Best alcohol mix

[Kyle Purcell]

After about a month of tinkering, i have come up with what i think is one of the best alcohol mixes for our alcohol stoves.

It is nothing ground breaking, but i did find that a 1:1 mix of HEET and 91% Iso gave almost zero soot (only had soot one time) and boiled two cups of water in an average of 4 min (this was using a modified penny stove).

I got a chance to try this out on the trail this weekend, and boiled enough water for six people to have Ramen Noodles with just about six ounces of this fuel mixture.

I don't know if this is new or even important to anyone, but i thought I'd post this and see what kind of experience people have had with similar mixtures and what other ideas are out there.

Next I plan to play around with denatured alcohol and see if i can get better results with that, but i have mixed feelings about it because of some of the additives in this type of fuel.

[Michael Mangold]

I second that combo. By me, yellow Heet (methanol) is $1.30 for 12 oz. while Johnsen's "Gas Line Anti-Freeze," also methanol, is 95 cents for 12 oz.

[Michael Skwarczek]

How many cups of water was actually boiled by those 6oz fuel?

I'm really like to see if you can get 16oz of fuel boiled with 1/2 oz of fuel.

Plus, boil temps are lower at higher altitudes. Granted you won't have a thermometer to determine actual water temps but just something to keep in mind.

Thanks for your test results. I'm going to use this 1:1 alongside my own denatured alky tests.

-Michael

[Kyle Purcell]

Michael

We boiled probably around 11 cups. We weren't very high up, it was on a bluff above the creek bed, and coming out of Clarksville we didn't gain very much altitude. So, while altitude may have been a small factor, I don't think you would very different results at sea level.

FYI the eleven cups is a very rough estimate. We had 6 cups of ramen that had to be cooked and 6 oz of fuel did it.

[Michael Mangold]

Thanks for the insights guys. Michael, will you be posting the results of the denatured alcohol tests here?
Also, how do we define "boiling?" In my tests with methanol, ethanol, and isopropyl alcohol, I would get small bubbles usually at about 4 minutes, yet hard, rolling bubbles 2 minutes later. That then begs the question: since I have to add some foods to "boiling water," do I do it at 4 minutes or at 6?

[Kyle Purcell]

my results were a pretty steady boil (lots of large bubbles) in slightly over four min.

[Paul Tree]

Altitude? Salt added before or after boil?

[Mark Hurd]

Kyle,

Glad to see you're still working on this.

For those that are interested, I posted some more specifics about this 50:50 mixture on a previous thread.

Click Here

I also note that Tinny at MiniBull Designs is using this for his newer stoves.

-Mark

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