zeppinger

Something that has not been mentioned yet and that you may or may not care about is that alcohol is the best fuel to use if you are cooking indoors. I tour quite a lot in Asia and I am in hotels/guest houses at least 50% of the time because they are everywhere and usually cost less than $3 a night depending on the location. Food in restraunts is also cheap but I still really like cooking in my room to make breakfast or dinner. Coffee can also be hard to find in some parts of Asia so its really nice to be able to make it myself.

Some people have said that alcohol is hard to find abroad but this has been a non-issue for me in the 12 Asian countries I have been to. Other parts of the world may be different. I was even able to find it in remote places in Tibet so I can't imagine it being that hard on other continents. Everyone needs rubbing alcohol right?

fietsbob

One extra thing..

MSR solved the tip thing with the trillium base, it makes the pot support, on the ground, wider..

alcohol stoves are proven Ideal on sailboats, because, the fuel vapor doesn't cause bilge fires!
it evaporates Up.

djb

thankyou, that and the diff gravity comments made me chuckle.

Rowan

One safety aspect that posters (particularly two) forget is that an alcohol flare-up can be dowsed with water. You can't do that with gasoline and gas after the explosion, and both the latter burn with higher intensity.

In all my experience with boats, I have never heard of anyone dying from an alcohol fire on board; conversely, there have been quite a few in gasoline and propane explosions.

Cannisters also are prone to exploding if an inattentive or incompetent user leaves it on for several hours. I have been very close by when this has happened, and the shrapnel spread far and wide.

To me, listing safe stoves is like listing safe knives. It's the user and their competence that makes a tool like a stove or knife safe or unsafe, and that includes picking the right tool for the job in the first place.

stevepusser

I didn't think it was about the vapor drifting upwards, more that the vapor isn't explosive at normal temperatures. Or maybe it just goes "woomph" and then goes out. The mysteriously abandoned Marie Celeste seems to have suffered something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ce...n_and_theories

Rowan

The experience in boats that increases the risk is that vapours from both gasoline and propane sink and amass in the bilges, and need fans to force the fumes out. Given the right vapour-air mix, and the resulting explosion will literally blow a boat to pieces.

Gasoline will move outward and downward from a spill and is more likely to explode than just catch fire. Alcohol is less inclined to do the explosion bit.

This is all based on my experience and observation.

cyccommute 

All the silly boat discussion aside, I'm not buying this. Sorry but the thermodynamics work against you. As the canister empties, the canister gets very cold. That decreases the pressure in the vessel making it far less prone to explosion. Additionally, the heat from the burner raises away from the stove so that it wouldn't have any possibility of overheating the canister which is the only way to raise pressure in the vessel.

Something else may have happened but it wasn't leaving the stove on for several hours.

Sorry but any liquid will spread during a spill in exactly the same manner, i.e. out and down. It doesn't matter if the liquid is water or alcohol or gasoline or liquified gases. It all flows out and down from the spill point.

Any flammable liquid can also explode. The intensity of the explosion is dependent on the energy of the fuel and the ability of the fuel to volatilize. Gasoline has a lot of energy and a low flash point (-40F), isobutane has an even lower flash point (-117F) and as much energy while alcohols like ethanol and methanol have low energy and high flash points (~50F). Any one of these would make a significant 'whoomp' if you had the right fuel/air mixture.

But getting to the right fuel/air mixture isn't necessarily easy. Isobutane, for example, dissipated very rapidly because it's a compressed gas that is only a liquid under pressure. Release it and it will flow outward and downward but it won't obtain the proper fuel/air mixture out in the open. Alcohols pool and don't dissipate as quickly but their flash point doesn't allow them to mix with the air quite as easily. No bets on a very hot day or on refilling a hot stove, however.

Gasoline is kind of the perfect storm because it's designed to do exactly what it does. To run a car engine, you have to vaporize the gasoline, compress it some in air and then add a spark. Boom! Out in the air, it does the same thing, i.e. dissipates easily, forms good air/fuel mixtures and seeks a spark.

For a campstove, I have never used gasoline, nor would I. There are too many other alternatives out there as a fuel. Liquid fuel stoves can usually burn kerosene or diesel fuel. You could probably burn mineral spirits which are a very close match to white gas. Personally, if I found myself somewhere where all I had available was gasoline, I'd eat dry pasta before I'd use gasoline for stove fuel...and this is coming from someone who handles large quantities of flammable liquids daily. I have the knowledge on handling flammable and hazardous materials and they don't frighten me but they do command respect. Gasoline is one of those liquids that demand far more respect than the average lay person gives it.

