Canister Overheating On Low heat setting

[DAN-Y/FANCEE FEEST]

Roger what is your opinion about what this guy says?

A quote from another website:

yesterday, I was using a canister stove in my office to keep my morning coffee warm. I had the stove turned down as low as I could get it to prevent boiling.

I left it on for quite awhile and when I went to drink the coffee, I turned it off and started to unscrew the stove from the can and burned my finger on the stove where it screws into the canister. also, the canister itself was extremely hot and fearing it would explode I opened the valve back up and immediately ran cold water over it .

the stove I was using was the 25 gram BRS 3000-t stove but I reproduced this condition with another stove I own so I would say it is not stove specific. rather, it seems that <b>running a stove for a long time turned down to the very minimum it will stay lit, allows the stove to heat up and conduct heat sufficiently so that it heats up that canister as well.</b>

I tried using different stoves with the same canister to boil water and as long as I boiled it quickly, it didn’t seem to overheat. as soon as I turned it down to simmer and left it on for an extended period of time, the canister heating occurred.

I don’t know how close I was to that canister exploding but it would have been catastrophic. the canister was extremely hot and the part of the stove that screwed into the canister was hot enough to blister my finger. this was a scary lesson and I hope we all can learn from it…

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Dan

That is an interesting one.

First of all, the guy obviously did NOT monitor his stove and canister. User Error. Potential Darwin Award.

Now, why?
Well, when you are pouring a lot of fuel/air mix through the burner head, the passing gas is actually cooling the burner head a bit. OK, not a huge amount, but some. Also, the pressure throws the flames upwards as well, getting the flame out of contact (or almost out of contact) with the top of the burner head. The user notes few problems with bringing a pot to the boil.

But when you turn the stove right down, you lose the cooling effect of the gas flow, AND the flame actually gets to be in more intimate contact with the burner head. That makes the burner head much hotter. Over time, that heat travels downwards.

The user says he opened the valve again – which is very dangerous, and he ran cold water over it. Well, the cold water itself is a good idea, but actually moving the canister under these conditions is a very bad idea. The liquid fuel would have been sloshed around against the extremely hot upper part of the canister: BAD! He was lucky it did not go bang.

Now, if he had not touched the stove but poured cold water over it: that would have been smart.

Once again: monitor your stove all the time, and use the Touch Test.

Cheers

[Author]

Posts