[pct-l] question re-fuel for Caldera Cone System Stove

[Dan Jacobs]

On Feb 19, 2013 5:27 PM, "Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes" <
diane at santabarbarahikes.com> wrote:
>
> HEET is just a gas line anti-freeze sold in gas stations. It's mostly
> methanol. The other fuel for an alcohol stove is denatured alcohol,
> sold in the paint department of hardware stores. It's also methanol.

Yes, mostly, kinda.

Yellow bottle HEET is 99% methanol, 1% proprietary ingredients. Red bottle
HEET uses isopropyl alcohol, which didn't burn as clean as methanol.
Denatured alcohol is usually ethanol with methanol added at some percentage
as a denaturant, or poison, to discourage ingestion of the ethanol for
recreational or medicinal purposes. A small amount of methanol ingested can
make you very sick. Ingest enough, and you will die. Get singer on your
skin, however, and you shouldn't experience anything more than some mild
irritation, if even that.

I have found that using Google to search for (brand name) (product name)
MSDS will get me the MSDS sheet that contains enough information to find
out how much of what ingredients are in certain fuels. Zenstoves is also a
good resource of information on fuels (Google Zenstoves, can't remember
exactly how the address is worded at this moment).

>From what I can find, ethanol has more energy than methanol, so I am using
that in my experiments to find or make what I want for a backpacking stove.
So far, the cat can stove had been the easiest to make and operate, and my
cats seem to be enjoying the variety of foods they have been getting during
this time. :-)

Dan Jacobs
Washougal