picking white gas cans that don't stink

I live out of my car. I started out in the US National Forests, with some kind of Coleman 2-burner dual fuel stove. That got stolen. I replaced it with a Coleman 533 one-burner. A couple years went by and I figured out how to do urban camping, rather than the woods. Even in the woods, I'd use my car as the tent. Soon I discovered picnic shelters with electrical outlets, and I started using electrical cooking devices. I mothballed my one-burner. Years later someone abandoned another Coleman 2-burner dual fuel stove. I took it. It burns a bit yellow at times and probably needs some cleaning work. A pandemic happened, and I hid from it. Now I'm returning to the field, more to my roots, taking the Coleman 533 one-burner with me for now.

The price of Coleman fuel has risen quite a bit since then. I went up the learning curve of how to buy the cheaper Crown white gas at Walmart. It's a stupid arrangement: you have to order it online and then pick it up in the store, or they'll charge you a 50% markup. Incredulous that this was the modern way of the world, I went to a Walmart in person, to find out if I'd get shafted like that. Yep! So several hours later, I finally did it their way, with the stupid online ordering routine. Which I realized could actually be useful in other circumstances, but I sure hate being forced to do something like that when I don't want to.

And that Crown white gas, immediately stunk my car. It wasn't in my car more than 5 minutes before I said, I can't live with this. No way. So within 15 minutes of me picking up my order, Walmart had their Crown fuel back. And I was back to the drawing board.

I did a pile of research on the internet, trying to find anyone talking about white gas and smells / stinks. Few people do. It's clearly acknowledged as being way less stinky than gasoline, or heaven forbid kerosene, which is a complete nightmare! But nobody typically comes out and says, white gas can really stink. I almost wondered if I was trying to prove a negative? But I have no doubt that that Crown can did what it did in my car, quickly, and that it was unacceptable. I just don't know exactly why. Was that particular can leaking? Is Crown white gas volatile in general, and prone to this?

I don't remember ever having a problem with Coleman fuel, back in the day. But it was a long time ago, a different car, and honestly I wasn't living in my car. I was tent camping out of my car. Or using the car as the tent with the windows all rolled down, wide open, trying to beat the Carolina heat typically. Even on the highway, AC didn't work in that car, so I had the windows down. Heat worked, but if I needed heat, I probably wasn't camping. There were a few cold weather stretches here and there though, when trying to get somewhere warmer, so maybe a Coleman can did sit around in my closed car just fine, back in the day. With the heat on.

I learned about the various containers people carry fuel in, including some really stupid ones, by people who don't know what they're doing. Plenty of that kind of info on this forum. Learned about how people handle fuel, right or wrong. Seemed like the cans you buy white gas in, are supposed to work, and be fine for long term storage. And that the various specialized fuel bottles, are more about feeding specific other stoves under pressure, than about being some amazing thing for keeping fumes at bay.

Also, I'm not a backpacker. A gallon of Coleman fuel, is clearly larger than any of those expensive specialized bottles. I'm not on a vacation excursion, I'm full time. If I ran out of something smaller, I'd be right back to needing to use the Coleman gallon can, somehow. Either having it stored in my car, or stashed at a friend's / relative's house. Which only works if you're a few hundred miles away and visiting every month or so. Not usable for cross-USA travel, which might be in my near future.

I went back to Walmart today and stuck my nose on 5 cans of Coleman fuel. Only 1 of 'em seemed completely free of odor, I could only smell the metal of the can. Did someone spill fuel on the other cans, or were they venting? The cans had date codes that I couldn't decipher. 3 of 'em had the same code, and my "better" can was in that batch, so maybe it was the most recent product. Most of the cans had minor dents on them. Does the handling of the cans matter? And I'm reasonably sure, that all of the Coleman fuel cans, smelled better than the Crown fuel cans.

I did the apples-to-apples test of sitting with the Coleman can in my car, trying hard to notice any smells. Couldn't find anything amiss. I packed the can carefully behind my driver's seat with some stuff, so that it would remain upright for my drive home. And I'm going to leave it in my car overnight, and see if there are any smells in the morning. If there aren't any, then I've done all that I could do.

Second missive tomorrow morning!

 

All volatile fuels smell. White gas is volatile. But on the other side, the lid should seal the vapour in.

I'd want the can attached to the outside of the vehicle, for safety not just for smell.

 

@Scrambler A very valid, pragmatic point. I agree with you.
@Brandon Van Every I used to drive a car powered by LPG. For a while the smell was unpleasant and I did leak tests on the installation. It turned out that everything was fine. After some time I got used to it enough that it no longer bothered me so much.
Maybe it's just temporary about you? Or do you have a very " sharpened" sense of smell? Or indeed, as you write, packaging manufacturers have neglected something?

