Heat Reflector under alcohol stove

I can see your point. You don't need much foil. I had one minibulldesing stove that used a foil cupcake wrapper as a priming pan. My guess is that a small piece of foil wouldn't draw too much heat away.

What came to mind as I read your post was to glue some foil to a cork insulator, giving both qualities. Something like a drink coaster would be great.

I guess you could answer this with a little testing at home with your particular stove and pot setup. I used to use a little aluminum foil reflector and lost it at some point, haven't noticed a difference … FWIW. Perhaps the conductivity of whatever your stove is sitting on makes a difference too.

Have a look at this:
http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/myths.html

OTOH, at the bottom of the page at the below link the claim is that testing showed a 15 – 30 second reduction in time-to-boil using a heat reflector:
http://www.packafeather.com/windscreen.html

So who knows. Following the KISS and lazy-man principles, I think I'll continue on without one.

Thanks to those that have replied so far. The same question has been posted on 3 other sites and some interesting information is coming through. I'll share the most important findings in a day or two.

Please continue to add to this query. Thank You!