Heineken plus Caldera cone. How much fuel to boil?

Edit: I ran three tests to determine fuel consumption: 12 grams to boil 16 ounces. See Below.

Make sure the band is at the correct height.
The bottom of my band is 1 mm below the Heineken letters in the black box.

What kind of alcohol? Methanol, Isoproponal, or ….

I fill my 12-10 to just below the holes and always have fuel left over. (I aspirate it out with a long nozzled squeeze bottle.) If you "underfill" hoping to be conservative, the stove can "overheat" and boil off the alcohol rather than burn it.

Are you measuring the mass of the alcohol in ounces, or are you measuring the volume of the alcohol in fluid ounces?

–B.G.–

@ Greg.
I used Klean Strip denatured alcohol….
Good tip on the height of the rubber, thanks. Is there a better type of readily available alcohol I should be looking for?

@Bob.
Fluid ounces.

With the starlyte stoves your pot should maintain the 1 to 1.5 inches from the top of the burner to the bottom of the pot. Since the starlyte is shorter you may need to lower your pot closer to the stove. A long thread that details a lot of the initial experimenting with the starlytes and caldera cones.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=73981

0.5oz is about the minimum I've been able to do and get water hot enough to rehydrate and have a warm meal. Some things that help, fill the starlyte and turn it over to get alcohol to the surface (it sounds wired and I don't do it but other do), never remove the lid to see if the waters boiling, and lower your pot closer to the stove.

-James

HEET gas line antifreeze in the yellow bottle. That's probably the one I use most, otherwise SLX denatured alcohol, I think you can find this in most paint departments of hardware stores and at REI.
-James

Klean Strip is fine. I believe it is mostly methanol.

Ethanol has a little better heat content. Before the "ethanol for fuel foolishness" it would have been the choice. But it is hard to find and stupid expensive now.

Sorry I missed your use of the Starlite. Follow the advise of those who know. Height will make a difference.

Thanks a bunch!
I will be buying more fuel tomorrow and playing around a bit more.

sgt rock, the ion stove guy, mentioned to me recently that he had tried a heine pot and gave up on it as far too inefficient, looking at the results here in this thread, you seem to be confirming his observation.

Using SLX, with a standard ion stove/screen setup, ie, smaller and simpler than a cone, I am now getting fairly standard 11 gm (around 14ml) 2 cup at 70F boils using a roughly 10cm pot, that's a ti tall 900 ml I think. With a wider pot, it gets to a bit over 10 gm (about 13ml) for the boil. My tests have also shown that ti is the most efficient, by a measurable amount, thin stainless second, and aluminum last (but I only had a thick alu pot to test on, but it was wide), but I don't have enough samples and tests to really confirm this as a fact, but I do see logical reasons why this would be the case. These tests were the first time I realized that there is an actual practical reason to go with ti pots beyond the expensive gear benefit.

I will be rechecking the specific gravity number of my fuel at 70F because my tests suggest that is about .75, not the often used .8/.79, but I'm going to confirm it using a real graduated chemistry cylinder to determine the true weight at various temps, per ml.

So weigh the fuel to be sure of the quantity required, then pour that into your measuring cup to see how much at actually is in ml.

Personally I would toss any cooking system that requires 18 gm of alcohol fuel or so to bring 2 cups to a boil, 0.75oz fluid (22.5ml), into my project/test box and consider it interesting as a test but nothing more. 20ml would be my top consumption I'd consider, anything more and the setup is flawed, very hard to know which part is flawed without doing fairly extensive testing of all the variables involved, but with a narrow surface, aluminum, there's just not a lot to catch the flame directly.

Allegedly, slx is about 45/45% ethanol/methanol, give or take, with some other ingredients and water (ethanol from standard commercial sources will always have about 5% water, give or take, which means if it's 50% ethanol, you'll have min 2.5% water. That's if you believe their MSDS. But the heat output seems about right, methanol you'd need about 10% more fuel, ethanol alone, about 10% less, give or take.

Elevation – 7,400'
Boiling Point of Water – ~195°F
Air Temp – 70° F
Wind – negligible
Water Temp – 45°F
Water Volume – 16 fluid ounces

Caldera Cone Keg-H, with standard OEM concave bottom, and a 12-10 stove.
A 1/4" closed cell foam "cozy" was used as a lid.

Sunnyside "Marine Stove Fuel", Product# 834G1, 52% Methanol and 43% Ethanol, per the MSDS

Three sessions, topping off the stove for sessions #2 and #3.

Boil time was 10:30, 10:30, and 10:20, determined by an instant read thermometer and observation.

Fuel consumption averaged 12 grams per boil.

Most of my camping is around 10,000', so I do a little better on the trail.

It works for me.

awesome report/info Greg, thanks. I've been curious about these things (cones/beer can pot), but have no desire to get the stuff to test it, I think posting things very concretely as you did helps people who might have something wrong with their setups figure out what it is. Your numbers sort of fit with what I'd expect, a bit of gain in efficiency from using a cone, a bit of a loss from using a fairly narrow can, and with 150F temp raise to boil water, about where you'd expect the numbers to land. Not as efficient as the best setups, but the time to boil is right in line with what I'd expect a decently efficient system to take, around 10 minutes.

