Optimising alcohol fuel usage

[Franco]

Having seen many comments about how some use the Trangia because they can store and or recover fuel with it, I thought of shooting a short video to show how it can be done with most alcohol stoves. (the recover bit...)
During many tests I arrived to the conclusion that at least some stoves work better if you have more fuel to start with than you need.
mostly they come to full bloom faster but still do not use any more, if you have a way of extinguishing the flame when done.
So for 5 to 10 g extra weight (aluminium foil or soft drink can) you can put the flame out whenever it suits you and recover the remaining fuel.
BTW, this is not meant to belittle or criticise the Trangia...
Video here :

http://www.youtube.com/user/francodario ... X9j7pF38Tw[youtube][/youtube]
Franco

[nakedape]

I find that if I ration my alcohol fuel to one glass a day we usually have enough red to get us through - regardless of how we use the stove

But seriously - recovery of fuel can be a messy business & I'd have thought best avoided.

N

[danpickard]

I've been using one of the PackaFeather XL stoves, and love it. Super compact, simple engineering, and actually quite quick to cook with. I just bought some of the Trangia pots/pans to use in the set up. Fuel recovery is fairly simple with the PackaFeather as well. They sell a small bottle cap with a suction tube that flips up, so once finished cooking, just extinguish flame with the snuff cap, wait a few minutes for the fuel to cool, and then suck/aspirate it back up into the fuel storage bottle. I am using a 500ml thick plastic storage bottle for fuel (needs to be squeezable to facilitate the aspiration of the fuel).

Further details here...
http://packafeather.com/xlstove.html

Cheers,
Dan Pickard

(now if the rain and earthquakes would stop so I can go for a walk where I want to go for a walk!)

[Franco]

"But seriously - recovery of fuel can be a messy business & I'd have thought best avoided"

That was pretty much the gist of the video. To show that it can be very easy to do as well as why, but of course you would need to actually watch the video to know that.
Franco

[nakedape]

No mate. When I say best avoided I mean avoided all together. Watch your vid again & take a look at the fuel you spill (in almost perfect conditions). Imagine windy conditions, or trying to clean up after meal time inside your vestibule (think blizzard). Would you really want fuel spilling on your gear? Not me. Further more, you cant get all the fuel out without burning it off (wasteful).
I use a trangia & over time have learned how much fuel i need for different applications in different conditions - If I end up with fuel left over I screw the cap back on and always put the burner in a water (fuel) proof bag inside the stove. No spills, no worries!

But as my dear old Pa used to say - there's more than one way of skinning a cat other than sucking its guts out!


N

[Orion]

Nice cat, Franco!

The idea seems reasonable to me, although I don't usally use an alcohol stove and while experimenting with them recently at home I set several small fires (including my hand) because I was being very sloppy. But I don't think there's a big concern with a little spilled alcohol. It isn't corrosive and it will evaporate.

But how much do you really save by doing this?

[Franco]

Orion
If you use a gas stove, you light it , wait for your food to cook and then turn the stove (burner) off when done.
The same with white gas/Shellite .
With alcohol ,generally speaking folk try to guess how much they need because they either think that the burner is hard/impossible to "turn off" or if they know how to do that then they find it hard or impossible to return the leftovers to the fuel container.
That is one of the reason why some like the Trangia. (providing you remove and then replace the O ring inside the cap)
However the purpose of the video was to show that it can really be done with any stove.
It is about saving fuel , (now exactly how much you save depends on how good or bad you have been before in guessing how much you needed ..) but it has also to do with avoiding having to re-light the burner because you underestimated how cold your water was or the effect of wind or the fact that you needed to boil 400ml and not 250ml and so on.
By the way, what I do is not new, just new if you didn't already know.
Franco

[Nuts]

I think iv'e seen this before, always good to hear tips, it probably saves more fills when you plan to re-boil a few times also (less refills, safer...)
me, i'll probably keep overfilling, staring into what remains of the flame till its out

[Orion]

Thanks Franco, I understand the issue. I used to use a Trangia (my first stove) and have dabbled with a couple of the build-it-yourself models. I keep returning to canister gas for a variety of reasons, but I'm still intrigued with alcohol stoves.

Here's a question: Why can't someone make a lightweight do-it-yourself stove that can be closed up, Trangia-like? Too heavy, too complicated?


I hope your cat gets a supporting role in future videos you produce.

[Franco]

Orion
Thank you for your video comments.
The cats get extra food but only when they have speaking parts.
Walk in parts are not paid for.
I do them because I have the time and they are very easy for me to produce.
That one was done in one take (as most of mine are..) , the editing took me well under one hour, probably more like 30-40 minutes.

To seal a burner you would need some sort of O ring and that is the weak part of the Trangia. Not really the ring it self but the fact that some forget to let the stove cool down before screwing that in.
The aluminium snuffer as well as the bottom of a soda stove are under 5g and of course nest over the burner in transport.
So not as "elegant" as the Trangia but they work.
Franco