Stove jargon doing my head in, please help!

sorry, i've just been looking at all the responses to questions here and they all look pretty straightforward so i take back the comment about serious responses. i had read soeme posts from other forums and there was a fair bit f arguing which i wanted to avoid. thanks!

I am no expert on all the various type of stoves for extended trips in other counties, but if it were me, I think I would try find out what fuel will be available in the places you would travel.

That said two types of stoves are light, you can make them on the road if you have to, and fuel can be found almost anywhere. That would be an alcohol or wood, IE one of the tiny alcohol can stoves or a lightweight small wood or woodgas stove.

Also the way things are on flights you might have problems with various sorts of fuels if you are jumping around by plane.

I think esbit makes a lot of sense for extended trips or at least as a backup. Basically just punch some holes in a catfood can, put it in and cook food. Its solid, very light and compact. It might be hard to find as a single fuel sorce in 3rd world countries though.

There are other options too, but that should get you started. Other fuels you could find anywhere would be gasoline or kerosene. Both are pretty nasty to deal with in a pack and gasoline is too explosive for me. A liquid multiful stove might be a good option if you can handle dealing with petrolium products. Kersene, coleman fuel or gasoline.

Sounds like some nice trips you have planned. Jealous as I am stuck due to work.

Hi Heather. A couple of tips. In spain, especially out in the sticks up north, gas canisters with the right fitting for your stove can be hard to find. Get a light 3oz gas burner and be prepared for it to be dead weight. A backup alcohol stove only weighs 1/2oz so take one. But beware, not all alcohol fuels are equal. Similar looking small bottles in general stores may contain 95% alcohol or as little as 75%, which is useless. Test your fuel before you leave town and make sure it's good. It's only a euro or so a bottle so not too bad. Last resort is a small woodburner made from an old tin can with holes punched in. Works every time, but officially frowned on by the parks authorities. Plenty of Spanish have camp fires though, so don't worry too much.

For your longer Asia trip, a multifuel MSR might be best if you need more than a brew. This would work in the Pyrenees too, but they are heavy in comparison to gas and alcohol stoves.

For me, a small woodstove and a degree of stealthiness is the best option, plus a backup alcohol stove.

I'm nearly retching as I write this, but… I've got to agree with Rog.

*Ack!*

Even though alcohol stoves aren't the most efficient or lightweight for trips longer than a week or so, if you're really thinking about doing some globetrotting they have some great things going for them:
1. You can find fuel literally anywhere.
2. They are easy to clean and take on planes.
3. You can make one yourself out of garbage, if you lose the original.
4. If you're burning ethanol, you can drink it, too.
5. Ethanol can be used as an antiseptic if you're injured.
6. No special containers needed for the alcohol fuel.
The problem with ethanol is that every government on Earth taxes the crap out of it, so it's expensive. Methanol works well and is cheap, but is toxic (don't clean wounds with it). There have been recent articles here on BPL about these fuels:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/alcohol_fuels_part_one

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/alcohol_fuels_part_two.html

There was an article a while ago, too, where someone worked out the critical point where cannister stoves become a lighter alternative than alcohol stoves, but I can't seem to find it. Suffice to say, for weekend or few-day trips the alcohol stoves tend to be the lighter alternative. A couple of hours on the internet suffices to make one into an alcohol stove expert.

The biggest PROBLEM with alcohol stoves, and it sounds like it may be a deal-breaker from your point of view, is that many people (myself included) have trouble doing anything more complex than boiling water with them. YMMV.

OTOH, the many multi-fuel capable mountaineering stoves can often run on white gas, kerosene, unleaded, etc.- again, very versatile and you can find fuel anywhere. They are essentially the "default" international stove choice of the non-UL community. They tend to be heavy though- the MSR Whisperlight is 12 ounces IIRC. On the plus side, they work great at high elevations and in the cold. The problem is that these tend to need more maintenance than other stoves (but my experience with them is limited to a single wretched hand-me-down a couple of decades ago, so my opinion may have been adversely colored by this). And I imagine that used fuel bottles, even when empty, might set off airport explosives detectors.

P.S. Rog- I'm leaving Europe to return to the US late this summer, so I think that pint will have to be postponed…

Dean, you'd need to come via the north UK for a decent pint anyway. Save the cash towards the $1000 you'll be paying me later when you lose our bet. :-)

Hi Heather

I know the Pyrenees well, having done both the GR10 and the GR11.

We had no trouble buying French Campingaz canisters along the way. Quite available, although sometimes they only had the larger 450 g ones. That's fine: one of those lasted my wife and I for 2 weeks.

You will need a Campingaz stove to connect to the canister. The screw-thread ones don't connect. But they are fairly cheap.

I did look for alcohol while we were there, but few places sold it. I would not rely on it in the mountains. I also looked for white gas, and that was really pathetic! Forget that one. Yep, basically the Pyrenees are GAS.

