All your meth stove answers....

[Davidf61]

Are not here!

Despite an epic weekend of wasting litres of metho I'm still unsure of what is the definitive stove set up.
I cleared the workbench in the shed, organized water supply, control pots [ titanium and alloy], thermometers
and a fire extinguisher. It was'nt rigidly scientific but at least I could compare things side by side repeatedly
so as to be reasonably sure of the accuracy. Even had a fan to simulate wind! There were several different
brands of stoves and systems and I continually mixed them all up to see if something would do better with
someone elses stove. I'm not going to put up [rolling ] boil times, just a general overview of performance.

First up, Trail Designs TiTri Caldera Cone. Now this really is an impressive bit of kit. Pot, stove and the cone
really do work as one, unaffected by wind, "sprinkler" rain, super stable, would boil 600ml of water on 15 to 20ml
of metho in around 6-7 mins and keep going for 1-2 minutes more. Best allrounder methinks when weighing up
fuel used to time ratio. Downside is cone must match pot [I have Evernew 1l pasta pot, awesome] and it's very light
though a little bulky, choose your pot needs carefully!

Next Evenew Ti DX Pot stand and stove, matched to a 750/400 pot combo [Thanks Michele!]. Well, this is a savage
little beast that absolutely blasts out heat, and uses fuel to match! On about 25 to 30ml of metho it would boil up
600ml of water in about 5min. Achieve rolling boil, just, and then go out. The little titanium plate that comes in the kit
may seem pointless but definitely speeds the process up. Ultra light and compact, all fits inside the pot combo,
add a small windshield and this would be my short trip choice.

Trangia 28. I thought old faithfull would be left well behind, but I was suprised how well it did overall. On the same
amount of fuel it always achieved boil and then kept going the longest after that. Add a decent windshield and it's
a very usuable bit of kit and that ability of the stove to store fuel is a real winner in time/convenience. A trangia burner
in titanium would be unbeatable [anybody listening?]

I also tested out a range of home built Pepsi or penny stoves, most disappointed. In perfect conditions some were ok,
but add early morning cold, a bit of wind, or wrong pot size/distance and all those claims turn out to be wishful thinking. White box stove and
Zelph Starlite were the best of the rest.

Conclusions, as I said not too scientific, but after about 10 litres of metho, the "kits" from a manufacturer were far and away
the ones to reliably boil water in a reasonable time/fuel ratio.

Most "penny/Pepsi" stoves I tried are fun and sometimes pretty but generally crap.

Tea light candles are quite useless.

If you add small proportions of Shellite to metho it really cranks it up but pots go black as black!

Hope this is useful to somebody out there.
P.S. Got a pounding headache out of all this......

[ULWalkingPhil]

Pretty much achieved same results as you on numerous tests I had done a few weeks back. Some of the homemade pepsi can stove designs work great in the US but faulter majorly here because of our fuel.
Part of a test I done with close supervision from a manufacturer in the US his stove design was unsuccessful here in Australia. Conclusion we came to was our fuel quality ie methylated spirit is inferior compared to whats supplied in the US.

I looked further into our fuel here. Through a mate of mine in Brisbane he knows someone that is well up in tje fuel industry here and told him that the metho sold here in Australia is not of the same quality of that in the US. Reason being is that there is less alcohol content and more water added to our metho. He did inform as the reason. But I am not so sure I should mention here.

Im only informing what I been told by a person in the fuel industry in Australia. Is it true? I don't know. But tests I have done appear to indicate that it's true.

The fuel quality don't appear to effect the performance of most stoves such as the trail designs 12-10 stove and a few others I have at home.

But this manufacturers stove design failed miserably over here and works extremely effective in the US

[Davidf61]

I think your on to something with the fuel. I would pull down the garage doors and turn the lights out so I could clearly see the flame patterns.

Very few of the US stoves had the same pretty blue flame patterns you seem to see on youtube, it was just like the fuel couldn't quite get to that
full blueish stage, seemed to have a fair bit of orange in the flame. But the ones that were open design like the Zelph or the 12-10 seemed to do a bit better.
The 12-10 is only average outside of the Caldera cone but works great inside, where I guess it run hotter.

[Franco]

I have already pointed out several times that US manufacturers fine tune their burners using SLX or other mostly methanol type fuels.
Because we burn 95% Ethanol those stoves often burn too hot.
Trey adding a few drops of water.
Experts will tell you that it does not work but just try it anyway...

[Rob A]

If I buy metho it isnt 95% ethanol is it?

[neilmny]

Diggers Metho from Bunnings is 95% Ethanol.

