Preacher Man
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- Joined
- Jan 28, 2005
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Lately I’ve been considering a Trangia style alcohol stove as a compact, quick, and convenient way to insure a hot meal/drink for my family (specially my kids) in an emergency. For camping or in an emergency at home (power disruption), a butane or dual fuel stove is probably the best option. But one of the issues in survival/emergency preparedness and having a survival minded perspective is keeping at hand the basic tools and equipment needed to deal with a survival/emergency situation.
IMO a Trangia style stove would work well for a small BOB or a car kit. They are small, light, and the fuel alternatives are readily available. One of the problems with alcohol stoves is that alcohol produces only about half the heat of butane or white gas, which translates in longer cooking times. I decided to test it and see for my self if the heat production issue outweighs the portability benefits.
I bought a used Swedish mess kit from the local Omaha’s for $9.95.
Its stove-holder/windshield design allows it to cook using the provided Svea alcohol stove, but it can also be used by burning paper, sticks, acorns, and other small natural materials. Supposedly, the Trangia stove uses fuel more efficiently than the Svea, but how more efficiently is something I don’t know.
This mess kit has a hangable 5 cups pot, a 2 ½ cups small pot that doubles as a frying pan, alcohol stove, windshield/stove holder, and a fuel bottle. The pots seems to be aluminum whille the stove-holder/windshield seem to be steel. All the pieces feel sturdy and well made. The small pot/frying pan's handle has 2 D-rings to insert a stick as a handle extention. The handle also has a rectamgular hole which fits on a protruding section of the large pot. When closed, this serves as a lock, keeping the mess kit and its content secured. The whole thing weights about a pound and the pieces fit within each other forming a closed container with internal space for additional items inside.
The stove and fuel bottle can be carried inside the mess kit, but I would first store them in sealable plastic bags since the most effective fuels for this stove (denatured alcohol and Methyl Alcohol [methanol]) are poisonous. I wouldn’t want to risk contaminating my cooking implements with a poisonous substance. The stove will also work (but less effectively) with other forms of alcohol like isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol), Whiskey, Rum, and others (even a non-drinker knows that there are better uses for Rum and Whiskey, but we are taking about a hypothetical emergency here :
).
If you store the stove and fuel bottle separately, there is enough space in the mess kit for a 2 serves freeze dried meal, a 1 serve freeze dried desert, and several envelopes of instant oatmeal, hot cocoa, and coffee. This makes the 2 ½ cups pot specially useful since most 2 serves freeze dried meals require 2 cups of boiling water to be re-hydrated. This pot has the Svea manufacturer seal on the inside of the pot opposite to the handle, making the seal impossible to miss. Filling the pot with water just over the Svea seal will give you exactly 2 cups.
I tried the stove with two different fuels, Denatured alcohol, and Methyl alcohol (Methanol) to determine if any helped to improve the stove’s efficiency. Denatured alcohol is used as a paint remover and is easily accessible in hardware stores. The easiest and most convenient way to get methanol for this stove is found in the Automotive section at Walmart. The product is called Heet, (don't confuse it with Iso-Heet) and is a fuel line de-icer and water remover which is (as I understand) 100% methanol. Heet comes in a 12 oz. bottle, which is perfect because the fuel bottle provided with the mess kit holds 10 oz., leaving the remaining 2 oz. to be stored in the stove itself (the stove’s cap has an O-ring which seals the stove and allows it to be carried full with a capacity of 3 oz.). Walmart has the cheapest price I’ve found for this product at $1.29.
I used 2 oz. of each fuel and measured the time it took to take 2 cups of water to a boil, to a roaring boil and to fry an egg. My interest in reaching a roaring boil is that although you can re-hydrate freeze dried food with just a boil, it takes 10 minutes of roaring boil to purify water. After each task I cooled the pot in the kitchen sink with running water to make sure that the pre-heated pot was not a factor for the next task.
Both fuels performed similarly, with methanol giving slightly better times and burning hotter. I kept the stove burning during the whole process for each fuel to see if 2 oz. would be enough for several continuous tasks. That amount turned out to be more than enough.
First, I started the stove and observed how quickly the fuel started to burn “right.” Alcohol stoves have to “warm up” before they start working efficiently. Methanol started to burn “right” almost 50 seconds faster than denature alcohol. This could have been the result of using a used stove. I used denatured alcohol first and that first burn could have cleaned deposits left on the stove. Alcohol burns clean, but some people use other fuels in alcohol stoves which don’t burn as clean, and I don't know what was used in this stove before I got it. That been said, methanol’s better starting time is more likely the result of it burning hotter than denatured alcohol as I latter saw when frying the eggs.
Denature alcohol started to boil the 2 cups of water at 5.30 minutes and took it to a roaring boil in 7.40 minutes while methanol took 5.02 minutes to start the boil and 7.10 for a roaring boil.
For frying the egg, I prepared the small pot/frying pan with non-stick spray and butter (I was planning to eat the eggs, so I might as well prepare them the way I like them
). Unlike the Trangia stove, which has a simmer ring (allows you to control the intensity of the stove), the Svea stove only burns on “high.” I thought that would be a big problem for frying, but I was wrong. Denatured alcohol took 3.20 minutes to fry the egg (fully cooked yolk) and it seemed like the egg was in no danger of getting burned. Methanol took 3.04 seconds to fry the egg, by which time the egg was starting to show that if left unattended, it would get burned. This shows that methanol burns hotter that denatured alcohol.