You can also get the larger and much heavier LPG bottles – sold for caravans etc. Too heavy! The puncture canisters are also available, but they don't work in the cold and are a bitt risky in my experience.

However, while a Campingaz stove is exactly what you need in Europe and the Pyrenees, you will have trouble finding the Campingaz canisters elsewhere around the world. If you find anything it is likely to be screw-thread.

Cheers

wow, thanks everyone, all the information was really useful. as for the stove it looks like the best thing to do will be to purchase a campingaz stove for this trip. they may be useless elsewhere but they look pretty cheap so i can get something more widely useful later. hopefully one day globalization will apply itself to trekking stoves and it will be easier to carry one stove wherever you might need it! thanks again for all the help.

Heather, if you're still considering the alternatives, I would like to weigh in as well–in favor of wood-burning stoves. I've used nothing but for the last ten years–a Sierra Zip stove for the entire lengths of the AT and Muir Trail, and a Bushbuddy Ultra for the whole CDT. I'm taking the Bushbuddy Ultra to Europe and Canada this summer (Corsica's GR20 and the Great Divide Trail, respectively) and feel confident that I will be able to use the stove on those trips, too. Basically, a wood-burning stove allows you to go just about anywhere without having to worry about or carry fuel. Other kinds of fuel can be burned in the stove, too–I've burnt animal dung and yucca, for example. In the third world, the former is a common fuel.

The Bushbuddy Ultra has been praised to no end on this website already, for good reason. It's a work of art: light, functional, and aesthetically pleasing. I don't think I'll ever use another stove. I only use a few handfuls of twigs for an hour's cooking on the stove–and you wouldn't believe how little ash is produced in that time (less than half a cup).

The main reason why I prefer wood-burning stoves, and would not consider another kind, is that I actually cook while on backpacking trips–happily for an hour or more every night–and I don't relish the thought of running out of fuel while I'm doing it. What am I cooking? Usually lentils in combination with quinoa, rice, or buckwheat–with dried seaweed, mushrooms, other vegetables, spices, and oils (olive and sesame) added to taste. I'm not tired of the ritual yet (though I will occasionally opt for pasta, which cooks more quickly). Frankly, it's a pleasure to tend a live fire–alcohol or gas stoves won't give you the same experience.

The only shortcoming of wood-burning stoves, I think, is the soot. It can get on everything–but only if you're not being careful. It doesn't take much effort to keep the sooty stove and pot(s) separate from the rest of your gear. I just put mine in plastic bags (which usually last for the length of a months-long trip).

Dean wrote:
"Ethanol can be used as an antiseptic if you're injured."

Dean, IIRC, you're a military doc. I recently asked an ER doc who was assisting with a first aid class if Everclear could be used to sterilize a wound. He advised against it because he said ethanol can also kill living tissue. Being a military doc I'm willing to bet you have more experience with this topic. I'd be very interested to hear your comments.
Sorry, not meaning to hijack this thread but it does have some relevance.
Thanks!
Gordon

Yet another response.

A long walk in cambodia, laos and much of india would be an adventure for sure. I've been traveling the region for five months so far. Most of that walk would likely be on roads with frequent food establishments along the way. But if you still want to carry a stove, I'd go with an MSR stove able to burn kerosene or a wood burning stove. Though in much of the himalayas, it's illegal for tourists to burn wood.

More practically most people would travel by bike. And most would hardly ever use the kerosene stove that they might be carrying.

Hi Lilian

You may need to rethink the use of a wood-burning stove in Europe, quite apart from the fact that wood fires are frowned upon. Too many people around, too much damage done.
But there are other limitations in the European Alps, as shown here:
.

.
Yes, the weather was as bad as the pictures suggest. There was no wood around, and where would you sit to cook anyhow?

Cheers

> I also looked for white gas, and that was really pathetic! Forget that one.

Good old regular unleaded automotive fuel works fine in my MSR stove.

When traveling in Asia or Africa I've always gone with the heavier multi-fuel stove. I am a big fan of the Coleman Peak 1. Not real light, but it has never failed me. The best thing though is that you can always get fuel. Usually unleaded fuel. There may not be a "gas station" around but someone always has some for motorbikes etc. If not that, then gasoline but you may need a pre-heat tube (which comes with the stove). The MSR version is a good option too.

Don't cook in enclosed spaces when using unleaded fuel though.

Ok, off topic for just a second- Please ignore if you aren't interested.

Yes, I'm an Army surgeon.

Alcohol is a great antiseptic- it is the basis for Purell and other hand sanitizers, after all, as well as some great waterless surgical hand scrubs that have been shown to kill bacteria on the hands better than the traditional scrubbing.

