A nice little alcohol cookset

The perspective expressed by Jon and Dave has been heard by BPL. Your constructive tone is appreciated.

Let’s move on with talking about stoves in this thread. If anyone has questions about moderation, please PM me (or Roger) or email forum-mods@backpackinglight.com

A Trail Designs Ti-Tri is the Cadillac of cooking system (with the ability to burn wood).  I look at cooking kits like I look at my guitars: I have a vintage Martin D35 that means a lot to me.  When my daughters wanted to learn to play guitar, I bought them a $100 Yamaha.  So, the Sterno Inferno is great for people just starting out or as a loaner for when you don’t want to loan out your nice gear.  It is also a pretty cheap, simple and robust stove system to use.  My 2 cents.

I just received the Sterno Inferno stove set (Amazon) and the pot lid from Dutchware.  I’m impressed. It really is a nice little alcohol cookset.  One of my pet peeves with other alky setups are the excessive number of parts to keep track of.  This Sterno design is very clean, simple, and I like how the windscreen is integrated.  I’m going to do a couple of boils with the StarLyte burner I already have to see if I’ll need to elevate it to get good flame contact with the bottom of the pot.

Kevin Babione: If you’re still watching this thread can you comment on how you position the StarLyte burner when you use this setup?

I am still following and am happy to take some pictures of my setup and post them here.  My baby Ti frypan arrived today and I want to test making biscuits using my Starlyte as well.  Look for the photos tomorrow.

It is a clean and easy to use system.  That is why I think that the TD 10-12 stove couple with it perfectly, no extra pot stand needs and it is a cheap and reliable stove.  My 2 cents.

I went ahead and ordered the 10-12 burner and will compare how it performs vs the StarLyte that I already have.  I’ve done a couple of boils with the StarLyte at various burner heights and it seems to work fine but I was left with more soot on the pot than I expected. Not a heavy amount but definitely more than what I’ve seen when using the StarLyte in a more typical configuration (FWIW I’m burning lab-quality ethanol).  So maybe the StarLyte needs more air than it can get in the Inferno setup and the 10-12 will be the better performer.  Will soon find out.

Dave – you would need to talk to Dan about lab-quality ethanol.

From my experience, stove can generate soot when burning DA with high levels of ethanol.  I had some Crown DA that had 85% ethanol with the balance being methanol and it generated some soot.  The classic solution is to add a little water to eliminate soot.  In know that 75% ethanol work fine and I think that 85% to 90% may be ok.  My 2 cents.

I didn’t know that.  My previous setup for the StarLyte was as an alcohol backup option in a DIY woodburning stove set, so blackened pots were the norm and I never considered if any of the soot was coming from burning ethanol.

I did a quick Google search and in Hikin’ Jim’s Advertures in Stoving blog he says why this happens… “Because higher ethanol content alcohol burns hotter, sometimes the burning will “get ahead of itself,” and you’ll get some soot.  If the stove is overheating and producing soot, try adding water to the fuel… Adding water will calm down the burning, allowing the alcohol to mix properly with air and burn cleanly.  Try adding a little water at first, and then add more water as needed to eliminate any soot (up to 25% of the total volume).”

I’ll definitely have to try that.  Thanks for the tip Jon!

“Try adding a little water at first, and then add more water as needed to eliminate any soot (up to 25% of the total volume).”

Hmmmmm…makes me wonder if Everclear 150 might not be a negative?

I can only get Everclear 150 (CA). And it work fine, a little slower.

I stepped on my 10-12 stove and have continued to use it anyway. My boyfriend kind of pulled it back into shape as much as he could and it works fine.

When I used alcohol stoves I used the Caldera cone. I felt that the Caldera cone was a very safe system. The whole system couldn’t tip over. The stove was safely inside the cone and couldn’t blow away or be tipped over. If you put too much fuel in the stove and had to let it burn, the cone would protect the stove from becoming a hazard.

I’m thinking about using alcohol stoves again inside of designated fire pits. If it’s okay now to have a campfire I can’t see how it isn’t okay to have a tiny fire inside a campfire pit.

JCH – Everclear 150 is 75% alcohol (200 proof = 100% alcohol), so Everclear 150’s water/alcohol ratio matches up with Hikin’ Jim’s recommendation. That’s what I’ll be trying when I get time to try out the 10-12 stove I bought. I’ll try it in the StarLyte too.

So I’ve been playing with this Inferno setup, and I compared the 10-12 stove to the Starlyte stove. I think the Starlyte is a bit better in performance but you need to elevate the stove to the proper height (about 1.5 inches below the pot surface). Using ethanol, the Starlyte has worked better for me because it seems to have more of a controlled burn than the 10-12 does. I used a cut-up soda can bottom to elevate the Starlyte to a good working height.

But the capacity of the Inferno pot is small, and I agree that it’s not the greatest for doing any actual cooking. So I found these little window clips at Ace Hardware and bent them just a bit so that when they’re slipped onto the Inferno windscreen they angle toward the inside and lock into place when the weight of a pot is applied. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I really like the Inferno windscreen. Now I can use it with larger pots like my Titan kettle.

And the windscreen fits easily into the Titan kettle, along with everything else.

FYI, I tried using the Titan Kettle with tent stakes and boiling was much slower. It appeared to me that the stakes were blocking flame spread and limiting flame contact to the center of the pot instead of letting the flames spread out over the full bottom of the pot. These little window clip thingies work much better.

+1 Jon and Dave.