This is an easy to make alcohol stove. I took an aluminum bottle and cut it in two places. Top and bottom using a sharp razor blade. Just two pieces. Top fits into bottom and rests on an inner lip
After about a thousand videos, I have come to the conclusion that an alcohol stove is the union of any vessel that will hold alcohol with any stand strong enough to hold a pot. The rest is just us tech lovers tweaking the basic stove more and more.
+tom jackson Well, some burn a heck of a lot better than others, and some are far more fuel efficient than others. Unfortunately, you can almost never tell this from videos. You have to try the stoves yourself. Once you do, you'll find a lot of difference in how they burn, and just how well they work.
And everyone has different pots. I'm researching ideas to make a perfect stove for my Toaks 550 pot. I have the Fancy Feast Stove for certain occasions, a nice lightweight DIY wood stove for other occasions. Now I need just one more...always one more. And I have to try the tea-light capillary stove too! If it will make six bubbles in 15 oz of water before going out it'll be perfect for when I just want coffee water.
I've recently made quite a few different style stoves very similar to this one. My best ideas: (1) I cut the threads off the top of the bottle because they're a fairly heavy part of the bottle. I leave a portion of flange for strength and to get the widest base possible. (2) I use a Fancy Feast can as the base because it's smaller diameter and thinner aluminum. ...more weight savings. And I still cut it down to the shorter size that you did. (3) I drill four tiny vent holes near the bottom of the pot support, lower than the rim of the reservoir bottom. Not putting in vent holes can be bad and cause fuel to 'burp' out. (4) I cut my pot stand a bit larger than the fuel reservoir and put in crimps to reduce the size so it slides in easily, then I reach through the pot support hole and flatten out the crimps so it is a solid stove. I just don't like the idea of two independent pieces of stove. There's no real reason here, just personal preference. (5) I found that in the cold it can be hard to get this style stove primed. I fixed that by adding a four very tiny pieces of carbon felt in between four of my crimps so there's some exposed wick to help vaporize fuel sooner than with just the open bath of fuel. I got mine down to 10 grams and it works great! I'm still working on improvements, but this style stove is great! I plan to post a video of my setup soon.
I keep coming back to this video because it meets what I think are the important features of an alcohol stove: simplicity, efficiency, practicality. It is super simple to make, compact and durable to pack and carry, AND it heats water as fast as any of the other lightweight alcohol stoves I have viewed on RU-vid or made myself. It's faster than most of them, actually. Personally, I'd rather use an ounce or even two ounces if it means I don't have to wait 8 or even 10 (!) minutes to heat my 2 cups of water!! What's the point of saving a half ounce of fuel if your cooking time more than doubles! This is my next DIY stove, and may well be my last. Very well done. Cheers!
Nice design. Fun to experiment with different configurations. I think you'd need something to stabalize your pot, though. In wind, it'll topple the pot, as you know. And you can cut to the boiling point. Most people won't think you cheated on the boil times. Looks like a good cooker and water boiler. Not too fast. Stoves that boil water in the three to four minute range, you can't cook with them easily. I usually carry two with me. One for boiling water, one for simmering. Easy. Good little vid.
I made this and added a 2" tall wire pot stand for stability. It boiled 2 cups of water using 1oz of Heet fuel in a 12cm IMUSA mug with a lid in 5 minutes. Great stove. Thanks for posting this and sharing your knowledge.
I converted my backpacking cook pans from side handles to hoop handles(drill 2 holes add a wire hoop handle, removed side handles) so they can be suspended over the flame. That way impossible to spill. Food in the dirt is a sin for hikers. Anyway I like this new burner design you created. Good job. I'm going to make one.
Thanks. was super easy. I was looking for something different and just tried it out. seems to work well but I do use it with a pot stand and wind guard now
I have seen alot of vedios of alkohol stove and make so many stoves my self but let me tell that this is the best design and so simple I will make this soon.Thank you bro for sharing.God bless you from India.🙏
Irrespective of some of the comments, simplicity of design gets high grades! Wonder though if using the narrow dia top for the holding surface is safe enough? Perhaps a conjunction with a separate holder upper might be wise? Just ??
Good simple stove only just a bit unstable, if it went over the fire would spread if in a tent might be a problem. I ride motorcycles and camp along the road or if on trails. Often raining and if in the highlands it snows. Maybe if you made the two halves press together tight stuffed with fibreglass insulation. What if the base can be the same height as the centre but on the outer/base have 8 small triangle cut outs or drilled holes around the top so the pot is siting on the outer as well as the centre. Obviously small nicks in the area of the base so the fuel can get to the fire zone.
@digitizer101 Thanks. glad you like it. I couldnt beleive it boils water so well. I have stoves that took me forever to make and this one , so far, preforms better.
It's great to experiment with these. There are several tweaks I would try with your basic design. You could make the bottom half taller so that is becomes a larger pot stand. It also might concentrate the flames towards the middle of the pot. probably have to add a couple small holes or slits in the bottom part for some air flow. thanks
The last couple of weeks, I've been building, and buying all the Stoves and accessories I can find, once everything is collected, I plan to do a Video or more on the best of everything that I've found, like best stoves for boiling, which so far is my homemade capilary stove, it boils in under 4 minutes, next is the rolled aluminum at around 6 or so mins. next category, longest burning stove for simmering, baking and such, so far the ALOCS stove which looks exactly like the Trangia but I think it's better, ran for 1 hour and 10 mins with the smmier ring, just over half closed, nothing comes close to that, best overall, for both the Fancy Feast, also I will do all other categories, like the best STove Stand, best Pots, and accessories and windscreens, so in the next 2-3 weeks, I will be testing all that and making some videos. Take care.
