supply stores except that for some reasons Americans keep ignoring that...)

[Strider]

Just constructed one of these and made a cuppa with it. Took me all of 10 mins, including the boil time

[Davidf61]

Yep, mine worked too, but Canadian Club dry cans are suprisingly thin and flimsy!

On this note, has anyone made a really, really tiny stove? I want something to use tea candle like but aren't having much like
finding the right design and or can. Any ideas welcome.

[Strider]

On this note, has anyone made a really, really tiny stove?

Can't imagine pot stability being great.

I want to make one of these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us7AeG7OEY4

[LandSailor]

I want to make one of these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us7AeG7OEY4

Nice one..someone needs to test all these metho stove designs to see what is the most efficient.

The smallest stove I can think of is maybe the gram cracker esbit stove.
Combine this with a few tent pegs stuck in the ground as a pot stand and maybe some aluminum foil as a windscreen.

[Davidf61]

The weather over in WA has been crap for days so I've been sooking in the shed, just playing with stove designs.

What I'm currently trying to do is make a tiny tiny alcohol stove, the idea being to be able to simmer a pot full of
already boiled water for 10-15 mins. Example, boil the water with regular stove [ whatever choice ] then slide in a
simmering stove to finish off the cooking process [rice/pasta]. Tea candles don't quite cut it, simmer rings a little
awkward. Not a real serious project, just seeing how small an alco stove will run, aiming for say 10cc of meth to
be slowly consumed, just to keep a pot ticking over.

Imagine a coke can size stove reduced by 1/2 size. They're difficult to light and keep going, but I'll keep mucking about.

The stove in the original post I've run 7 or 8 times now, various pots and water levels, it's not bad at all.

[michael_p]

I want to make one of these. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us7AeG7OEY4

I like the way he made the die to do the roll top. Great to see someone finally finding a reason to have a car jack in the kitchen . Impressive.

[andrewa]

i like it. Although I also like my standard Pepsi stove, but this design has the benefit of not having to try to join 2 tubes of aluminium that are the same size, and makes use of the fuel leakage between the bits.

Used a Pepsi can stove in NZ last trip in summer with great success. Will do same next time. How do they work in winter?is it something that's worth fiddling with for snow camping, or do I just use the gas stove?

Andrew A

[Franco]

No experience with this particular stove obviously but I have used the Caldera Cone below zero including melting some snow.
Not ideal for me but can be done, I prefer to use gas.
Something to keep in mind is that generally they work a lot better if insulated from the ground.

[michael_p]

Something to keep in mind is that generally they work a lot better if insulated from the ground.

This happened to me. Couldn't work out why my open bath stove was taking so long to bloom. Eventually realised that I had it sitting on cold wet ground . It did eventually bloom and was fine after that.

[Davidf61]

Cheap easy insulation you cut to fit in pot--- circular piece of balsa, 2-3mm with a layer or 2 of foil, works a treat.

[Swampy460]

[/quote]Great to see someone finally finding a reason to have a car jack in the kitchen . Impressive.[/quote]

But with my luck I would rip the cupboard off the wall,,,,,,then there would be BIG TROUBLE in the home camp.

Swampy

[Orion]

(in the US , 95% or close to it Ethanol is hard to get but available from marine supply stores except that for some reasons Americans keep ignoring that...)

Ignore it? I (a stupid American) just didn't know this.

I mistakenly thought that what the hardware stores here carry is 95% ethanol. So I went and looked at what I have. One can is "Crown Denatured Alcohol" and the other "Sunnyside Denatured Alcohol - Marine Stove Fuel", both purchased at local hardware stores. According to the MSDS for Crown it is about 75% methanol. The MSDS for Sunnyside says it's about 50% methanol. Maybe this helps to explain why the homemade alcohol stoves I've experimented with were so disappointing.

So what specific product(s) should I be looking for at a marine supply store?

edit: Nevermind, I found hikin' jim's blog post on the subject. Klean-Strip "Green" is the best bet. The MSDS says at least 90% ethanol, it's cheap, and it's in stock at the local Home Depot. No need to figure out where a marine supply store is. Now maybe I'll have to revisit the whole alcohol stove thing.

[Swampy460]

I bought one of those decrative table top fire/heaters and got my Ethanol from Viofuel , http://www.viofuel.com.au/index.cfm?pageName=Home_Page , theres according to the MSDS is 95-99% ethanol (aussie made as well) I got the 20 litre drum so I have ample to play with experimenting with making these stoves.
I did see Ethanol in one off those smelly candle shops but was quite expensive, from memory $14 litre so it pays to buy in bulk aspecially if you have mates to share the cost.

swampy

[Franco]

Orion :
The term over in the US is Denatured Alcohol.
SLX and Sunnyside are a common brands.
Look for the highest ethanol content of what is available to you.
I used SLX (about 50/50 Ethanol/Methanol) and could not tell the difference between that and the local 95% Ethanol (Menthylated spirit) in use.
Note that I resisted the urge of drinking it and or washing my face with it just as most people manage to do when filling the tank of their car.
I say that because every time someone mentions denatured alcohol in a US forum, toxicity and imminent death come soon after.