 

I don't have issues driving with any white gas in my pickup cab. Cap must not be securely tightened. Some appliances may leak fuel also. Now and then the fuel may stink, maybe processed at non-optimum temp however camp fuel is refined.
Duane

 

Lately I have an extremely sharpened sense of smell. My aging dog has serious issues with various airborne particles. The main offenders have been drywall dust, construction / concrete renovation dust, and huge loads of pollen. I've spent the last year of my life vacuuming ridiculous amounts and going up filtration device / HVAC learning curves. I've lost countless hours of sleep, have spent so much time dealing with him yelping, have lay down next to him so many times, to comfort him from all the bad stuff. The good news is I think we're winning the war. But yeah I can smell all kinds of crazy things in the air now. I'm hyper-tuned up, for his / our survival.

I can smell bad air filtration systems when I go into stores too. Especially during bad warm weather + pollen season, like 2 months ago. Some discount retail stores I'd go into, just reeked. I could tell that managers had seriously cut corners over time and didn't take air quality seriously. One store additionally smelled of water damage, a mold funk. I decided I wasn't buying any textiles from that store.

This is the worst year for pollen I ever remember in my life. North Carolina is a known terrible pollen region, one of the worst. I'm very sure that global warming has pushed it all into overdrive. I don't have pollen allergies per se, but sometimes the air has been so heavy with the stuff, even I've been somewhat bothered. Things like eyes stinging.

Nevertheless I still swear that Crown white gas can stunk my car immediately, and the carefully picked Coleman can didn't. If the Coleman can is indeed putting something out, it's really hard for me to tell right away. What I could smell, driving home, smelled like metal welds. As well as the usual car residues: pollens despite Wix cabin filtration, and whatever construction dust residues were on my own clothes. Vacuuming the car once more before finally getting back on the road, is on the punch list this weekend.

 

Ideally, yes. In urban camping reality, no. Attention from residents and other members of the general public, can lead to calls to law enforcement. Which although mitigable, is a PITA that you simply don't want to make a habit of. Over the years I've spent plenty of extra $0.50 worth of gas, just to drive somewhere else that I would be left alone and not bothered. Best to do all things possible to keep it that way.

The best "look" for an urban camping car, is one that looks like most of the other cars. No funny things on the car: solar panels, car carriers, blacked out windows, bikes on racks, etc. I don't believe in any of them. I'm not exactly hiding what I do, but I do believe in "hiding in plain sight", i.e. minimizing attention and interest. Someone walking by my car, should pretty much see "a car" without a bunch of weird stuff in it, catching light, attracting attention. Should look really ordinary and completely forgettable.

If I was off-road forest camping all the time, I'd be more inclined to think about externalizing fuel and possessions. Not in the urban fabric though. All of it's also a theft risk. Gotta leave your car sometime, to go do stuff. That's when a fuel can goes bye-bye.

Heck that can happen in the woods too, 'nuther story. Let's just say I learned to put 3 miles of really lousy road between myself and anything civilized, like a good highway. Thieves love good highways, on holiday weekends when forests fill up with victims.

 

I wonder if it was as simple as that. It's not something I thought to check while in the store, whether the caps seemed secure or not. It's not a good sign, if they aren't. Sitting in a warehouse, then a delivery truck, then a store shelf, for who knows how long... and the caps are not basically secure? Could be. I will check the next time I'm at a Walmart.

Don't think I had that problem in the past. Don't know yet whether I'll have that problem now. Let's put it this way: I'm not taking the 2-burner stove that probably needs to be cleaned / serviced with me, just yet. The 533 does smell a bit of gasoline, that I used in it for a time. I'm hoping a round of Coleman fuel will clean that out some. If not, well, I know there are posts here about how to clean stuff.

I am wondering, especially due to the pandemic, if things are not getting made quite like they used to be. Prices up, quality down. Plus, Coleman has been moving away from white gas devices for a good number of years now.

 

It doesn't take much leakage to smell up a vehicle interior, I fuel kerosene appliances when I've arrived, some of my old stoves may leak, best to make sure fuel cap isn't real tight, fuel vapor is less offensive than leaking fuel from a poorly sealing valve.
Duane

 

You have obviously given this a lot of thought.

If you find a container that works, use multiple containers. If a quart, buy 5. Then when on the last one, buy a gallon.

Also, have you considered washing the cans, and storing them in an air tight container?

 

Except that, these specialized fuel bottles are going for $20..$25 on Amazon. 5 of those is an awful lot of cash outlay! Expensive enough to call into question, why I'd continue with a white gas cooking system. For that kind of money I could be doing something else, although haven't thought of what.

