Recently I was reading about a new multi-fuel (but pressurized-liquid fuel) stove that had come out, that prompted me to do searches on updates to some of the leading pressurized liquid fuel stoves out there… and I came away thinking that I’m really glad I don’t fool with them much anymore. Alcohol stoves simplified
That all changed for me quite a few years ago, but it was a big change.
Like many of my generation one of my huge inspirations was Colin Fletcher’s book The Complete Walker so when I became a backpacker I bought a Svea 123 pressurized “white gas” (Coleman fuel) stove. In those days the only role models for backpackers besides Colin Fletcher were mountaineers, the influence of the American Everest expedition was still fairly current, and all the outdoors stores (the few that existed then) and catalogs were full of expensive day-glo orange equipment that would withstand a 70 mph wind and -30 degrees but was, as we all slowly and painfully came to understand, hopeless overkill for less severe conditions.
My Svea was very reliable. It worked. It never failed, and that’s important. It was also heavy, the fuel bottles and spare parts kit and windscreen and this and that made it heavier still, it was very noisy, raucous and mechanical in what were otherwise idyllic sylvan environments, it was tricky to the point of high voodoo to reliably get it started, and it was dangerous enough in a few different ways to keep you a little worried all the time. It was just the thing if you seriously might have to melt large quantities of snow in order to drink and reconstitute freeze-dried food. Other than that scenario, though, it really just wasn’t very suitable, or practical, most of the time. There wasn’t a whole lot available back then, though.
The alternatives then were some larger versions of the same thing from a company called Optimus, which turned out the be the same company that made the Svea, a whole array of disposable pressurized-gas cartridge stoves that were easy to use, but the cartridges were comparatively expensive, tended not to work on many similar stoves, gave little warning when close to empty, had to be packed out, which was excess weight and bulk, and the butane versions wouldn’t work if it got really cold.
Eventually different designs of the pressurized liquid-fuel stoves like the MSR emerged that used the fuel bottle instead of having their own tanks, had little pumps on them that eased the hassle of “priming” the stoves with some kind of external source of heat (there were about 400 methods), and generally reduced the weight of the whole operation somewhat, the safety by quite a bit, but were also generally even louder, seriously loud, and even more complex and mechanical, making the whole process more like preparing a liquid-fuel rocket for flight and less conducive to appreciating the wilderness.
In time, of course, there was a backlash. It turns out that there was this company named Trangia in Sweden who made cook kits with brass alcohol burners, some of the kits were making their way into the US as foreign military surplus, people tried them and many liked them. They were lightweight, simple, pretty much silent, not prone to explosions and flare-ups that could set you and your tent afire, and the fuel was of course inexpensive and relatively non-toxic. After years of dealing with complex, dangerous, noisy, expensive and heavy stoves, they were a great relief in any ways.
In fact they were so simple that soon folks were replicating the performance of this burner with a few, then more than a few, then dozens of hand-made versions made out of soda cans and pet food cans, making the results public and creating what was almost an informal competition to evolve the designs. This was the first example I remember seeing of a concept that later became known as “open-source hardware”. When Youtube made sharing videos on the web cheap and easy it really took off, and dozens of designs became hundreds, from what you could accomplish on the sidewalk outside of a convenience store with a knife and a push-pin to some complex, fanatically and meticulously-crafted examples that took well-equipped machine shops and many man-hours to create. Factories started competing in the field with Trangia clones and then Titanium examples for pretty big bucks.
These days the vast majority of people in the woods seem to be using alcohol. The exceptions seem to come in three categories. There are a few people using pressurized-liquid-fuel stoves because they really have a legitimate need in extreme situations, high altitudes or long trips where all of their water must come from melted snow. There are a whole bunch of people using them who would like to think that they are in this category, and that segment is definitely encouraged by the recreational equipment companies, who make tons of money off of pressurized-liquid-fuel stoves and all the paraphernalia associated with them and almost nothing off of alcohol stoves. There are of course a few folks who just never seem to get the word when things change, and a number that gravitate toward butane and to a lesser degree propane canister stoves because they don’t want to learn how to use anything, much less make anything, don’t want to think about it, they just want to wave a credit card and have it all work somehow.
In the meantime, more and more alcohol stoves are being made by individuals and as a cottage industry for almost nothing, and they work better and better. They’ve gotten so popular that a lot of trail shops actually located on or near the trails sell alcohol by the ounce… but you don’t need to rely on specialty fuels, and that’s a major consideration for survival kit or bug-out-bag or get-home-bag use.
Isopropyl alcohol works. That is, drug-store rubbing alcohol. The higher the actual percentage of alcohol the cleaner it burns and the more efficiently it heats. 70% us unfortunately the most common in drug stores, but you can often find 91% alcohol (no one seems to know why they don’t just call it 90%) , and, rarely, 99% alcohol. That means that in a pinch you can find usable fuel in pretty much any drug store or convenience store or grocery store. That alone is a huge upgrade and availability over the old “white gas” (Coleman fuel, for practical purposes) stoves. But that’s just part of the equation.
Denatured or ethyl alcohol from hardware stores, mega-hardware stores and some lumber and hardware stores works fine, and usually burns very cleanly and efficiently. The only downside is that it tends to be sold in impossibly big and heavy containers for packing, so you may want to share a purchase or you’ll end up wasting a lot rather than carrying it all.
I’m told that Ever-Clear and possible 151-proof rum (usually Bacardi) work. I’ve never tried either, but that means that any liquor store is a potential source of fuel as well.
Finally, boating equipment stores and marina stores often sell alcohol specifically as stove fuel.
I would imagine that several types of moonshine and “white lightning” would work fine as well.
So, we have trail equipment stores, hardware stores of various types, liquor stores, drug stores, convenience stores, grocery stores, boating equipment stores and marinas as possible sources if you’re afoot on your own. That’s pretty versatile. I don’t think any other liquid fuel comes close, unless you’re willing to use automotive gasoline, which requires special stoves and a lot of ventilation and there’s still danger.
As I’ve said elsewhere, food is not a high short-term survival priority, but that does not mean that resources along those lines that you come upon in a survival situation should be ignored. Part of my personal EDC for decades has been the venerable US Army P38 can opener. It’s tiny, it weighs a fraction of an ounce, and it works well. I find that even in these days when most (consumer) cans pop open (wholesale food and restaurant supply cans do not) it is still worth carrying.
I feel much the same way about stashing an alcohol stove and a little fuel in a kit. It takes up very little bulk, weighs and costs very little, there’s not much downside to it even if you’re not packing food, and in a pinch you can probably boil water to sterilize it if you have to. If you learn to make one or more of the simpler designs that use minimal tools, that makes the stove almost free and adds a valuable survival skill to your repertoire as well.
– Robert the Wombat