Looking for new liquid multi-fuel stove for camping/hiking

I agree. It’s a nonsense law

if I remember correctly REI was selling alcohol stove fuel at $15 per quart, that’s insanely expensive

 

I just bought a 1 gallon of Denatured Alcohol from my local car parts store for $17.99OTD.

A bit cheaper than HEET for $1.97/12oz.

This is in rural East Texas.

 

I know others disagree, but I do not consider denatured alcohol a straight across comparison to Heet (methanol).

 

Quite right; there are many denaturants. A common DA was ethanol with added methanol. There are other formulations.

 

What do you think works best? There is a video over YouTube that says Heet it’s hotter

 

Methanol and Ethanol are pretty similar but, their energy content isn't identical. I'm no expert on fuels like this but, I know most modern gas engines need to be tweaked to run on high concentrations of Ethanol like E-85 and Methanol is commonly seen in race engines.

Alcohol burners are super simple devices so the differences are going to be lost in things like differences in pot height versus the flame in most instances.

In any case, for a little alcohol stove, I'm not going to get wrapped around the axle over choosing one versus the other over technical differences that are lost is normal usage. Cost and availability matter most to me right now.

 

The toxic nature of methanol is the difference to me. I might need to burn indoors or be near the flame. Ethanol is my choice. The difference of a few BTUs is insignificant.
Others have different views.

 

The combustion products for both are pretty harmless assuming some ventilation. If drinking it from a fuel bottle or industrial canister is a concern, I would not buy one of these stoves or have one anywhere around me personally.

I won't cook with liquid fuels in a tent, so that is something to consider as well. My use of a gas canister in a tent is something I avoid as well but, if the chips were down and I didn't have other options, would be my choice.

 

Sadly my state (pennsylvania) doesn't trust us enough to allow us to buy grain alcohol, 151 proof is the highest available, I did pick up a quart when I was working in Rhode Island last month, $20, it's nice to have a dual purpose item when out for a hike.

 

Is denatured alcohol available in Pennsylvania?

When I lived in Alabama, I needed to bring back Bourbon from Oklahoma or Texas when I visited family and friends over the holidays because of the alcohol rules there.

I also found it ironic that this made the Bible thumpers there real booze hounds when we traveled into Tennessee. Sort of reenforced my thoughts about 'forbidden fruit'; people want what they can't have!

 

And what they can!

 

I never had much luck in Alabama or Georgia liquor stores when I lived there. YMMV but the few times I found a Bourbon I was interested in it was massively marked up to the point I couldn't really afford it. With prices like that, I began to understand why Moonshine was popular even though the ones I tried didn't taste good to me; might have made a good denatured alcohol substitute for a stove though!

 

Most alcohol stove users in Calif use HEET, which is still very widely available and pretty cheap. I agree it's a bit insane to ban strait methanol in a gallon container, when same chemical is available in 12 oz plastic, as well as a 70/30 mix of methanol/ethanol from REI.
I think the logic is that pure meth was primarily sold as a varnish thinner/remover, and that's what they were trying to stop, since all of it goes strait into the atmosphere and ends up as smog, where as the other forms go into devices (i.e., cars and stoves) that burn them first. Seems a funny sort of way to address the problem though.
As for the ban on wood burning, we are currently under a 3 day "clear the air" ban on wood burning in the SF Bay area, and it's pretty obvious why: all you have to do is drive up into the hills surrounding the valley and take a look down at the sea of grey/brown muck that substitutes for the air we are breathing. This is what results when smoke and other pollutants get trapped by still, cold conditions in a valley and cooked for a few days by UV light from the sun. Maybe not a problem in the open plains or Texas, but a big problem here and in places like LA. Science is a bitch sometimes, but there's no avoiding the laws of chemistry.

 

Sounds like Phoenix on a flight from Las Vegas to Tucson!

I find a few gallons of denatured alcohol versus thousands of cars idling in stop'n'go traffic to be the bigger driver in the air quality concerns. Natural gas home stoves and some firewood burning contribute to the problem but rather insignificantly compared to the volume of gasoline burned in automobiles. I say this as someone who flew into LAX a lot when I lived in Arizona.

3 or 4 hours idling in gridlock were often an issue for me thanks to when my employer let me fly into LAX. Once I got outside of LA, it wasn't too bad. It got so bad, they started flying me out the day before because of the time it took to get the rental car and the hours I spent driving out of LA.

I finally got them to fly me to Las Vegas and I started driving from there. About 100 miles more each way but, significantly faster since those 100 miles were at 80MPH!

 

Aircraft burn a lot more fuel than cars.

 

No arguments there!

That's why I find it comical that ESG advocates fly in private jets to climate meetings. How many times has Kerry flown somewhere to lectures others about living greener?

 

Do as I say, not as I do.

 

@snwcmpr its not 190, sorry bud

 

Sounds like Knob Creek when they lowered the proof of their liquor. The last time I saw some in a liquor store, it was 190 proof but I don't look for Everclear intentionally either.

Is Wild Turkey 151 still 151? Another one I don't drink or shop for intentionally these days.

 

Thanks
I don't drink either. Only asking as a stovie.