Finally, as others have pointed out, it's how the tool is used but not necessarily the tool itself that is the problem. That said, commercial backpacking stoves are mostly idiot proof. They are designed with good safety features like sealed and separated fuel tanks, valves to shut off and control the flow of fuel, burners that spread the flame away from the fuel entry point, relatively good stability on level surfaces, etc. All of the ones I've used or looked at would be difficult to make them malfunction without the user being incredibly stupid.

Homemade stoves on the other hand aren't idiot proof. They have none of the safety features of commercial stoves. They are pools of burning flammable liquids without any controls. As someone who is skilled in the art of chemistry and the handling of flammable liquids, they make me cringe. I made one a few years ago and immediately saw all kinds of ways for them to malfunction without much effort at all. I have far too much respect for flammable liquids and what they can do to ever use one.

gregw

Ding, ding we have a winner!

gregw

Basic pot, pot cozy and your meal is ready in minutes. Buy a package of frozen veggies, along with meat (protein of choice) some rice and you're good to go. Even if the grocery store is hours away from dinner, the frozen veggies will keep everything fresh till it's time to cook. Bring everything up to a rolling boil, and slip the whole pot with lid into a pot cozy. 12 minutes later, dinner is served. AT Hikers would die for this luxury!

Rowan

So you've no experience with gasoline stoves, nor alcohol ones, nor been present when a propane gas cannister stove has exploded (as I have), you discount the usage by hundreds, if not thousands of backpackers and bike tourists of homemade cannister stoves, and you claim the discussion about marine use of fuels is silly.

I think that says it all.

Gravity Aided

I thought what I was to take away from maritime fuels is that alcohol fumes, being lighter than air, go upward, whereas gasoline fumes and such seek the lowest point, such as a bilge, where they can cause havoc beyond imagining if ignited. Drain and ventilate your bilges, gentlemen.

robow

greg, after experimenting with different cat stove designs, I found it to be made much more efficient as in longer burn times and no need to allow the stove to heat up and waiting for the liquid to vaporize, by simply making sure there is just a millimeter or two of a gap between my pot and the top of the can. I achieve this by laying two 4" pieces of thin flat steel procured from a couple of old windshield wipers blades. I'm not even sure they're 1mm in thickness but it's just enough to allow a better convection of air. Sounds simple but a huge difference, try it if you haven't stumbled on it already. I'm sure Stuart could explain the chemistry or physics behind it but all I know is it works much better.

MichaelW

I have seen a gas canister accident with the old style blue Camping Gaz without re-use valve, ie pierce, use till empty then change.
The guy was changing canisters, he left the "empty" canister on the ground but it had enough gas left to form a vapour cloud in the open air. A small bit of hexamine solid fuel was burning a few yards away and it ignited the vapour into a fireball that enveloped the poor guy. He escaped with just singed eyebrows. The fireball lasted about 3 seconds and grew to 3-4 yards across.
Fortunately no tents were in the line of fire, we were using cotton Vango Force 10 and back in those days, we didn't have flammable synthetic clothing.

Burton

From an FAQ published by a company whole business is supplying LPG
https://www.reatilegaz.co.za/faq.html

Please note the last line: ESPECIALLY IN THE CASE OF LPG CANISTERS.

All that aside, the biggest danger from using any fuel except alcohol or butane in an enclosed space is the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon dioxide can be delt with adequate ventilation. Carbon monoxide accumulates in your system and will kill you dead.

Being dead's no fun. No-one makes zombie specific bicycles and everyone keeps trying to kill you - AGAIN!

andrewclaus

The worst stove accident I've seen was not from the fuel. It was a bad burn from scalding water spilled after it was taken off the stove. On my PCT and CDT hikes, I personally witnessed three alcohol stove mishaps, two from clumsy kicks, one from a wind gust actually blowing the lit stove over. Since very few hikers were using anything but alcohol stoves on these trails, I don't know about statistical significance. One I did not witness started a small wildland fire in So Cal--I witnessed the fire.

The last time I used a stove on a trip was in 2005. I'd been using homemade alky stoves for a couple of years. I stopped cooking mainly due to traveling style concerns. Stove, fuel, and scalding water safety was down low on the list of reasons, but still there. Since then I've hiked over 6000 miles on long trails and biked 4500 miles across the US without cooking. And with one less risk factor, though a very small one.

So, attached is a photo of my favorite stove and the pack it goes in.