Hi guys, newbie here. I'm looking for a pressurised alcohol stove for winter camping. I already have a brs 12a, can i run alcohol in this by changing the jet. many thanks.
Can you get different jets for the stove? Running alcohol is a different animal, plus denatured alcohol use consumes more fuel because of the larger jet and in the states, is a more expensive fuel than white gas/camp fuel/Coleman Fuel. Duane
Yep, I've just ordered some bigger jets from aliexpress. The one that comes with it is a 33, I've ordered some 35's. I've no idea if there big enough, I'll try one in it and stand back, wayyyyy back lol
Wonder if the stove would have to be set up like a Optimus111 with air restrictor to work? But then a Optimus 45A is designed to use alcohol, no modifications. Folks are always tinkering with designs. Duane
I'll keep you posted. It runs great on gasoline and kerosene, its just the priming. When I have it in the mouth of my tent and I pre heat it, the tent fills with horrible smelly, sooty smoke... Hence running it on alcohol. The only other option I see is to run it on gasoline or kerosene but use alcohol to pre heat it.
For best performance, the three main fuels use different sized jets, kero the smallest. I have a couple stoves that use one jet for gas or kero, performance is not optimal. Duane
I do not know of what the hole sizes are but there are a #30 for kerosene, a #33 for, I believe, to handle both kerosene and gasoline in BRS’s stoves and a #35 for gasoline. I have not been able to measure mine to see what sizes they have. The stove work good but I find the preheating to take a long time with alcohol and preheating with gasoline is a sooty business. Michael
If you preheat with meths it's a lot less sooty than using petrol/white gas. I got myself a little squirty bottle with a sealing lid that I take with me to direct the meths into the right place. I've got a very similar Chinese stove and I've run it on petrol (not recommended because long term it'll gum up the jet) and paraffin/kerosene and it works well on either. The secret, if there is one, is preheat for a good long time, that way you won't get flare-ups and whether it's a unleaded or paraffin/kerosene flare-up it'll fill your tent with stinky smoke!
I'd say you will have to sacrifice one jet in the name of experimenatation. A restrictor tube may not be effective due to it being a roarer, but you could throttle the air by covering a couple of the holes in the burner bell. I reckon you will have to open the jet size out to north of 0.45mm. I have taken a couple of silents out to 0.5-0.6mm with a restrictor to get them to behave. It's certainly worth sacrificing a jet and playing with some foil to see if it works Alec.
One of these eh? The O-rings in the control valve, seal in the non-return valve will be paraffin and petrol-proof but best not to assume they won’t degrade in contact with alcohol, creating surprises, particularly if they decide to let go the next time petrol’s used in the tank. I use the term ‘petrol’ to mean white gasoline/Coleman fuel/Aspen.
This looks exactly like my Chinese stove. I used to use it with petrol but it seems equally at home with kero so I'll run it with that from now on. I've only used it a handful of times but I must check the state of the seals as you suggest.
its tank is made of iron. Please be care, it may rust if you use aqueous alcohol and keep the fuel in the tank for a long period. But I dont suggest you using alcohol for winter camping, cause Alcohol has fewer heat value compare to white gas. In winter, it takes longer to boil the water than summer.
This stove is designed to use gas, kerosene and alcohol. So I guess it already contains the alcohol jet.
Ok, experiment complete. My number 35 jets arrived this morning so I fitted one and made a quick air restricter from a beer can, just a tube that fits over the jet and bobs your uncle. It runs lovely, clear flame, no spitting or stuttering perfect..... Untill you try boiling water. It took nearly ten minutes to boil 500ml of water compared to the 3 minutes it would normally take with gasoline or kerosene. So, to conclude.... I now have a triple fuel stove but it prefers gasoline or kerosene. I can use alcohol if thats all I have but it won't be my go to fuel. I will run it mainly on gasoline because its the cheapest and most available fuel and probably use alcohol to pre heat it. I have also found that it runs fine on the 35 jet with gasoline and kerosene so I don't have to swap jets between fuels but I think if i where to use a bigger jet like a 50 or a 5.5 it would be more efficient with alcohol in terms of boil times but would also use a lot more fuel. Therefore, gasoline it is.
A pity I didn't ask "The Fettlmans" at A&H a few more tech questions when the rebuilt my Optimus 111T for alcohol-only burning; I could have some useful info for you if you do ever decide to go alcohol. Most of my Winter Camping/Back-country skiing Tribe regard me as a Nutter for using ethanol as my Winter stove fuel; I use ethanol as my #1 fuel all four seasons for very arcane reasons of my own. I'm planning to buy a set of Mitutoyo or Starrett pin gages to accurately measure the jet hole sizes on my collection of Optimus jets. A very small change in jet hole sizes I note make a very large difference in flame size, burn efficiency, and all kinds or other variables.......
