Mt. San Jacinto Outdoor Recreation

A lot of people are going ultralight these days, and frequently that includes trying out an alcohol stove. In this week's blog post, I try to answer "What's the Best Alcohol for Stove Fuel?"

HJ

Not to get too picky here, but in the interest of preventing someone from trying to drink it, all 'lab-grade' ethanol that I;ve ever worked with is denatured alcohol, and is typically denatured with 5% - 50% methanol (sometime a little MEK or MBK, too) to make it poisonous so you can't drink it. What you're probably thinking about is 'medical/USP grade' alcohol, or 'food grade' alcohol, which is ethanol spiked with a little bit of water that can be used as a food or pharmaceutical additive.

I made an alcohol stove once. Was surprised how sooty it made my pot. Never used it again.

-Florian

phydeux wrote:Not to get too picky here, but in the interest of preventing someone from trying to drink it, all 'lab-grade' ethanol that I;ve ever worked with is denatured alcohol, and is typically denatured with 5% - 50% methanol (sometime a little MEK or MBK, too) to make it poisonous so you can't drink it. What you're probably thinking about is 'medical/USP grade' alcohol, or 'food grade' alcohol, which is ethanol spiked with a little bit of water that can be used as a food or pharmaceutical additive.

I think it's a pretty good idea to check the MSDS any time you consider imbibing anything not intended for human consumption. Drinking denatured alcohol can lead to blindness and death.

HJ

Florian wrote:I made an alcohol stove once. Was surprised how sooty it made my pot. Never used it again.

-Florian

What kind of alcohol were you using? Sounds like you might have been using isopropanol.

HJ