IMO the portability and convenience of alcohol stoves (and the Swedish mess kit in general) far outweighs its slower cooking times. You could get even better performance using methanol with a Trangia stove instead of the Svea. From now on I’ll have one in my BOB and my car kit together with a gallon of distilled water so in case of a breakdown, the kids (and the wife who gets edgy when hungry) will have something warm to eat and drink while waiting for the tow truck.
IMO a Trangia style stove would work well for a small BOB or a car kit. They are small, light, and the fuel alternatives are readily available. One of the problems with alcohol stoves is that alcohol produces only about half the heat of butane or white gas, which translates in longer cooking times. I decided to test it and see for my self if the heat production issue outweighs the portability benefits.
I bought a used Swedish mess kit from the local Omaha’s for $9.95.
Its stove-holder/windshield design allows it to cook using the provided Svea alcohol stove, but it can also be used by burning paper, sticks, acorns, and other small natural materials. Supposedly, the Trangia stove uses fuel more efficiently than the Svea, but how more efficiently is something I don’t know.
This mess kit has a hangable 5 cups pot, a 2 ½ cups small pot that doubles as a frying pan, alcohol stove, windshield/stove holder, and a fuel bottle. The pots seems to be aluminum whille the stove-holder/windshield seem to be steel. All the pieces feel sturdy and well made. The small pot/frying pan's handle has 2 D-rings to insert a stick as a handle extention. The handle also has a rectamgular hole which fits on a protruding section of the large pot. When closed, this serves as a lock, keeping the mess kit and its content secured. The whole thing weights about a pound and the pieces fit within each other forming a closed container with internal space for additional items inside.
The stove and fuel bottle can be carried inside the mess kit, but I would first store them in sealable plastic bags since the most effective fuels for this stove (denatured alcohol and Methyl Alcohol [methanol]) are poisonous. I wouldn’t want to risk contaminating my cooking implements with a poisonous substance. The stove will also work (but less effectively) with other forms of alcohol like isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol), Whiskey, Rum, and others (even a non-drinker knows that there are better uses for Rum and Whiskey, but we are taking about a hypothetical emergency here :
). If you store the stove and fuel bottle separately, there is enough space in the mess kit for a 2 serves freeze dried meal, a 1 serve freeze dried desert, and several envelopes of instant oatmeal, hot cocoa, and coffee. This makes the 2 ½ cups pot specially useful since most 2 serves freeze dried meals require 2 cups of boiling water to be re-hydrated. This pot has the Svea manufacturer seal on the inside of the pot opposite to the handle, making the seal impossible to miss. Filling the pot with water just over the Svea seal will give you exactly 2 cups.
I tried the stove with two different fuels, Denatured alcohol, and Methyl alcohol (Methanol) to determine if any helped to improve the stove’s efficiency. Denatured alcohol is used as a paint remover and is easily accessible in hardware stores. The easiest and most convenient way to get methanol for this stove is found in the Automotive section at Walmart. The product is called Heet, (don't confuse it with Iso-Heet) and is a fuel line de-icer and water remover which is (as I understand) 100% methanol. Heet comes in a 12 oz. bottle, which is perfect because the fuel bottle provided with the mess kit holds 10 oz., leaving the remaining 2 oz. to be stored in the stove itself (the stove’s cap has an O-ring which seals the stove and allows it to be carried full with a capacity of 3 oz.). Walmart has the cheapest price I’ve found for this product at $1.29.
I used 2 oz. of each fuel and measured the time it took to take 2 cups of water to a boil, to a roaring boil and to fry an egg. My interest in reaching a roaring boil is that although you can re-hydrate freeze dried food with just a boil, it takes 10 minutes of roaring boil to purify water. After each task I cooled the pot in the kitchen sink with running water to make sure that the pre-heated pot was not a factor for the next task.
Both fuels performed similarly, with methanol giving slightly better times and burning hotter. I kept the stove burning during the whole process for each fuel to see if 2 oz. would be enough for several continuous tasks. That amount turned out to be more than enough.
First, I started the stove and observed how quickly the fuel started to burn “right.” Alcohol stoves have to “warm up” before they start working efficiently. Methanol started to burn “right” almost 50 seconds faster than denature alcohol. This could have been the result of using a used stove. I used denatured alcohol first and that first burn could have cleaned deposits left on the stove. Alcohol burns clean, but some people use other fuels in alcohol stoves which don’t burn as clean, and I don't know what was used in this stove before I got it. That been said, methanol’s better starting time is more likely the result of it burning hotter than denatured alcohol as I latter saw when frying the eggs.
Denature alcohol started to boil the 2 cups of water at 5.30 minutes and took it to a roaring boil in 7.40 minutes while methanol took 5.02 minutes to start the boil and 7.10 for a roaring boil.
For frying the egg, I prepared the small pot/frying pan with non-stick spray and butter (I was planning to eat the eggs, so I might as well prepare them the way I like them
). Unlike the Trangia stove, which has a simmer ring (allows you to control the intensity of the stove), the Svea stove only burns on “high.” I thought that would be a big problem for frying, but I was wrong. Denatured alcohol took 3.20 minutes to fry the egg (fully cooked yolk) and it seemed like the egg was in no danger of getting burned. Methanol took 3.04 seconds to fry the egg, by which time the egg was starting to show that if left unattended, it would get burned. This shows that methanol burns hotter that denatured alcohol. IMO the portability and convenience of alcohol stoves (and the Swedish mess kit in general) far outweighs its slower cooking times. You could get even better performance using methanol with a Trangia stove instead of the Svea. From now on I’ll have one in my BOB and my car kit together with a gallon of distilled water so in case of a breakdown, the kids (and the wife who gets edgy when hungry) will have something warm to eat and drink while waiting for the tow truck.
