0.1oz Alcohol Stove

[Mark]

A lighter twist on a good product. I wanted to make a lighter, narrower version of Jim Wood’s SuperCat stove. My working prototype is the PremiCapp, made from an 8floz can of Medaglia D’Oro Premium Cappuccino Beverage. [Approx. same size as Starbucks, Red Bull, etc.] Finished weight is a lean, mean 0.1oz–50% lighter than the SuperCat :) It’s not made for Alaskan bushwhacking, but it held up for 5 test boils.

The PremiCapp design is of course borrowed from the SuperCat. The bottom portion of the can was cut down to 3.3cm tall. Some care is required to keep the top edge level, but it’s not too hard. The concave bottom reservoir was flattened as much as possible. All holes are .5cm with an office punch. The top row of 12 holes were placed 1cm from the top rim. The bottom row of 6 holes were placed 1.3cm from the bottom.

My best test run used 2 Platy capfuls of alcohol to heat 12oz of cool tap water. Bubble formation at 3.5 minutes, vigorous rolling boil at 5.5 minutes, extinquished at 7 minutes. This was in a 60F garage, on a foil groundsheet, no windscreen, cooking with a .9L Evernew Ti pot. I also used a Fosters pot once, but it didn’t quite reached a rolling boil. This early version may not be enough for a consistent meal, but definitely a hot cup of whatever. Could be a good match with a cozy system.

But it does open up the potential for a 1-2oz complete cook kit for at least fair weather situations.
PremiCapp stove/stand .1oz
Windscreen and ground sheet .2
Plastic spoon .2
Matchbook .2
Lil’ Nipper .6
Add your choice of Fosters/Heineken pot, or maybe a Sterno or alumorigami model that Bill Fornshell has introduced.

A question for the experts: later in the cooking phase, around the 3.5-5.5 minute mark, the stove would make some hissing, creaking type noises. Do you guys have any idea what this indicates? Lack of oxygen? Super-heating? Good, bad, neither?
-Mark

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