: Roberto,

: Your ski camping buddies from Manitoba have been using these for 10
: years. On oru last winter camping trip, you were too busy doing
: quality control sampling on the brandy supply to notice we were
: melting snow for drinking water using a pop can alcohol stove.

My bad, you are right, I didn't notice. Was that brandy some of Sean's extra strong home-made or something? I gotta make some of that. Busy making the wine right now. Made a nice German Reisling that came out fairly strong, can only get through a couple of glasses before it's nap time. I will bring some with me for the ski trip in March. I got a nice batch of heavy bodied red in a carbouy right now. It should be wicked good by March, will bottle that in December. Cultural exchanges are always fun

: On slow nights in the lab over the years I've used a laser
: themometer and tested a bunch of designs. It seems the smaller
: you can make the burner holes the faster it will bring water to
: a boil. I punch 3 small holes in the concave bottom of the can
: used for the burner and use those a fill holes rather than
: punching a large fill hole, and lots of really small holes in
: the rim of the can used for the burner. I think as the can
: heats, the alcohol boils, and pressurizes the vaporised alcohol
: to a degree, causing more heat output. Ethanol works best and
: you can drink your stove fuel in a pinch :) Just don't confuse
: you naptha and your ethanol!

Smaller holes = better fuel/air mix. I should try to make one. I am still using my rather expensive Dragonfly stoves..yep, I have two of them now. Once they get too old, I will do the sauce can/ethanol thing. It's fairly easy to tell naptha from ethanol and what the heck would I be doing with naptha anyways? The stuff stinks and tastes horrible.

Robert N Pruden