This is very close to an idea I'm considering. This is the closest I've seen to what I want to do. The narrow top (pot stand) is what I'm really wanting, as well as a reliable 2-cup boil in my Toaks 550 with a half ounce of fuel. Seeing the flame shape this stove makes really makes me think I may be on to something.
Like I said, it's a great, simple, fast, easy way to make a pretty good stove because the cone gets alot of heat along it's length and that really makes it vaporize alot of fuel, and it brings the flame right up to the bottom of the water can.
the beer bottle top funnels the flame like a torch -- any little way to make it more focused is good. wind can alter the base of the flame, so i might use the beer bottle top inside my regular trangia, maybe inside a solo stove and an outside windscreen
cool! the only thing that might be a bit concerning is how the pot is resting on such a small diameter surface. But I think that could be fixed by making a pot stand out of hardware cloth that is just a hair below the bottom of the pot as it rests on the stove. That way if you were to bump it while in use, the hardware cloth "stand" would catch it and keep it from falling completely over.
Thank you. We like it. Simple design, with rapid heating (only 4 min to boil). Now for a more stable pot stand to use with this stove. Walmart sells stainless steel round silverware drainer (about 4"×6") full of holes. Steel wire tent pegs thru holes holds stove below, & pot above. Access door cut into side opposite seam needed? Test?
I'm not sure of your opinion of this stove in comparison to your others. Seems there is a lot of wasted heat simply disipating away which makes for quite an inefficent unit. Seems to heat quickly due to the Large flame front, But at what cost in fuel. I think you would agree there are much better units that can be made. However you did only say this is a quick and easy stove to make, and that it is. Regards, Bob
I often make stoves when I'm backpacking and want as little weight as possible in my rucksack. One method is a coke can. Cut in half. Holes in bottom for air intake and slits on the top for flame. Fuel. Fire lighters. Light. Good fuel. Easy ignition. After it heats up the flame is blue and not in can...pop cans and fire lighters and craft knife essential camping gear..very cheap and binned after use...(recycled) ;-)
@erichoward15 I dont really know. Some would probably say yes. To me it doesnt seem to take a whole lot. I am sure there are more efficient stoves out there. I have used this as my stove for two camping tips so far and it works great. All i use it for is to boil water and so far so good. I will try to see how much fuel it takes to boil two cups. glad you like it.
@wwhermit That was the first test I had ever done with this stove so I dont really know. I think If this would be the design to go with after a while you would get a feel of how much to use and there really wouldnt be a lot left over to dump out. You can always get a larger cup or container of some sort to put over the top of it and snuff it out.when you are done. Then pour the rest out when it has cooled off. Thanks for watching
You need a vent neat the very top, or you will have alcohol spurting out of the bottom cup. You also need to permanently attach the top part to the bottom, o you will eventually lose one part. I would suggest using J.B. Weld. This design is the same principle of the catfood-can stove.
Interesting but unfortunately those Al bottles are not available over here in the Antipodes. Pity the out side can't be cut with holes and slots so it extends to the same height as the inner to make a more stable surface to put the pot on.
where do you pour the alcohol? You hand was blocking the stove while pouring, so I wasn't sure if you were pouring into the bottle top or into the base. And do to fill it up to the brim?
This will be perfect for my Trans America bike ride! Have you experimented with both isopropyl alcohol and denatured alcohol ? Which burns cleaner and or hotter?
watching the whole video was nice, i know it sounds weird but watching those last 7 minutes of the water boiling was very relaxing to me.😅 dont know why.
Omfg wow thank you thats freakin awesome!! I've been experimenting with alcohol stoves the past week.. I like my design off the 2nd top i made. Its not open, using the bottom of a pop can i put a gromet in the middle with 8 slits around the radius like a sun and it needs help to get to full flame (like a little bunson burner) but it does go with a little tilting lol...shitty-good i know. Only thing im getting to is that i have fiberglass insulation stuffed in mine, have you tried using insulation in and of your many stove desgins i see on the shelf there? Do you like it if yes? I feel like it sustains the flame longer, would you try it in this design?
Glad you like it 💪💪 I did try insulation. I ended up not using it because it smelled a little and got crunchy sort of with a few burns. I liked the idea of less to make it work. I wasn't worried about spilling. I guess insulation could help if it were to spill over...if you're running a closed stove a primer pan helps them work a lot better
I think as soon as I finish this beer I'm going to make one of these. Out of curiosity how long will this burn and how do you extinguish it (I have exactly 0 experience with alcohol stoves)
It's so diff. For each set up. Depends on what pot you use,windscreen,conditions. You really need a lot of heat concentrated on your pot bottom. You need a flame that really wants to burn for a fast boil
since the top or inner can sits above the bottom of the outer can,presumably to allow fuel to the outside,would it not be a more stable platform if the inner part bottomed out on the outer but had some notches to allow fuel to pass?
I think its Awesome- Easy to make and Very efficient ...only need a pot stand...4 min on a really small amount of fuel excellent!......very compact..perfect
