[pct-l] Alcohol fuel consumption, windscreen

["Joanne Lennox" <goforth@cio.net>]

When I first started using my Sigg Alcohol stove on my thruhike, I started
with a smaller windscreen (two pop can sides stapled together).  Later I
replaced it with a bigger screen made of very light aluminium with lots of
small holes in it ( Boeing surplus, looked like circuit board).  It fit
tightly around my titanium pot and left an inch hole on one side.

As the weather warmed, the stove was getting quite hot.  The flame was red
and would fill up the space inside the screen, and spurt out the inch
opening.  If I took the pot off, it would made a shwoosing sound and get
larger.  Later I realized that my alcohol consumption had almost double and
if anything, the pot was boiling slower.

I pulled the screen away from the pot edge. So there was more oxygen
getting to the flame.  The flame was smaller, just under the pot and blue. 
A quart of water would boil in about 6 minutes.   I halved my alcohol
consumption.  As the weather started to get cool again, I still needed to
give the flame plenty of space and oxygen.  the weather was not really the
influencing factor, but the size of my windscreen and its position.

My sense is that the esbit tablets burn much cooler, and probably need a
tighter trim on the windscreen.  the thing that I did not like about the
Esbit tablets were their smell.  I wondered about the toxicity of the fumes
they produce (Uh-UH, more of those nasty toxic chemicals. ).  I kept away
from HEET with it methyl alcohol content, but realized that denatured
alcohol is somewhat toxic (it is denatured with methanol).  One is
basically choosing the lesser of various evils in choosing stove fuels, and
the Esbit thing was simply an unknown for me.

BTW, after the stove had burned out, I was also caping it and putting it
inside my clothing or bag as a hand warmer.

Goforth
. 

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