Best fuels for alcohol stoves

[Crow]

Yellow bottle HEET – works great.  Cheapest source is Wal-Mart.

[Ben C]

I have used HEET, denatured alcohol and Everclear.  Denatured alcohols are all different but most of them seem to burn well.  I have just used HEET a couple times, but it seemed to work great.  I was disappointed in how Everclear worked in my stove.  I wanted it to work as a multipurpose fuel/drink/other.  The Everclear was workable but not quite as good as denatured or HEET.

 

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Ben,

A standby fuel that works in a lot of stoves is Purell Hand Sanitizer.  It is composed of 70% ethanol and some colorant/thickening agents.  It will be a lot easier to find that either HEET or DA.  I have burned it before and it works, but is a bit slower.  As it was not meant to be burned, I do not know how bad the fumes would be.

 

To answer a few other comments, Everclear comes is two flavors: 151 and 190 proof.  151 tends to be slow but ok.  I have found that 190 proof has too high a concentration of Ethanol and this resulted in yellow tips on the flame, soot and quite a bit of odor.  Adding water to reduce the concentration to about 80%-85% seems to work fine.

 

My 2 cents

[Todd K.]

I love that this thread started over 8 years ago…

Anyway..this is timely.  I just bought a Ti-Tri Sidewinder for m 1.3 liter titanium pot.  I’ve been researching which fuel is best.  Denatured alcohol seems to be just the ticket.  I’ll be using the Zelph modified Starlyte…

 

[James Marco]

Ethanol or Methanol seems to work OK. Be careful of denatured alcohols. They often use petroleum products (octane, septane, benzene for example.) These do not burn clean and should not be ingested. Only use alcohols labeled as clean burning marine fuels. Basically this says they can be put out with water. SLX is one brand that uses a combination of methanol and ethanol.  Yellow HEET works well. Everclear (151 or 190) is good.

Methanol us used for Yellow HEET. It has about 9000btu/lb. Ethanol has about 12000BTU/lb. This is after ~5% water since they can not distill to 100% purity. Anhydrous alcohol is fairly pure but difficult to keep and get. WG is a blended fuel of petroleum products at around 19500BTU/lb. Canister Gas has about the same BTU per pound as WG/Kero (20000BTU/lb), but with canister gas add in for the weight of the can…about 50%-90% of the fuel weight.) Canister gas has roughly the same BTU/pound carried as alcohol, slightly more with some blends (around 13000-14000BTU per pound carried.) The stove hurts WG/Kero fuels with its weight.

Isopropinol should be avoided. Compared with methanol or ethanol it is very toxic, on a par with drinking White Gas. It does not burn cleanly anyway. The best I ever heard of was about half as good as ethanol as I remember. DO NOT BREATH THE FUMES!

Read the label of all alcohols purchased for fuel. Marine Fuel or Methanol or Blended Methanol/Ethanol are good fuels. Isopropyl alcohol should only be used downwind and outside if you *must* use it for fuel.

[Brad Rogers]

I am not sure if there is any way to tell from reading the label, but I am not sure that I have seen an off brand.   I would assume that it would work, no matter what, but it may or may not work well.   If I was unsure I would burn outside so the fumes wouldn’t be an issue.

I use denatured alcohol on trips where I drive, but use yellow HEET when I fly because I can buy it in smaller containers once I get somewhere and put the rest in my rental car.  Both seem to cook fine.

[jimmy b]

so. here you are, at the last gas station/hardware store on the face of the earth. how do you know if this bottle of antifreeze/denatured alcohol will warm your evening tea (because you’re a classy person, despite forgetting to fill the alcohol bottle)?

Not trying to be a smart *ss but if it doesn’t list the active ingredient you won’t know how effective it will be.Given the info above it may not be the best choice but it will probably burn and heat to some degree even if there is sooting or hazardous chems involved.  It’s kind of irrelevant at that point as you have a choice to give it a go, drink cold tea or maybe heat with a fire if allowed and you have a suitable pot. .

[jimmy b]

Brad, sorry I shadowed your thoughts in my post. Typing at the same time, you beat me to the post.

Heet brand is #1 seller now and pretty standard fare at most service stations so you may never run across that hypothetical anyway.

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

James,

Isopropinol should be avoided. Compared with methanol or ethanol it is very toxic, on a par with drinking White Gas. It does not burn cleanly anyway.

