Friday 29 March 2013

Stoves and fuel...free and otherwise

Blimey! been ages since I last posted, but weather getting better days getting longer, so will be out and about at last.
Recently I built a small wood burning stove from an Ikea stainless steel drainer following the method most people use to make one, ie cut a rectangle out of it with a Dremel so you can push fuel in once it's going. Loads of vids on YouTube if you want to investigate further.

It works remarkably well, taking 8 mins to boil 750ml of cold water once a good bed of embers is established. I used 2 tent pegs to support my Alpkit Mytimug


Have now bent a clothes hanger to make pot support


 I was in an outdoor shop recently and saw this new bio ethanol gel fuel made by Fuel 4 ..
It can be used a substitute for meths in a Trangia/pepsi can type stove so I bought a £2.50 sachet to try it out...


I poured it into the dimple on an overturned pepsi stove I made ages ago, popped it into my Ikea burner, lit it and turned the timer on. It took about 9 mins to bring about 0.5l of water to a boil, not bad, no soot on the pot like meths and no smell either.  



Nice clean blue flame...

Verdict: handy to keep as an emergency fuel if no other free bio fuel (ie wood) available. 

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