My Thermojet does not meet specs

Larry, What size Thermojet stove did you purchase? It’s important that you get the right size pot for the stove. At 4.5 inches in diameter, it sounds like your pot is too small for even the smallest Thermojet stove setup. The small size should take stoves from 4 3/4 to 5 5/8 inches. I would suggest you get a pot closer to the 5 5/8 as that would be better. you will get better simmering and less heat wasted up the side of the pot. You might struggle to simmer properly with the pot size you have.

Make sure you use a pot lid and make sure the type of alcohol fuel you use is of a good enough quality.

Also, some people add a bit of water to their alcohol to try and reduce the black carbon deposits on their pots. Did you do this? If so, that could also be affecting your results.

Hi Scott,
Thanks for your suggestions. In response to them:

I purchased the smaller Thermojet. In my initial post, I omitted saying that because my pot is half an inch smaller then the pot used by Will in his exhaustive testing, I tried to improve my results by making the wind screen slightly smaller. It didn’t seem to help much.

Other useful data:
The lid fits very tightly and I have not added any water to my fuel. It is from Ace Hardware and burns very cleanly with no smudging. Just to make sure fuel is not the problem, I am going to try another brand. In Will’s testing, it took 4 minutes and 29 seconds to boil a pint of water at 70 degrees. His fuel consumption in optimum conditions was 14.1 grams or a little less than half an oz!
I like this stove a lot, I just want it
work as well as it is capable of. It could be a quality control issue as well if the size of the orfices are not exact.

Thanks – Larry

Larry,

I think it will be difficult for you to directly compare your results to Wills.

Using a different size pot and adjusting the windshield diameter to compensate is not really comparing like for like. The smaller pot / shield diameter will also be affecting the supply of oxygen and venting of exhaust gasses, given that the burner is still the same. Even if if you used the same pot size, subtle changes in the wind etc will affect the results.

Also, by using a smaller pot you are increasing the depth of the water above the stove and this can have a significant impact upon boil times. There will be a relationship between pot diameter and water depth, all other things being equal. Also the material the pot is made from will also impact upon conductivity. I believe i’m right in saying that aluminium conducts heat better than titanium and steal.

Try using a saucepan at home of the correct size before looking towards a quality control issue.

Good luck!!!!!

I have had one of those for over two years. Different alcohols have different amounts of energy per oz. I like 95% ethanol. It is even better than Heet’s methanol. I’ll bet you’ll have positive results with 95% ethanol (5% methanol added so you can’t drink it, darn it).

Hello Again,

I tried using a 5″ pot aluminum pot from an old mess kit. First I painted it black and my boil time was reduced to 5.5 minutes. It takes about 3/4 of an ounce. So that helped. I also used tin foil for a lid, I will try a different fuel next.

Hi,

Where can I get 95% ethanol? Is that what is used in cars?

Thanks

Home Depot. No.

Walmart. Hardware Stores.

To my knowledge, NOT used in cars.

In the Northeast small amounts of Ethanol (5% at most, IIRC) is added to gasoline. You might be thinking of E85 which can be found in some parts of the Mid-West. You DON’T want to use E85.

Everclear is available in some states at 95%. Found in fully stocked liquor stores. It’s mostly used for cooking but is potable, however, it should be consumed with caution, mixed generously with non-alcoholic beverages. Appoximately $30- / fifth, depending upon state and taxes.

Reagent-grade 95% alcohol (non-potable) is sold to industrial and medical businesses as it does not require a liquor license (hence non-potable). It can and will cause blindness and/or death if consumed. I’m not sure if you could purchase this retail. Not sure what the percentage of the hardware store alcohol is.

Hello All,

Thanks for your help re: ethanol. I live in Sonoma County California (if that makes a difference) We only drink wine and micro-brew here, so no worries that I am going to drink the stuff. I called Home Depot and Wal-Mart and neither of them carry ethanol. Does anyone know where to procure ethanol in Callyforniaaa?

BTW how much better does this stuff perform then denatured?

ATTN:Will Rietveld, What fuel did you use in your tests. BTW, thanks for taking the time to run those tests.

Thanks in advance! – Larry

“”BTW how much better does this stuff perform then denatured?””

Denatured is ethanol mixed with some (varying) amount of methanol (poisonous). Methanol has a slightly lower vapor pressure than ethanol, so ignites easier in cold weather. It has slightly fewer BTUs. For all practical purposes EXCEPT the occasional snort, you can substitute denatured for ethanol. The differences are marginal – i.e. one might be better than the other in extremis, but that is not likely to be important in any condition you will probably ever encounter.

Denatured is much much cheaper than ethanol. I think part of the reason, besides the lack of federal and state liquor tax is that the ethanol in denatured may be made from petroleum. The methanol certainly is a patroleum product.

Home Depot carries Kleen Strip SLX Denatured Alcohol in the paint department. You can google Kleen Strip for a list of others that carry their brand.
Tom

Try http://www.brasslite.com/about.html for a good discussion

I wonder if you can get it at hardware stores. I am a science teacher and have access to the “good stuff.”

I thought you could get 95% ethanol from hardware stores, but maybe I am wrong. It is standard stuff for science experiments.

