Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

What can I burn in an open cup burner stove?

+5
−0

I'm looking for easily obtained fuels for an open-cup stove, such as a Trangia, in case I need to top up while travelling.

I have a small simple DIY open cup spirit stove, for boiling water when bike touring and I don't want to carry my MSR. I may make a slightly more sophisticated one. I'd normally run it on meths (denatured alcohol), ideally with a little isopropanol added so the flame is more visible (isopropanol burns rather dirtily, unlike ethanol or methanol). Surgical spirit (rubbing alcohol) is based on ethanol and/or isopropanol, but the additives and isopropanol mean it doesn't burn cleanly and leaves an oily mess in the burner.

Meths is available (in the UK) from hardware shops and camping stores, but not reliably from supermarkets or petrol stations, which are more common and open longer. So are there alternatives? As an example, acetone and even ethyl acetate (in the form of nail polish removers) are easy to buy in supermarkets, and if I did have the MSR I could top it up with lighter (Zippo) fuel which can be bought anywhere that sells cigarettes.


For an international glossary of fuel names, see How are camping fuels named in different languages and geographies?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/24839. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

0 comment threads

1 answer

+5
−0

Hand sanitiser is widely available, especially in recent months, and reportedly burns well enough to boil water while leaving little residue. The downsides are that it is usually sold as a gel, which is unlikely to flow properly into a double-walled stove, and contains a proportion of water which reduces the heat available.

As an alternative, I sometimes use a collapsible wood-gas stove for twigs and leaves when other fuels are hard to get hold of, and some of those stoves are big enough to fit a Trangia-like burner inside. I don't know how the total size and weight would compare to an MSR but that setup would allow you to switch between meths and solid fuel.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

1 comment thread

General comments (2 comments)

Sign up to answer this question »