Two point, one Isopropyl (rubbing alcohol) is a heck of a lot safer than Methanol as well a DA.  Secondly, when designed correctly, Isopropyl can burn cleanly: I’ve done it, Dan’s done it and Hiram has done it;  no yellow flames, no soot.  It has a strong smell than DA but less than Esbit.  It’s slower than DA but rubbing alcohol is a lot easier to obtain.  My 2 cents

Our Multi-Fuel Stove

Modified Fancy Feast Hiram/Dan

 

[ben .]

hey all, thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated.

my example wasn’t really a hypothetical. while i wasn’t at the last gas station on earth, i *was* at a gas station on tuesday – a regular old citgo – and they had one brand of antifreeze. it was not heet. it may have been this, but i’m not entirely sure at this point. the back had the word methanol (or methyl?) on it, but no percentages or what a layperson might consider a comprehensible list of ingredients. from the above thread, it sounds like brands of antifreeze and denatured alcohol do not all have the same chemistry despite having the same name.

a quick google search for gas line antifreeze or denatured alcohol shows that heet and slx have indeed cornered their respective markets, but a number of unfamiliar bottles and brands pop up, and are bound to be in at least some stores, while heet or slx may not.

it got me wondering if there was either a way to ‘read’ the labels of an antifreeze or denatured alcohol bottle to know if it was suitable for our particular purpose.

it sounds like the answer is no. :)

[Rusty Beaver]

I use 190 proof only. Never tried the antifreeze or denatured stuff. I understand that people use the latter due to them burning hot(er), being inexpensive, and readily available. However, for me personally, I don’t feel comfortable carrying and handling toxic cocktails. And, I especially don’t like supporting chemical companies any more than necessary….nor am I fond of the thought of what toxic byproducts are in the emissions! And then there’s the carrying/using said toxins in the sanctuary that is the wilderness. For the lack of better way to describe that, I just don’t feel right about it.

The 190 is pricey, comparatively speaking, and not easy to obtain….but it gets the job done for me in my little homemade .79 cent cat can stove…and, though it’s more novel than anything, I find it kinda neat that I could consume it should the occasion arise.;-)

[Steve M]

+1 for 190 proof (Everclear).  I buy a bottle every time I drive through Oregon.  Besides being excellent stove fuel, it works great as a ‘medicinal’ drink (50/50 with water + a powdered beverage mix) when you’ve had a rough day.

[Brad Rogers]

190 proof may be possible when you are driving to trailheads, but you can’t fly with it.

[Ben C]

190 Everclear is great for drinks.  In my experience, though, it does not burn as well as denatured alcohol or HEET.  As Jon mentioned, I get some yellow flames and soot formation.  I have heard it burns a little better if you add some water.  I always bring some 190 Everclear, but it rarely makes it into my stove.

 

[Rusty Beaver]

Re soot….I’ve never noticed it being an issue for me….though, I’m guessing, 190 might burn differently in different types of stoves….ie, it may produce tons of soot in one style stove and virtually none in another style.

Not saying I haven’t seen soot on my pan. Just haven’t seen enough that I’ve ever viewed it as any kind of nuisance…at all….unlike cooking over an open fire. What little I’ve ever seen just gets wiped off at the same time I “do dishes”.

(for the record, I don’t like soot)

 

[James Marco]

Ben, Yes you can read the labels, at least here in NY. Unfortunately there are several names for the same thing. Meth generally has one carbon. Eth generally has two carbons. All alcohols have some sort of (OH) or (COOH) radical attached somewhere.

Petroleum generally has a mix of stuff in it. Often benzene, or other nasty chemicals. They may also contain anything with an “ane” after some number word (pentane, hexane, septane, octane, etc…) These are used in many cheaper alcohols to “denature” it. Only ethanol needs denaturing. That is the only one that is drinkable, but should never be drunk at 190proof. Water it down to 150 max for drinking. Methanol does not need it. Often Methanol/ethanol are formed as byproducts from chemical processes at a refinery plant. You cannot legally drink ethanol from petroleum byproducts. It can only be sold as denatured alcohol.

I never had trouble burning ethanol. It burns close to the same as methanol, but works slightly better with open reservoirs like the Turbo’s and 12-10. Methanol and Ethanol have 1 or two carbons, so, burning these is relatively simple. Burning more carbons means some nasty byproducts without first vaporizing the fuel. This also means unburned fuel. If it smells of more than hot water, then you are wasting fuel and the byproducts can be quite toxic. I rarely smell Methanol/Ethanol except while filling. Formaldehyde is a byproduct of esbit for example. It sort of smells like dead fish or embalming fluid. Isopropinal can leave soot and/or smell pretty bad. See the pictures above for an efficient vs an inefficient burn. The flame should be blue or blue/white to the tip, not blue to orange/white.