[Orion]

Look for the highest ethanol content of what is available to you.
I used SLX (about 50/50 Ethanol/Methanol) and could not tell the difference between that and the local 95% Ethanol (Menthylated spirit) in use.

If you couldn't tell the difference then why bother looking for the one with more ethanol?
Or did you mean that the stove ran just as well but ended up using more of the 50/50 fuel than the 95/5?

Is there any reason to suspect that using 50/50 fuel would make an alcohol stove run poorly?

[Strider]

The term over in the US is Denatured Alcohol.

Denatured just means it has additives added to render it unsuitable for drinking. You can get undenatured ethanol also, but a permit is required in Australia.

[Franco]

"If you couldn't tell the difference then why bother looking for the one with more ethanol?"

I didn't...
I put the ethanol bit just for people that are paranoid about using methanol.
I just looked at what REI had on the shelf and bought it.
In theory Ethanol burns hotter than Methanol, in practice many alcohol stoves burn better with methanol (and that is why adding a few drops of water to 95% Ethanol gives a bluer flame than without in stoves like the White Box , as an example)

[Orion]

"In theory Ethanol burns hotter than Methanol, in practice many alcohol stoves burn better with methanol"

Hotter? I don't know what the relative flame temperatures are but there's more kJ released when you burn a gram of ethanol. In theory you'd need almost 1/3 less ethanol than methanol, but that assumes you combust it efficiently.

That's interesting that your experience is that methanol actually helps the stove to work well.
I guess there's no good reason for me to try my alcohol stoves again. It's time to recycle them.

[Strider]

In theory Ethanol burns hotter than Methanol, in practice many alcohol stoves burn better with methanol (and that is why adding a few drops of water to 95% Ethanol gives a bluer flame than without in stoves like the White Box , as an example)

That doesn't make sense. Do they well because there is more methanol? Or because there is less ethanol? Your water example would only help explain the latter.

[Franco]

Most alcohol LW burners come from the US so I suspect that they are optimised to burn stuff like SLX , when you burn almost pure Ethanol they burn too hot.
I posted a few years ago a picture of two White Box set ups where you could see the one burning 95% Ethanol had a very orangish flame and had a much larger flame than the one having about 10-15% water added to the same Ethanol.

Here is that shot :

I repeated the experiment several times to find the optimum mix adding from 5% to 50% water , around 15% worked best.
The usual experts at BPL poo pooed the idea but taking the cue from a great American Thinker (and because I am a skeptic) I go by the maxim :
Who are you going to believe ? Me or your eyes ?
(Groucho Marx)

[Strider]

That still doesn't clear up your claims about methanol increasing performance.

[Onestepmore]

If you scroll down a bit on this sub-link there is a section on 'fuels for alchohol stoves' that describes the diferences between the various types

http://zenstoves.net/Stoves.htm

[Franco]

I don't see where I stated that Methanol increases performance.
What I wrote was that my impression is that US made stoves are optimised to use Methanol , so it isn't the fuel that is better, I am perfectly aware that Ethanol burns hotter.
When a flame burns red and creeps up the pot as in my shot, the burn is not as efficient as a blue flame contained within the bottom of the pot.

Anyway take a look at Tinny's fuel recommendation :
https://www.minibulldesign.com/ProductC ... p?idpage=3
(Yellow Heet ,the first choice, is Methanol)
again, Tinny is not stating Methanol burns universally better,but it is with HIS stoves because that is what he uses when making them.

From Trail Designs (Caldera Cone)
"The 12-10 is designed for denatured alcohol only."
Kind of vague but most "denatured alcohol" in the US is a 50/50 mix.
My bet is that they used SLX during the year long testing .

[neilmny]

The picture is very interesting Franco, did you find that the blue flame boiled a volume of
water faster than the red and was there any loss or gain of burn time with the water added?

[Franco]

Just got the reply back from Rand at Trail Designs :

"As to the fuel, most of the time we used this:

http://www.amazon.com/Klean-Strip-Quart ... B000SL3S6Y"

In the meantime I just did a quick test with two 12-10 burners.
Two cup full of Ethanol in one and two cups of Ethanol with about 15-20% water in the other.
The watered one burned "oranger" (!) than the other but lasted about 15 sec longer.
The pure fuel one had the flame going up the sides of a 16cm pot, the other just covered the bottom so I guess the boil time would have been similar with the undiluted type using a bit more fuel and lasting less.
Now because the 12-10 burns in a low oxygen environment this test without the cone is not all that relevant, it is just meant to suggest you may want to try it.
Also of course adding water and mixing fuels is not the same...