[at-l] alcohol v gasoline stoves

[Sloetoe]

1) I really need to build one of these bad boys some
time. (Just to drink the beer, right? Research
purposes and all...)

2) The constraint I was speaking to had to do with the
caloric content of the ethanol, and it being a
smallish fraction of gasoline (like on the order of a
half or more, but I really don't remember). When it's
that much less, you have to carry so many ounces more
for a largish group that the (fixed) advantage of
stove weight (0.5 ounces vs 18 ounces) is overcome
when a average trip stove+fuel carry weight is
computed.

For the boys and I, it's now taking 4 oz per meal, so
there's a 2 oz saving (let's say) per meal, of gas
over alcohol. With that (and this is all off the top
of my head), at 9 days (18/2=9), the "stove advantage"
of alcohol over gasoline is lost. Two hot meals per
day would halve that time to 4.5 days.

(Let me see if I've got the math right...)
.5 stove plus 4 ounces alcohol per meal times 9 meals
= approximately 36 ounces.
18 ounces stove (SVEA 123R) plus 2 ounces gasoline
times 9 meals = 18+(18)=36 ounces.

Now, to be fair, the alcohol arrangement would "lose"
weight quicker as most of the weight is in variable
fuel, so the carry weight for the 9 days might start
the same, but would quickly favor the alcohol. (And
again, this is assuming one hot meal per day; two
meals would halve that time.) 

As well, the set-up time/effort for alcohol is
"nuthin' flat" and at the end of a long day, that
counts.

I guess it really comes down to how much caloric
content gasoline has over alcohol, and how many hot
meals per day you're planning.

Thanks for the excuse of running through this whole
metric again. It's been a while. But since my boys
won't be getting smaller any time soon, the issue
won't be getting any less .... weighty... for us.

(Have I mentioned I need to build me one of those
mongo-stoves? Methinks a stove-building session should
be called...)

--- Phil Schlosberg <phil2cool at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I was looking at information on your stove type
> online. You were saying how it doesn't scale well
> for larger cooking amongst more people. People have
> made the stove bigger by using 24 oz mini beer kegs.
> You might have all this information already too.
> Here is a link that had some information on the
> stove. Do you utilize a simmer ring for cooking? The
> site said you can achieve up to a 50 min burn time
> uitlizing it. Also by pouring fuel into the bottom
> reservoir you can also increase your cook time as
> well. 
> http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/stoveinstruct.html