 

[ben .]

hey james, thanks for the more detailed info. i’m not sure i’ll be able to do much parsing of these bottles without a lot more research, but it’s interesting to know it’s possible :)

[Kenneth Keating]

The problem I see with comments pertaining to denatured alcohol is that there’s a lot products labeled denatured alcohol and these products can vary quite a bit from each other.  As such, if a user has a problem it’s really not known what the user was actually using and what could be causing the problem. For example Klean Strip’s product is 30-50% Ethanol  and 40-60% methanol and that’s all they list. They even state that for the denaturing part that “Specific percentage of composition is being withheld as a trade secret”. Jasco’s is 43-47% Ethanol, 53-55% Methanol, <1% Methyl Isobutyl ketone, and <0.5% of Acetic Acid and Heptane.  The higher purity ethanol’s can be obtained at a lab supply company such as Carolina. Even there you can get different grades, with 70% or 95% seeming to be the most common.

[ben .]

as a complete outsider to the chemistry and history of these substances, it’s pretty interesting that they can vary so widely and still be called the same thing.

[DAN-Y/FANCEE FEEST]

In the beginning of this thread minibulldesigns was quoted and so a little bit more of tinnys wisdom is quoted here again. Watch for the part he says “camel urine” is used in denatured alcohol :-):

Just opened the box and tried out the White Box stove from Bills ebay ad. He sells these on ebay for $9.95 and they come with a nice windscreen. To start –this is the only stove i have ever seen that is built with pride and quality–and the only new design I have ever seen that actually is viable. I have experimented with the aluminum bottles this stove is made from but finally abandoned the process because I found the aluminum too thick and hard to preheat. It is really too bad because this type of bottle,–as you can see make a very nice and rugged stove to say the least. I have to admit I never even thought of making an open top, because i know that they are even slower to light than the pressurized design. I put an ounce in the white box stove and set it ablaze as i punched my stop watch. After two minutes with no blossom i lightly blew into the top and it started to light ,another light puff and it was in full blossom. For the first few minutes it had a rather large flame ring but slowly settled down and got to work. The boil time is good and the stove is very hot. I might have inlarged the jets to get the flame ring down abit but i am not sure that would work out. The thing that bothered me most was the slow blossom that caused me to give up on this project in the beginning. So i chucked the stove up in the lathe and installed a wick–which I thought this smooth sided beauty was begging for all along. There that really speeds things up and makes for a nice little stove that is beautifly made and very rugged–and now fast. If you want to do this to your white box stove you can either buy some wick from my site or you can send the little girl to tinny and he will do the dirty work for you for $5.00 plus shipping—congratulations Bill you have a very nice design —-Tinny—got ideas?

OH– I DO NOT recommend DENATURED ALCOHOL. I can’t speak for every area but in my area they keep using different stuff to denature it, like camel urine and the results can be dramatic. I use HEET in the yellow bottle.

 

[Michael V]

Ok,

So this will be my first post…Sorry it is on a very old thread but, I have a question.  I have some experience in the past with competitive drag racing and methanol is available relative easily from a fuel supplier.  In this pure form of Ethanol 200 why wouldn’t this be an option?  it runs about $99 a gallon but depends on the supplier.

The reason i ask is that I am switching to an alcohol set up and am researching all available fuels etc.

This is a link to the same stuff available here.

https://www.laballey.com/products/ethanol-200-proof-pure-55-gallon-drum?variant=13080165417019&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6ZbHxa-04AIVQbXACh2nuQFWEAQYASABEgITQvD_BwE

Thanks,

 

MIke

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Hiram Cook has been using drag racing fuel for years.  It is not found in my area.  Keep in mind that there are some health risk associated with methanol, avoid excessive contact with the skin.  My 2 cents

[Jeff McWilliams]

At $100.00 per gallon, you’re paying $.78 per ounce for that racing fuel ethanol.

I don’t have access to local hardware store prices, but Amazon lists Klean Strip Denatured Alcohol at $15.00 per gallon (plus $4.00 S&H).  That stuff is a mix of ethanol and methanol.

So let’s say $19.00 per gallon.  That’s $.15 per ounce.

Klean Strip Green (mostly ethanol) runs $8.36 per quart on Amazon.  That’s. $.26 per ounce.

Menard’s sells 4-packs of the Yellow Heet for $5.87.  That’s $1.47 per bottle, or $.12 per ounce.

So it seems like buying 4-packs of Heet is the cheapest alcohol stove fuel at $.12 per ounce.  But hey, if you want to carry 100% ethanol and burn that stuff, at a cost of $.78 per ounce, that would certainly be an interesting way to go!

 

 

 

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Hiram use to get it at the drag strips.  I think that you need to look around for pricing, my first query yielded 5 gallons for $39

https://vpracingfuels.com/product/m1/

Looks like 55 gallon drums cost about $200.  Cheap but not practical for most of us.

[Franco Darioli]

You can’t buy 100% ethanol.

98% is the theoretical maximum but typically you can get retail up to 95% by volume.

Everclear 190 proof there and for about $4 per litre  denatured alcohol here in Australia.

( I realise you meant methanol…)

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