[Turfa]

I have already pointed out several times that US manufacturers fine tune their burners using SLX or other mostly methanol type fuels.
Because we burn 95% Ethanol those stoves often burn too hot.
Trey adding a few drops of water.
Experts will tell you that it does not work but just try it anyway...

I'm sure Franco has a better idea of what the manufacturers use for their testing that I do.......but all the times I have used an alcohol stove in the US I have used what they call Denatured Alcohol. As far as I can tell this is the same as our metho, about 95% ethanol, with the remainder being methanol + bittering agents etc. etc. to make it "undrinkable". That is what you can buy in the US stores & what all of my US hiker friends use. I have not really noticed any difference in how my stoves perform (trangia, brasslite, evernew), ..........but maybe I'm not paying close enough attention !!!

[rucksack]

This might help ...

http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com ... -fuel.html

The writer (hikin_jim) is a member of this site.

rucksack

[ULWalkingPhil]

I tried adding various quantity of water to the metho in my tests. Spent hours upon hours. Will not perform lke they do in the US.

I tried hard. As I really wanted this to work. In the end had to give up.

I have written briefly about this on the forums regarding a heat source for a backpacking oven. It didn't show much interest at the time, so I never discussed it further.. I have since aquired a gas stove from MSR which is light enough for my needs.

[Orion]

...all the times I have used an alcohol stove in the US I have used what they call Denatured Alcohol. As far as I can tell this is the same as our metho, about 95% ethanol, with the remainder being methanol + bittering agents etc. etc. to make it "undrinkable".

That's also what I assumed, but Franco disabused me of the notion. Hikin' Jim's blog post also addresses this.

Or you can look at the manufacturer MSDS sheets yourself. Here are several readily available brands. Only the last one, the one Hikin' Jim mentions, claims 90%+ ethanol content. The others are around 50% or even less. Whether or not it makes a difference I cannot say as I have only had dismally poor experiences with metho stoves, including with my Trangia.

http://www.sunnysidecorp.com/info_sheet ... 0Sheet.pdf
http://zenstoves.net/MSDS/CrownDenaturedAlcohol.pdf
http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/SuperCat ... %20SLX.pdf
http://www.rockler.com/tech/RTD20000136AA.pdf
http://www.rockler.com/tech/RTD20000423AA.pdf

[ULWalkingPhil]

Trangias, I also found dismal in particular it's lack of efficiency. While I owned a trangia a couple years ago, I couldn't understand why so many used alcohol stoves.

I kept reading in the states how popular the alcohol stoves are for light weight hikers, some consuming about 4 ounces of fuel for a one week hike. I was lucky to get a days use out of a trangia with 4 ounces.

Sold my trangia. And started using gas for a while. When I decided to take a risk and ordered a trail design cooking kit. Best thing I done.

[neilmny]

I don't own an alternative to compare but I've found my Trangia to be acceptably "efficient".
I burn (flat out no simmer ring) about 20mm of the Diggers brand metho to boil a 2 cup kettle (Trangia 27) and cook enough mac
pasta for 2 in a "1 litre" pot. I haven't used it in the snow or very cold conditions as yet but have used it above 1500 metres with
the same result.

[ULWalkingPhil]

I don't own an alternative to compare but I've found my Trangia to be acceptably "efficient".
I burn (flat out no simmer ring) about 20mm of the Diggers brand metho to boil a 2 cup kettle (Trangia 27) and cook enough mac
pasta for 2 in a "1 litre" pot. I haven't used it in the snow or very cold conditions as yet but have used it above 1500 metres with
the same result.

I never had results anywhere near that on my trangia i used to own.

My trail designs 12-10 stove, generally uses 15-20mm of fuel to boil 2 cups of water. depends on the environment.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[neilmny]

I might do some more accurate measurements of amount of water I'm heating etc.
One thing I do is light the burner and put the kettle on. I don't wait for the "bloom".
I figure all heat is useful heat so why waist it.

[norts]

I use a trangia burner, with a home made aluminium pot stand, wind shield(thank you Zen Stove), I also use an aluminium base plate. I think the base plate helps to reflect the heat up, it also helps to stop damage to grass etc that the burner otherwise would be sitting on. I allow 100ml per day. That gets me 4-5 mugs of coffee and heat water for dinner.
I use a small aluminium trangia bowl to heat water, with a similiar lid to the base plate. I tried a titanium bowl and it took twice as long to heat water.
Main reason I like the trangia burner is I dont have to measure the fuel out. Is there other burners out there that you can store fuel in?