“Everclear… should be consumed with caution” ..Paul, you ain’t kidding. Drank a straight shot once on a dare in college, felt like my mouth was shrivelling up like a rasin. I think it killed all brain cells necessary to pass the calculus 102 final. Anyway.. I am going to try ethanol (in my stove) also becuase this outdoor store alcohol at 70% burns too cold to get a vigorous boil with my trianga setup.

>this outdoor store alcohol at 70%

Everclear (95% ethanol/grain neutral spirits), found in some liquor stores, works well as stove fuel, skin disinfectant and is drinkable if you water it down first (1 shot of Everclear in a mix is about equal to 2 1/2 shots of 80 proof vodka in strength and flavor). Denatured alcohol commonly available at hardware stores (such as the SLX brand mentioned previously) is also about 95% alcohol, but it is a mix of ethanol, methanol and maybe something else nasty. It makes good stove fuel too, but don’t get it on your skin if you can avoid it and don’t even think about drinking it. Rubbing alcohol, commonly available in drugstores, is generally 70% isopropyl alcohol and doesn’t make good stove fuel for anything except Tinny’s (MiniBullDesigns.com) ISO stove; you can use it as an external disinfectant but don’t drink it. Reagent Alcohol, commonly found in science labs, is a mix of ethanol, methanol and isopropyl alcohol; while it should work well in stoves (maybe too well? it’s a bit on the explosive side) it is denatured and is not for use on skin or for drinking.

I use Everclear because it’s easy for me to get here. It’s somewhat expensive but it’s multiple-use :) Otherwise, I use SLX-brand denatured alcohol. It’s cheap and works well. I don’t think there’s any reason to try to find higher than 95% alcohol because you’d probably lose more to evaporation than the extra efficiency would save.

My friends and I use Everclear as fuel as well, but in all honesty it’s not in a stove and it’s in no way safe but MAN does it look cool.

But in all seriousness I had always assumed that Everclear would make mediocre fuel at best. I simply hadn’t considered that it was one of the purer forms of the stuff. I’ve always run Heet (red bottle) in my various alcohol stoves but really havn’t been happy with the results.

I have a friend with a still who made something for me that is essentially Everclear. It burns great, without the noxious fumes that the denatured stuff generates. As a side benefit, it is easier to fill my stove with it. I make a pressurized stove with no screw sealed fill hole. The fill holes are the jets. The surface tension of the denatured stuff is such that it will not pass through the jets. The home brew passes through, no problem. I’m guessing Everclear would also.

I think a cautionary summary is important in this thread. I’d hate to think there were any misunderstandings.

95% Everclear will work in stoves. It can be consumed BUT ONLY WITH EXTREME CAUTION. It is , to my knowledge, the strongest commercially available alcohol. People have died partying with this stuff. One shot should be treated like 3 shots of other liquors.

All other alcohols suitable for stoves should NEVER be consumed in even the most minute amounts. The hardware store stuff is PURE POISON.

There..I feel better.

Wow,
Thanks for all the replies to my intitial post about my Thermojet not meeting specs.
I tried some Kleen Strip SLX. It knocked about 15 seconds off the best time I could get with Ace brand denatured alcohol. The site of me hovering in the kitchen with a camping stove and thermometer calls into question my sanity,but what the hell!

I emailed Thermojet for some tips, but of course the guy didn’t answer. I noticed ommunication is not his strong suit when ordering the Thermojet and wating months for it. But then, his time is preposturious anyway unless he can explain how he got the results of 3 minutes 45 seconds as posted on his web site. The best I have squeezed out of the Thermojet is 5 minutes 8 seconds by making a liner that the burner sits inside of. The liner traps heat from the burner to speed the heating of the fuel. Without the liner, the best time is 5 minutes 50 seconds. I am using a tin foil lid to seal the pot and a 5″ aluminum pot at 70 degrees for water and room temp.

If there is any way to bring this close to specs, please let me know. If you are reading this Mr. Thermojet, your input would be very appropriate.

Regards to all, Larry

If you want to check on the ingrediants on a particular brand of denatured alcohol, the MSDS sheets provided by the manufacturer can help. Most are available on the Web.

Klean-Strip has a lot of methanol as you can see from the MSDS information:

1. Ethyl alcohol 45.0-50.0 %
2. Methanol 45.0-50.0 %
3. Methyl isobutyl ketone 1.0 -4.0 %

The Ace brand has the same information. Some of the marine stuff may be better– I’ll try to research that and report back.

Thank-you for researching fuels for me and anyone with an alcohol stove. Everclear is way too much money to spend on fuel, but the next best thing would be good to know. I also want to know why my stove is not working to spec. Any help woud be great.

Tha

Brett,
“”outdoor store alcohol at 70% burns too cold to get a vigorous boil with my trianga setup.””
Interestingly, Trangia used to recommend methanol for their stoves because they were used so much at altitude for melting snow and the lower vapor pressure of methanol proved to be a slight advantage.

If you are having trouble with boiling with a trangia, you might reevaluate your set-up. Trangia’s are champs in nasty conditions when used with the proprietary sets, and they are not too shabby with home-made rigs. What pot support do you use, what windscreen, what kind of pot? And so on.