Now admittedly, I haven't read fuel bottle reviews, to have any real understanding of which ones are cheaper + actually get the job I want done. I did read some stuff, on fuel handling here in this forum, but most of that thread was about people doing really dumb things. Like soda bottles or other stuff, and the fuel then dissolving parts of the bottles used. Like cap parts if not bottle bodies, because caps usually have other kinds of plastics to make their seals. At least 1 person lost their stove to the gummed up plastic impurities they introduced to their fuel. Not to mention every other manner of safety storage issue, i.e. you want a proper bottle. Which probably means paying for it; I'm just not sure how much is strictly required.

Sort of. I considered whether the cans available on the shelf, had old fuel spilled on them, from bad handling. Or from customers returning them. I wondered whether simple plastic bags would cut down the volatile smells of very tiny particles. I got as far as looking at the price of larger food bags in the Walmart online catalog. But I'm also trying to get out the door, and the more immediate experiment of going to the stupid store for the third time, and just trying out a can of more expensive Coleman, seemed like the best move at the moment.

Do you have any recommendation for a very serious plastic bag or other such storage?

I thought about building some kind of gasket. Or putting some kind of "silicone rubber cap" over the top of the entire can. But I don't know where I'd buy such a thing, nor have I thought about how to make one. And if the real problem is the fuel cap being cheesy, shouldn't that be addressed first?

Yeah, so, design. Issues. I "sorta" thought about how to push this ball forward. To the promised land of no fumes ever going anywhere.

 

How about a cork or Vinton gasket

 

For a campsite in the woods, I'd agree. Urban camping is a bit different. I'm probably going to cook every single day, at least in good weather. And to me the point of having wheels, is to be somewhere with good weather, or you're doing it wrong. :-)

I'm not going to be sleeping where I cook, or have a "campsite" at all. Urban camping is finding a parking spot somewhere for the night, where nobody's going to bother you. That's usually a Walmart at a first go, when you're first learning an area. Or maybe forever, depending on the area. Although, specific Walmarts do get trashed out, from overuse. But I digress. The point is, I'll be using the stove every day, and storing it in my car every day. So unless I'm very good at estimating exactly the amount of fuel I need to cook with, I've got fuel in the stove.

Could empty the stove fuel, into something, after every use. But I definitely wouldn't put it back in the original fuel can. It would have to be some kind of 2nd "slop" can. Transferring fuel a lot, in the real world, is probably going to make a mess on something sometime. I know how to fill Coleman equipment properly. I was actually pretty surprised yesterday, at people in in an old thread, who clearly hadn't read the directions on the can. Or how to use the snorkel funnel that comes with a stove. But anything done enough times over and over again, is gonna result in a spill simply because you're tired or something else happens. Plus it's a PITA. So I don't think I'd buy much, doing this every day.

A Coleman 533 one-burner is small enough, to consider encasing it in something more fume proof. The most expedient thing to try, would be a simple gallon ziplock plastic bag. I already have quart bags for my fuel funnel, lighters, and matches. I don't know how much good a gallon bag can do, but it's probably better than nothing. It'll probably also get ripped over time by the sharp surfaces. I suppose I could sleeve the stove, particularly the sharp surfaces. Could be as simple as scrap plastic or cardboard.

Something larger, starts to reinvent the concept of a suitcase stove. But, it could still be a lot smaller than a two-burner suitcase stove. And more packable in a car, being probably more the shape of a cube.

With a suitcase stove, I could pack the fuel tank in a gallon plastic bag maybe? Well the rod sticks out, so it probably has to be bigger. The bag would probably take awhile to get ripped up, since the case would protect it.

I have no idea if ziplocks are really enough to do much good. But if there are stinks, I will definitely try.

 

Yeah.

HDPE number 2 can handle fuel.

I do not think I saw that one.

Ranger Bands might seal the cap while stored.

Again, you have given this a lot of thought and seem to have answers for every suggestion. I have not thought about it.

 

There are HUGE Ziplock bags for blankets and such.

 

I've built up a stockpile of fuel canisters from yard sales and estate sales. Usually they're around a buck each. You may just need to replace the O-ring, but make certain you get a fuel resistant one. If you want reasonably price fuel storage bottles that you will NOT be using with stoves, BRS bottles used to be fairly cheap on Aliexpress, and probably still are. Just don't try to attach the pump from say an MSR to it or you'll wreck the pump. The threads are not the same.

I hope you haven't complained to Walmart about that fuel pickup deal. I'd hate for that loophole they gifted us to be closed. Crown is already less than the Coleman's fuel's $14 per gallon, so many of us appreciate being able to get Crown for under $8 per gallon.

