Alcohol consumpsion, same as at home?

[USA Duane Hall]

Per a older bping friend, Frank who frequents here and I just recently, I picked up a clearance REI Ti .9 lt pot and made the move for a Caldera Cone from AGG to use with it after watching him use his on a snow camping trip this Spring. I have fired up the setup two weekends ago, boiling 1 1/2 cup of water with 1 oz. of alcohol to start and had 1/4 oz alky left when boil was reached. The next week, I thought, lets try water closer to the temps we should encounter with the snow melt, so I added some ice to my well water, sloshed it around a bit to get the temp down and once again, used 1 1/2 cup of water and an 1 oz. of alcohol. Wow, boil in 7.25 minutes and with fuel left over. I live at around 4,000' in the northern Sierra, can I expect similar results at 10,000'-11,000' in the high Sierra? I was going to bring my Pocket Rocket which will be more compact versus the rolled up Caldera Cone, which I could try to store flat. The CC with at least 8 oz of fuel for 9 days would be about 4 oz less in weight than the PR with a large canister. Your thoughts?

Duane

[Sumi Wada]

Oh… I thought you were asking about drinking on the trail. I was going to answer that a bottle-of-wine-per-day gets pretty darn heavy… ;)

[Jacob D]

Ha… I thought the same thing. Guess we need less wine drinkers to answer your question :)

[James Marco]

I tested the Caldera Cone extensivly a couple winters ago. Several stoves and sveral fuels were used. Basically, I could get 16oz (measuered) of 40f degree water (standardized with ice if it was too warm) to just boil at 1000' elevation with .6oz of SLX using a modified pot…ie, one with several raised dimples in the bottom to increase surface area. With a standard pot it was .7oz which agrees with your tests.

Generally, you should not notice a tremendous difference at 10000' elevation. The water will boil a little quicker, but the alcohol will burn a bit slower. So, it is pretty much a wash.

The canister stoves and the alcohol stoves are about the same for heat content once you figure in the weight of the canister. Because you can turn the iso-butane mix on and off easily, you might save a bit of fuel. Always boil water at the lowest possible setting, turn it off immediatly after the water starts boiling. You might get an extra day or two out of a canister.

I use a SVEA at about 1.25floz per day. This is two burns, morning coffee (3-4 cups, 2 oatmeal/cocoa/coffee sludge and 1-2 cups of coffee/cocoa) and evening (4 cups, 2 cups for some sort of macaroni or rice dish, two cups of cocoa, 10 minutes of simmering.) You probably do not want to carry the 1#1 for the stove, though the fuel/stove is fairly efficient at 2.5L/1oz of fuel on low.

[USA Duane Hall]

I was also thinking about the feel good alcohol! Hiccup! I have gotten 8 days of use from a small MSR fuel canister, only heating water for dinner, but this trip will be 9 days, heating water in the evening every night, with two of those nights having ramen stuff from the health food store which I can let set in my cozy and for two breakfasts with instant oatmeal. Thank you for the verification of my few tests, I know I am on the right track then.

Which Svea? Not a 123, that would be heavy for a long trip? I have three in my stove arsenal by the way.

Duane

[James Marco]

"Which Svea? Not a 123, that would be heavy for a long trip?"
Actually, the longer time out, the better the weight gets. For a week with two people I take a 12oz coke bottle filled with white gas. With a full stove to start, this works out to be just over 2oz per day for cooking breakfast and supper. This is about 5 quarts of water plus simmering/frying time for fish, or, greens (varius vegtables as are available.) We usually pack bulk rice, dehydrated veggies, pepperoni, jerkey, olive oil, etc. So it really pays to have the stove to cook up things we forage for besides what we bring…usually 1.1 lb/day but plus foraging makes it about 2 pounds per day per person. So it saves food weight, too.

[USA Duane Hall]

Must be nice foraging. Out West, at least where I bp in the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, not much to forage for. A supplemental fish dinner where fishing is good is nice. That's about it. I've only been collecting stoves for 20 months now, so have only taken one of my 123's on one two night trip, pretty neat to use. I've had my MSR Int'l for 20 years or so and the PR for 5 years.

Duane

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