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alcohol stoves


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I made a Pepsi can stove and it works pretty well. Heats up a canteen cup of water in short order to make instant soup. I haven't tried cooking anything else on it but I'm sure that it would work.

 

I use Everclear as a fuel because its good for snakebite as well.

 

 

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I've built and used several and they work well. You can cook on them but their primary purpose is to boil water. Most backpacking food tends to be the boiled water variety and it works well for that. I have made pasta and fried eggs on mine but rice is tricky as you need to soak it first to reduce cook time and then boil to get it to heat. I like mine but I don't use it in very cold weather because then I want a stove that is a rocket. I have $500 in backpacking stoves and I now use a pepsi can. Go figure. Just be sure to practice with it before you go out.

 

I see no reason to even buy a commercially made product unless you are very short on time. If that was the case I'd go with the trangia set that comes with pots and everything. Just be aware that ALL homemade stoves boil faster and weigh less than the commercial units. One of the lightweight backpacking sites did a test a while back and confirmed this. Sorry, I can't remember when and where.

 

You definately need a windscreen to keep the heat where you want it.

 

Our troop builds them as part of our backpacking intruction. The kids enjoy it and the parents like the fact that they don't need to buy a $30+ stove.

 

We use the Scott Henderson design that Yaworski linked to. Mine brings 10oz of water to a boil in 5 min and has a total burn time of about 12-13 min using about an inch of denatured alcohol.

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  • 3 years later...

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