A New Design of Alcohol Backpacker Stove boils water faster than a Trangia

hi everyone my name is Simon today I'd like to introduce you to a what I think is a new design of alcohol stove but before I do that I'd like to just discuss some of the well-established designs of alcohol stoves I've made quite a few of them and I've got to admit that I really like them they're great fun to make this is the classic soda-can stove with the double wall and basically based on the on the Trangia camping stove this is the time-honored favorite the the penny stove and simple tin cans with holes around them which are in it alcohol vapor Jets and lastly the beautifully named 2 cot tomcat stove which made from a cat food tin and a tomato tin with a week in between where the alcohol is pulled in down the center and leaks into the wick with a subsequent flame now I'd like to discuss some drawbacks associated with these various designs as most people know the way these work is that you pour alcohol into the center pit and it then seeps out between the inner wall and the outer wall rising up you then like the center area which flames up heats the whole stove vaporizes the alcohol as the alcohol boils the alcohol vapor then exits through the jet holes which then ignite and you get a nice little rosette of flame the problem is that until these stoves really heat up the can't be used unless you suspend your cooking pot above the height of the center because as soon as you put a pot right on the top of the stove you basically extinguish the center flame so the gas jets have not yet had a chance to ignite you're no longer cooking so the way around this obviously is to suspend your pot above the height of the room of the alcohol stove and there are plenty of designs on the on internet for how to do that the problem that I see with that is that it rather defeats the purpose of having the Jets if you're going to not exploit the center flame then you're you may well be quitting predominantly we've that seem to flame and the external Jets then become redundant now the other char the other issue I have is with the Tomcat stove or any stove that has a week in that when you've finished cooking and you've snuffed out the plane you then have a significant amount of fuel which remains within the week which if you leave it out in the open will evaporate in which case it's wasted but you're then if you want to save the fuel you are compelled to then store the your entire stove in an airtight container so that you're able to use the fuel next time you're cooking how were these potential shortcomings of the aesthetics establish stoves I came up with some priorities for MIT for my design and firstly that the stove should start heating the pot immediately everything that you bring on a backpacking trip is precious and you don't want to be wasting either time or fuel heating up a stone waiting for Jess to work before you can put your cutting point on also centering a kettle or cooking bike on a small burning stove can be quite tricky you can burn yourself or you can tip the whole stove over and potentially have fuel leaking everywhere secondly ideally you don't want a separate pot stand ideally you want the stove itself to either stand on which your pot should sit thirdly you should be easily able to reclaim unburnt fuel you don't want to be carrying around fuel that you're going to be burning or vibrating off before you can start walking again ideally you want to just pour that fuel off and store it for the next meal now I thought I'd have a bit of a chat about what led to this current design of alcohol stove quite often when backpacking I'll use the charcoal stove this is one with a an integrated pot holder design the idea is that the lump charcoal goes into the stove and sits on this grid down the bottom there are air holes which allow air to come in pass up into the charcoal and allowed to burn now I use denatured alcohol methylated spirits to Primus stove and get the charcoal burning the alcohol sits down below the holes and burns off and ignites the charcoal which then gives me a nice long slow burn now one time I was using a small one and I forgot to put in the charcoal support and evident at the bottom and I noticed that when I lit the alcohol to prime the charcoal there was a blue flame visible through the holes and also a flame that would come up between the pot and the sidewall of the stove and the blue flame within spread over the bottom of the pot and heat the pot very successfully and the next segment of the video will show you what this look like now although this little stove works really well with alcohol it does have a few issues folding these potholders down leaves a bit of a variable gap between the pot and the rim of the tin and the intensity of the flame and the evenness of the flame is dependent on that gap the other issue is that these are quite sharp and I call it my crown of thorns stove and it really is quite literally a pain in the backside of one of these was just sticking to you while you're while you're carrying it so the designer finally come up with is is this it's basically a tomato team it's got air entry holes which establish a small flame down the bottom which heats up the alcohol which is in the reservoir below the holes the heated alcohol vapor then rises up the chimney and exits through these holes which is in secondarily ignited forming the Roseate of flame which does the main job of hitting your pot there should be some heating effect however on the inside as this is obviously a rising column of hot gas and there should be no part of the story that actually has a cold spot and I found that twelve holes provides gas jets that basically covered most of the bottom of the pot or kettle you're trying to heat with regard to size of holes I started off quite small the four to four point five millimeters is very hard to ignite and it doesn't generate enough heat to keep the flame going anything above five seems to be okay I pretty much standard based on six millimeter holes and these have been very reliable very easy to light and and also heat up sufficiently to to stay burning now here I've got a completed stove I've got methanol in the stove normally I would use denatured alcohol methylated spirits which is predominantly ethanol methanol prolongs the cooking time by about twenty-five to thirty percent of my experience but it does give a cleaner bluer flame and so less likely to sort out pyrex dish I'll go on the top and the dish has got a small amount of water in it that we will be able to look through so lighting at the bottom so this is the internal flame that's a heating way there methanol or alcohol which is then rising up the tubular section of the stove once it's here is up the alcohol vapor should be easily martyred we have first the internal flying jets and the external fine jets heating up the surface of the Pyrex trying dish hopefully without any cold spots once you finish your cooking nothing is easily achieved just with a larger team [Music] reclaiming our bide unburned fuel is fairly straightforward I've created a hole in the rim it's easy to find because there's a world along the wall of the tin most of the fuel can be pulled into my stuff at home through the flame jet holes the last little bit that can't be poured through those holes can then be run forward and pour it off through the whole life made in the rim I've also created a hole again along the line of the world so it's easy to find in the rim of the snuper team this will allow the fuel to then be poured off back into the storage bottle for later use I should mention that hacking back to the design of this stove from a charcoal stove that is still functions very well as a charcoal stove once all the alcohol that has been burnt off it will burn for around 30 to 60 minutes giving a nice slow heat to any meal that you wish to keep hot please do not use this as a room heater charcoal when burning in its 20 to 30% of it's fumes is carbon monoxide which are highly toxic in a closed environment such as a tenth of a cabin so please only use this burning charcoal and a well-ventilated area you

Channel: simon4043

Views: 474,191

Keywords: camping, stove, alcohol, backpacker, hobo, methanol, ethanol, diy, how, to, camper, tin, can, steel, cooking, boiling, water, camp, sailing, cruising, yachting, yacht, boating, boat, how to, make a

Id: DcUKaHoYEUU

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Dmunman]

Tried making them out of Tomatoe paste cans and regular size soup cans. Both work great. I use the alcohol to start the twigs. If it’s gonna rain, I will gather twigs the day before in a ziplock so I have dry material. Doesn’t make sound. No early morning blast sounds! Can simmer by adding twigs. Don’t try aluminum. I did and the wood melts it.