What are the advantages and disadvantages between gas, liquid and solid fuel?

Note on boiling and stove weights, obviously there are dozens of stoves out there for every fuel. I'm just estimating based on commonly used stoves.

Petroleum, Gas, White Gas, other liquid petrol products
Stove weight: 12+ oz (340+ g) Water Boil per 100g fuel (rough): 5 to 6L
Good:

• Works below freezing
• incredibly good heat
• fuel is easy to come by
• fuel energy density is high enough so that just the fuel in the tank is enough for a few days, so no need to bring extra fuel cans.

Bad:

• Heavy
• high maintenance
• must pack out fuel cans
• more likely to go boom

Alcohol (liquid)
Stove weight: 0.25 for a DIY Stove (7.1g)
Good:

• Minimal equipment needed
• good for ultralight setups
• almost impossible to make it go boom
• very easy to light/use
• In a pinch you can use a wide variety of fuels making resupply a non-issue
• Ridiculously cheap gear. My entire kit cost $5 and I got a beer out of it.

Bad:

• Poor effective heat/weight of the fuel (due to burn rate, but still good for ultralight due to minimal gear need)
• Won't work as well in extreme cold. It requires extra gear, like a preheater, as shown in this Trangia video. Here's some extra testing from another hiker here. Alcohol is hard to light in deep cold and it's extremely hard/nigh impossible to boil water with it in sub freezing temps.
• Pretty finicky to use, at least with a DIY setup.
• In bright light it is sometimes easy to miss the flame and not realize it is still lit, creating a possible hazard.
• Fuel hard to find in some parts of the world, such as Russia

Butane, Propane, Isobutane (pressurized gas)
Stove weight: 3 to 5oz (85 to 142g) Water Boil per 100g fuel (rough): 7 to 8L
Good:

• good heat
• lightweight stove options available
• Wind, what wind? I've successfully boiled water in near freezing temps and high winds just by huddling over my MSR to dampen the wind (which is a pretty poor wind screen).

Bad:

• Must carry multiple canisters for long trips
• canisters can discharge while packed if not packed carefully
• must pack out fuel cans
• use of a heat shield requires very special care to avoid canister explosion (however a heat shield is a nice to have instead of a must have in most conditions with this setup)

Note: Sometimes it will work below freezing, sometimes it won't. It's a function of how it's handled. Also has issues at altitude. That's because these work by the liquid inside boiling and releasing gas out the top of the canister which doesn't work as well at lower pressure or temperature. Some designs address this by inverting the canister.

Hexamine (solid fuel)
Stove weight: <1 oz (<28g)
Good:

• Super lightweight
• easy to get at stops and small towns
• boils water well

Bad:

• Not very good for other cooking (due to smell)
• soots pots with this sticky goo
• contaminates everything if not handled very carefully.
• hard to start and will not heat well in wind without an excellent wind screen

posted almost 13 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Russell Steen‭

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