However, the ER guy is correct that it will "kill" your own cells if used in an open wound. Primarily, this means killing the fibroblasts that your body is using to try and heal the wound, and inhibiting skin re-growth. It doesn't melt your flesh or anything dramatic like that. :-) Peroxide will also kill your fibroblasts and whatnot, which is why I always emphasize that my patients NOT clean their wounds with alcohol or peroxide. (But sometimes the foaming action of peroxide is helpful- as when cleaning wax or debris out of someone's ear.) The best thing for a new wound is debridement and irrigation with LOTS of sterile water; for a chronic wound- just soap and water. Maybe Dakins solution in some instances, or dilute iodine. Whether or not you should even try to suture a wound closed is a complex decision- believe it or not- that depends upon the mechanism of wounding, how clean the wound looks, where it is, how long it has been open, etc. Well, heck, I could go on and on about wound care…

But my patients aren't in the middle of a wilderness. (Well, actually, in my field sometimes they are. But you know what I mean.) In an emergency without access to a lot of very clean water I would accept the cytotoxicity and use either ethanol or peroxide if I had it, especially if used for just one initial cleaning on a minor wound. Debridement is still essential! I would NOT use either for daily cleansing of a chronic wound, because it would inhibit rapid healing by killing off your own "healing cells," as discussed. I certainly would never, for instance, keep a dressing constantly wetted with Everclear or anything like that! And I probably wouldn't use either on a very large wound like a crushed extremity or amputation, as that's just too much tissue to risk. And not on open fractures or joints! You don't want to risk killing someone's articular cartilage (?), or fibrose tendons into immobility.

And it goes without saying that some alcohols are toxic. Ethanol is probably the most benign.

Going through all of that has made me realize just how complex a question that was. I can come up with many odd situations where I would NOT want to use Everclear as an antiseptic. (And every so often someone will have a bad reaction to almost anything.) But for initial cleaning of small wounds- only involving skin, fat, or muscle- it is probably ok. I'm not going to try to define "small"- use your judgement. HYOH, and make your own responsible decisions.

My lawyer insists that I make a disclaimer about not providing medical advice over the internet, and all of the above is for entertainment purposed only. :-)

Okay, thanks everyone. I definitely have a lot to consider so I'm not sure what I will do yet. I appreciate all the advice.

Jack, I probably will do a lot of my Asian trip by bike but it's a year away yet so I haven't given it much thought. It's true though that I will be travelling mostly by roads and I'm guessing food is cheap so saving momey is less of a concern so good advice. Thanks.

I'm buying a bike this month and turning this in to a tour. So excited!

Kath and I are hoping to get to Cmbodia and Laos in a couple of years time. I hope you find the time to put a big write up on the net Jack. Nice idea to get a bicycle, I prefer to let the fuel take the strain when I'm on two wheels though. I'd get a moped. :-)

check it out at outside365.com

Jeeez! Bad luck Jack! This is why I'd rather buy my own moped than travel in someone elses rickshaw! What a blow for you. Hope you get it all straight and heal quick.
Take care dude.

Edit to add. Jack, if you need a cool place to rest up and recover a friend of mine has a yoga school in Goa with big Rajistani tents set up in a circle round it. He calls it his canvas ecotel. Check out yogamagic.net or ring +91 (0)9370 565 717 and talk to Phil. Tell him big Rog sent you. He'll help you find a cheap bamboo lodge near the beach if the tents are fully booked.

Thread started here:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=21725
Good luck fella.

I have to second what some others have said. I would go with the MSR Whisperlight Int., It runs on just about anything flammable(white gas, kerosene, gasoline, diesel) and is very reliable. I was recently thinking about my whisperlight and realized I bought it 16 years ago and have never had any trouble. Not too bad for a $80.00 purchase! Also if you do have trouble it is field maintainable. I know it isn't the lightest but for longer out of country trips it is what I would choose.

I second that suggestion for the MSR Whisperlite International. VERY reliable and will digest unleaded auto gas and kerosene, both readily available in 3rd world countries like the Philippines, where I've travelled.

I own an MSR Dragonfly multifuel but it's their heaviest stove and I now use it only in winter for it's high heat output for melting snow, simmer capability for saving fuel and baking and its utter reliability.

Eric

Eric,

I also have both MSR stoves, but it is rare for me to use either anymore. But even when they sit around for a long time, they still work.

Supposedly the Dragonfly will even burn jet fuel, which is probably why the sucker sounds like a jet engine when the flame is on high.

thanks rog! i may just end up contacting yr friend at some point. i think i'll be heading north first though. yeah, getting in a rickshaw crash has sucked. i've been planning on traveling by bike, which while unsafe might be a little safer. i'll see how i heal.

Hi Jack,
Also check out Huzefa's offer on the other thread for a rest-up in Mumbai, lot's nicer than Delhi.

Not sure what Phil does in Monsoon season, so keep your options open.

All the best