Sunday 7 February 2016

Alcohol backpacking stove


EVERNEW Titanium alcohol stove
This might be of interest for my outdoorsy friends.

I bought this little alcohol stove a while ago and I am still very impressed with its performance.

The stove weighs only 34 grams. Yesterday I did a few tests to determine the efficiency of the stove.


I carefully measured out 20 ml of denatured alcohol (methylated spirits) and set it alight.
It took around 1:30 for the flame to burn as it should from both sets of holes.
A pot containing 500 ml cold water (+/- 10 Celsius) was placed on the stove at 1:30
The water boiled furiously at 7:15
All the fuel was consumed at 8:00

    IMHO this is quite remarkable and efficient.
    One can thus state that 20 ml of fuel is sufficient to heat water to have a noodle meal, couscous or oats and a cup of tea/coffee. 

    Assuming 2 hot meals a day would mean 40 ml/day lets round that up to 50 ml/day. In other word a 5 day hike would then require only 250 ml i.e. only 250 grams of weight to carry.

    The only disadvantage I can see. The flame is almost invisible when it burns during daylight. It is very difficult to know if the flame is burning or whether it has been blown out by the wind. For the record that has not happened to me yet. I am planning to make a lightweight windscreen partly for obvious reasons and secondly to concentrate the heat onto the pot so as to increace the efficiency further.

    The image below was taken at dusk, the flame is near invisible in day light. 


    The EVERGREEN Titanium alcohol stove


    1 comment:

    1. Pierre,

      These are FB stoves. I have the exact stove and a windscreen is essential to ensure that the wind won't cause you problems. You can also make these stoves very simply. See this link;
      http://www.thesodacanstove.com/alcohol-stove/how-to-build.html

      73,

      Mike AD5A

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