Pressurized Alcohol Stove ?'s

[ontherocks83]

It is NOT like lighting a white gas stove and that assumption is what caused my wife to have problems.

With white gas, the gas valve is open when you are preheating but it must be closed for alcohol. You must put a small amount of liquid alcohol in the preheat bowl which is under the burner and then SHUT OFF ALL VALUES. With everything shut off, you light the preheat alcohol and let it burn out completely. When the flame goes out, crack the valve and light the alcohol comes out of the burner. If you get liquid at this time, you did not have enough preheat so you will need to start over. I found that between 1/4 and 1/2 of the bowl depth was about right for preheating.

That is exactly how you start a MSR Dragonfly camping stove.

Open the valve just enough to put some fuel in the bowl,
shut off fuel,
light bowl
wait for flame to almost die
crack open valve and it burns clean (open valve too much and much bigger fire)

 

[Alan Gomes]

Those stoves are also sold at our ACE Hdw store and in Walmart. Along with the cans of fuel. I use one on my smaller boat

Those stoves do work quite well. But remember that butane is heavier than air, so one should exercise care in storing those canisters.

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

for sure- no different from propane though. Mine get stored in the cockpit

 

[ggrizzard]

"Oh the humanity!" ..... Live reporter at the Hindenburg disaster.

 

[sailme88]

As a retired firefighter I can unequivocally state that alcohol stoves are dangerous. As previously stated, it's flame is invisible. Only heat waves give it away. There were color additives that one could buy that would betray the flames. Not sure if this is still supported. The best manner of extinguishment is with an AR foam extinguisher.
Next on the danger parade is propane. Heavier than air it will always sink. That is why bottles are stored in transom lockers that allow over the side venting.
The best solution is CNG. Lighter than air it will always go to atmosphere. Where heavier propane accumulates in low spaces, CNG dissipates as it rises. On an efficiency comparison, propane is more efficient as it will generate more BTUs per cu/ft.
If you use propane, you'll need a bilge blower that is intrinsically safe. This means that the motor is sealed so that stray energy cannot ignite the gas that you are venting. There are also documented cases where propane in the bilge was ignited by a bilge pump. Propane belongs in unconfined spaces such as patios and decks.

 

[Alan Gomes]

for sure- no different from propane though. Mine get stored in the cockpit

Correct. Sometimes people don't realize that, though, so it's good to keep in mind. I do think the valves on those hairspray-sized butane canisters are much more reliable than what is on those green 1lb. propane canisters.

 

[All U Get]

We had instructions saying 5psi stamped on the tank. After using ours enough to be comfortable, we increased our pressure to nearly 10psi which would last for three meals. Good for those rainy days when I would have to get into the stern locker to pump the tank.

 

[jnorten]

My 1982 C30 has two burners AND an oven. I baked muffins and biscuits in the oven this summer.

If you don't know what you are doing, then yes flare ups can and do occur.

With practice, you will get the hang of it and it will be fine--
Use the least amount of liquid alcohol in the cup to sufficiently heat the burner. You'll hear the alcohol in burner start to boil (good), and hopefully not see the alcohol in the cup boil (bad). Usually, the stuff in my cup boils but I use so little fuel that flare up is not too big.

If I don't use enough alcohol to preheat, then I just allow a little more in.

I'm basically explaining what some other folks have detailed here, but I hope in a more positive light. Why spend a grand when what you have will work with practice?

I bought my C30 (#2462) a year ago. The tank was gone. I bought a good quality garden sprayer and retrofitted it to be a good tank. I chopped the sprayer off the end of the hose, attached a suitable barb, pressure gauge, and ball valve. Voila. The garden sprayer had all attributes of a perfect pressure alcohol stove tank:
--Rated to ~40 PSI per documentation (our stoves need ~10 PSI)
--Pump built into the tank (so no bike pump needed)

I once heard a handy person explain his solution to me: rip out guts of pressure alcohol stove and insert the guts of a two burner Coleman-style propane stove. You then engineer fuel delivery and decide on the level of risk to assume.

Good luck!

 

[jnorten]

Oh, and I buy my alcohol from Home Depot (or Menard's here in IL). It's sold with the other paint chemicals like acetone, mineral spirits, etc. Actually labeled as fuel, $5-6 per quart:

Fuel

I've used maybe 3 quarts this summer.