 

I had to learn about Viton gaskets. According to some site:

Saw some video of a guy doing an automatic transmission rebuild, talking up the virtues of the aftermarket Viton gasket version of the seal needed, rather than the factory part. Showed how the Viton part was stronger and beefier, would provide a better seal for his application, would last longer, etc. Wonder if he did a followup video some years down the road lol.

Next question, is this something I can squeeze out of a tube and make my own gasket with? Or do I have to find a bottle that already has a Viton sealed lid? Wonder if that even exists anyways... quick web search might help. "fuel bottle viton" actually yields something topical:

Hm, that's 1 person giving a -1 for Viton. Well fine, Nitrile vs. Viton learning curve. Didn't mean to stumble on a serious discussion of fuel bottle leaks. Guess I'll refrain from screwing down caps super hard. Meanwhile there's more to the story of one vs. the other:

-15*C = 5*F. I've never been camping in that. Lowest I've ever done is the teens, maybe 10*F once. Like I said in another post, wheels to good weather or you're doing it wrong. :-)

 

First thought is buy some Coleman and find out whether it's some inherent property of Crown that gives rise to the smell problem. I have several cans of Crown in the reserve, but have never used them yet. So I have no idea, really.

The 533 seems to me to be in many ways the perfect choice for your system.

And your system is interesting, indeed. All down to the practicalities.

 

Get a propane stove, recyclable 5 or 7 gallon bottle that can be exchanged many places, no more smell.
Duane

 

Sure, but that doesn't mean the cap of a soda bottle is HDPE #2. Strictly speaking I have not checked the inside of one of those lately, but I thought I remembered something softer and squishier that actually made the seal. Maybe that isn't true of all beverages though. Plus the other thing is, that seal might be due to vacuum at the plant. Once the vacuum's gone, no seal. i.e. repeated field use.

Think I'll rummage the recycling bin briefly.

Yet another thing I didn't know about. But, getting a good seal on a cap is probably an art / engineering form. Like before this evening, I didn't really know / remember that overtightening a gasket or seal, is a problem. I did have memory of that from spark plugs, oil filters, replacing a valve cover gasket, and a transaxle fluid gasket. But that was more in the automotive bucket of my brain.

Can't believe I've gotten into this so deeply at the last minute. It all started when I fired up that Coleman 533 with some ancient gasoline I had lying around. That I now realize, was stored rather badly in a dollar store aluminum bottle. "This is not the right stuff."

 

I used to think that was the dark side! Back in 2010 I saw that sporting good stores were making it hard to buy a traditional Coleman fuel stove or lantern. They were clearly trying to charge a lot of money on very small tanks of propane, i.e. "don't sell the razor, sell the blades". And it turns out you don't want a big economical tank of propane, when urban car camping. You have very limited space.

I did my research on propane vs. alternatives. Learned that white fuel had way better energy output, even given a higher price. And alcohol's output was a joke, especially when a gallon of that stuff was going for $16 at big box hardware stores. Maybe it made sense on a boat, for safety, or for a thru hiker desperate to make a stove out of a beer can. But otherwise, not.

So having done my homework, I invested in dual fuel gear, just regarding the possibility of gasoline as maybe a bonus someday. I did eventually burn some plain old ethanol laden gasoline in the 533. It worked fine. A bit stinkier, you wouldn't want to stand there huffing the fumes / carcinogens. But if you're cooking with lidded pots and pans, as was my fashion to save fuel out in the woods, it wasn't going in your food.

Life habits changed. The woods had an endgame of loneliness, and they weren't so good for computer programming productivity either. Picnic shelters with electrical outlets in cities, were way more logistically convenient and cost effective. So I started using an aluminum popcorn popper I found in a construction dumpster. It had 1 setting: HOT. It worked though!

Eventually upgraded to a Goodwill store griddle and retired the bare aluminum toxicity of the popcorn popper. So then I had temperature control. Eventually was given a couple of old hot plates, and retired the scratched up Teflon surface of the griddle. One of the hot plates shorted out spectacularly. The other, a much heavier and more robust piece of equipment, is still with me. But I don't like the smell of rust that's on it. Maybe I should try to clean that somehow, with some kind of rust remover.

Right now I don't know exactly where I'm going to be though. The fuel stoves were always the better option when on the move. I'm really good at finding electrical outlets, particularly in small rural towns, where it's often just a matter of finding a park. But, that's not everywhere. Especially, it's not a Rest Area. They never ever have electrical outlets, except maybe rarely in a bathroom. You're not gonna run an extension cord out the bathroom window and get away with it, lol.

You know another thing that's really different now, compared to a decade ago... National Forests are on fire all the time. Not sure I'll be doing much of that.

I've read about propane conversion kits. Who knows. Maybe I'll look at my gear and say, that was then, this is now.

But it's not tomorrow morning yet.