Roger

[neilmny]

There is a "Chinese" copy called an Alocs (I have one). It has 2 different sized burner holes but is otherwise very much the same as the Trangia burner.
I'm not all that comfortable with it as I've had it go into "thermal overrun" (I think it is) a couple of times and it's pretty ugly when it does.
Even putting the simmer ring (closed right off) on wouldn't snuff the flame. I was using it in it's own stand/mini windshield which could be part
of the issue as there is not much air circulating around the burner (to keep it at a "reasonable" temperature?) like there is with the trangia windshield.

I think there has been a review of it somewhere on this forum.

[Turfa]

This might help ...

http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com ... -fuel.html

The writer (hikin_jim) is a member of this site.

rucksack

This article would seem to support that the metho we have here in Oz (95% ethanol) is the most efficient commercially available alcohol stove fuel.

It is interesting to read the comments here from people who feel they get worse results than US hikers do from their stoves (due to the high ethanol content of metho). Much of the discussion on US forums is almost exactly the opposite. They complain about the variable quality of US "Denatured Alcohol" and in particular the poor performance of the fuels that are low in ethanol & high in methanol........ they are all looking for the 95% ethanol brands !!!

perhaps the US stove manufacturers design their stoves for the high methanol fuels, not because it is the most efficient fuel, but because it is the most common.????????

[Solohike74]

I have been using the Trangia 25 for about a year. It performs steadily, as its original upper and lower windshields do save on fuel.

Note it is not the stove shown in my avatar photo. It is the Trangia 25 UL/HA. The HA pots are very fast and easy to clean.

I took it on the six foot track without the original shields, and just with a clikstand and trangia burner and my pot. I went through almost 500ml of fuel. I use dehydrated dinner, soup and in the morning porridge and coffee/tea. I concluded that windshields of some kind are crucial, as well as some holes near the bottom so that dense air (with more oxygen per cubic inch) can be drawn in and through the burner layer to provide oxygen for the operating burner.

There are a lot of other alcohol stoves out there, but am a bit cautious about making a change. I'm considering changing to the 27 model.

[Orion]

My trail designs 12-10 stove, generally uses 15-20mm of fuel to boil 2 cups of water.

What do you mean by "15-20mm"? Are you measuring the depth of the fuel? Or did you mean milliliters (ml)?


Tony did some tests with a Trangia 27 a couple of years ago:

http://tonysbushwalking.wordpress.com/2 ... as-stoves/

He compared the Trangia to an MSR Whisperlite and MSR Pocket Rocket.
He plotted the fuel he used (in grams) to raise a liter of water 80°C, indoors and in nice conditions, for a variety of stove settings:



His Trangia burned about 23g of fuel (29ml) per liter of water he heated.
If you're thinking in terms of 2 cups of water that would translate to about 14ml of fuel burned.

If he was using 95% ethanol fuel his stove efficiency would be 57%. Not bad.
You probably wouldn't do quite this well in the bush, what with wind, cooler air, and colder water.
So 15-20ml to bring 2 cups to a boil sounds about right.

On a cool foggy day in San Francisco with a bit of wind, my Trangia never even reached a boil.
Under the same conditions my canister stove brought 500ml of water to a rapid boil within 5 minutes.
So I put the Trangia away, as I would a toy.

[neilmny]

I can't speak for Philipsart but I was refering to the depth of fuel used. (95% Ethanol)
The inside diameter of the burner is approximately 65mm so disregarding the inner wall
thickness 1mm of fuel is approximately 3.3 millilitres. So I was burning around 66.4 millilitres to
boil a couple of "cups" (not a true measure) and make a pasta meal for 2.

[ULWalkingPhil]

My trail designs 12-10 stove, generally uses 15-20mm of fuel to boil 2 cups of water.

What do you mean by "15-20mm"? Are you measuring the depth of the fuel? Or did you mean milliliters (ml)?


Tony did some tests with a Trangia 27 a couple of years ago:

http://tonysbushwalking.wordpress.com/2 ... as-stoves/

He compared the Trangia to an MSR Whisperlite and MSR Pocket Rocket.
He plotted the fuel he used (in grams) to raise a liter of water 80°C, indoors and in nice conditions, for a variety of stove settings:



His Trangia burned about 23g of fuel (29ml) per liter of water he heated.
If you're thinking in terms of 2 cups of water that would translate to about 14ml of fuel burned.

If he was using 95% ethanol fuel his stove efficiency would be 57%. Not bad.
You probably wouldn't do quite this well in the bush, what with wind, cooler air, and colder water.
So 15-20ml to bring 2 cups to a boil sounds about right.

On a cool foggy day in San Francisco with a bit of wind, my Trangia never even reached a boil.
Under the same conditions my canister stove brought 500ml of water to a rapid boil within 5 minutes.
So I put the Trangia away, as I would a toy.

Sorry that should have read 15-20ml.