Just as a reminder to anyone who may not be aware of it, the energy used raises the water temp x degrees F per unit of fuel, so the energy required to raise 45 F water to 195F is the same as to raise 60 F water to 210F, ie, an increase of 150F, for example. Since this is basically linear, you can also use it to figure out how much fuel you need for warmer or colder water, ie, how much fuel is required to raise the water 10F, then just add or subtract that amount to required total.

I'll bet I can boil 2 cups of water faster in my 3 cup anodized aluminum pot (& lid)
on my CC Sidewinder with, say, ESBIT or like kind of alky, than you can in a Foster's can.

That means less fuel used and, over a week long trip, less weight to carry.

"That means less fuel used and, over a week long trip, less weight to carry."

Like a half an ounce? Or do you have data to suggest a number?

Just curious what it takes to bring 45° water up to boiling.

Greg,

The tall, narrow Fosters cans – or any tall narrow pots – don't heat as efficiently as low, wide pots. Then there's the fact that Fosters cans ae only for boiling water, not cooking.

I'd have to test it and, liking Fosters beer as I do may make acquiring an empty can not an unpleasant "task". But I will test it with several fuels and report back by next week.

I lowered the Heineken can, as suggested, and tried again with .75 ounces. I only needed a cup and a half of water, for my mid morning hot chocolate at work; it boiled in 7 minutes with no flame left.
I ordered a Starlyte burner and I am curious of how that will work.

Eric,
Not that it matters, but I use a Keg-H, not a Fosters.

But I am curious how much fuel you use with your "wide" aluminum pot. (I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to boil water in a 24 oz beer can.)

It would be interesting to know just what the weight savings for fuel would be between and optimum pot and a beer can. So fire up that Sidewinder and boil some water.

My alky setup will do ~3cups water 50-185F in ~8-9mins inside on the stove on ~.5oz/14grs 95%ethanol.
-modified zelph stove
-myog cone
-stanco grease pot

It tends to run slower but similar efficiency outside (in the cold at least).

I suspect it would be somewhat less efficient on only 1cup boiled (due to reduced water surface area in contact with pot).

nm

(bad math)

James,
Thanks for the numbers.

Eric –
14grams/3 cups =4.67/cup
At 2 cups per day that would be 65.33 grams for a week.

From my test (above) I used 6 grams/cup
At two cups per day that would be 84 grams for the week.

So this setup would save 18.67 grams of fuel per week. 2/3 of an ounce.

(Not factoring in heat content of respective fuels, temperature rise differences, and the alignment of the planets.)

Yeah, good pt on the big picture.

I tend to heat probably twice that much water though (maybe more if heating for others). But even for me the efficiency gain would still be a wash in many cases. Though I like the stanco for other reasons as well.

Test #1: Wide Pot, 16 ounces of water

Elevation – 7,400'
Boiling Point of Water – ~195°F
Air Temp – 70°F
Wind – negligible
Water Temp – 45°F
Water Volume – 16 fluid ounces

Caldera Cone for a Vargo Ti 1.3L pot, 5.75" in diameter, and a 12-10 stove.
The lid is insulated with a single layer of aluminized 1/4" bubble wrap.

Sunnyside "Marine Stove Fuel", Product# 834G1, 52% Methanol and 43% Ethanol, per the MSDS

Three sessions, topping off the stove for sessions #2 and #3.

Boil time was 8, 9, and 7 minutes, determined by an instant read thermometer and observation.

Fuel consumption averaged 11 grams per boil, 5.5 grams per cup.

So, pretty consistent with what is posted above.

I was curious of the concept of "volume efficiency", so..

Test #2: Wide Pot, 32 ounces of water

Elevation – 7,400'
Boiling Point of Water – ~195°F
Air Temp – 70°F to 75°F over the course of the testing
Wind – negligible
Water Temp – 45°F
Water Volume – 32 fluid ounces

Caldera Cone for a Vargo Ti 1.3L pot, 5.75" in diameter, and a 12-10 stove.
The lid is insulated with a single layer of aluminized 1/4" bubble wrap.

Sunnyside "Marine Stove Fuel", Product# 834G1, 52% Methanol and 43% Ethanol, per the MSDS

Three sessions, topping off the stove for sessions #2 and #3.

Boil time was 14, 16, and 16 minutes, determined by an instant read thermometer and observation.

Fuel consumption averaged 24 grams per boil, 6 grams per cup.

Also consistent with the posts above, so not much gained here.

Given field variables like centering the pot over the stove, wind, water temps, approximate measures, noticing when the water is boiling, etc. I'd say pot size doesn't make much of a difference with a Caldera Cone.

For solo trips I'll stick with the Keg-H.

So, Eric B., where is that Sidewinder data you where eluding to?

I have never needed more than 0.8 fl oz to boil up to 20 fl oz of water. I do have the Fosters, not the Heinie.

http://tinyurl.com/bqe58ze

I am getting a much quicker boil with the Staryte burner. Really like being able to seal off the remaining fuel in the stove also.

Katharina,
How much fuel are you using to boil 2 cups of water?
Starting and ending temperatures would be good to know.

Just curious…

Well, I should have known that details matter here.
Let me try again tonight. Hard to tell how much fuel because there was some left over and it is not visible. I will weigh stuff for you.
A little later.