Alcohol Stove

[Cindy1010]

Hi everyone-Need some help. I am moving aboard our 30' bayliner and it has an alcohol sotve. Can anyone tell me what kind of alcohol this stove burns and where I might find it. (hope this is not a dumb question but just want to be safe)

Thanks for any help.

Cindy

[Cheechako]

you can buy it a west marine, or usually any hardware store that sells camping gear.

[Hudson Force]

You can buy the can of ethanol cheaper at many other places than West Marine. Ethanol is ethanol! Be careful not to assume that guests on board will know how to operate your stove. When we had an alcohol stove we had two fires on board when people tried to light our stove in the manner that one would light a propane stove. They didn't know about the preheating and they spilled burning liquid alcohol over the burner. 'take care and joy, Aythya crew

[anjinsan]

alcohol floats on the surface of water..and burns while floating if ignited......but it is a slow burn....still, enough to ignite curtains or other flammable materials near by.

[anjinsan]

Oh..sorry..the reason I say this is..if the alcohol is not sufficiently heated to disperse for cooking..it will leak out in liquid for and collect in the bottom of the stove. So..you get a bit of a fire in your stove..and what do you do? Throw water on it...."WRONG" all you get is burning water...very exciteing!!

[FrankZ]

Is this a pressurized or non pressurized stove? They light differently.

You can go to your local hardware store and get Klean Strip paint thinner (denatured alcohol) and use that. It is the same thing WM sells and is about a quarter the price.

Oddly WM sells the Klean strip by the gallon for half the price if it is in the "stove fuel" bottle.

[raisin56]

Home centers sell it, try Home Depot or Lowes. It is in the paint department with the paint thinners and strippers. They say right on the label that the are for alcohol stoves.

[senormechanico]

Chuck it and get propane.

Steve B.

[nautical62]

Originally Posted by FrankZ

Is this a pressurized or non pressurized stove? They light differently....

This is a really good point. They are functionally very different though I don't like either. I spent a lot of money rebuilding a pressurized alcohol stove and threw it out after the first use. The non pressurized ones (Origo) don't scare me, I just find them very inefficient. They are slow and the the three I've owned had serious problems with the alcohol evaporating.

I'm about to rip out the current alcohol stove/oven on one boat I own and replace it with a propane camp stove.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by FrankZ

... You can go to your local hardware store and get Klean Strip paint thinner (denatured alcohol) and use that...

In Canada, we buy it as “methyl-hydrate”, which is sold as gas line anti-freeze.

Originally Posted by senormechanico

Chuck it and get propane.

Originally Posted by nautical62

They are functionally very different though I don't like either. I spent a lot of money rebuilding a pressurized alcohol stove and threw it out after the first use...
... I'm about to rip out the current alcohol stove/oven on one boat I own and replace it with a propane camp stove.

Indeed!

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

Chuck it and get propane.

Steve B.

A safe propane system for a boat is a pretty complicated and expensive proposition. It is truly a better system, but he would be looking at $2K or more. My stove alone would be over $1K, then there's the propane locker, the monitor, and the hoses and gauges. "Chuck it and get propane" is probably not an option for the OP, at least not a serious one.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by nautical62

........

I'm about to rip out the current alcohol stove/oven on one boat I own and replace it with a propane camp stove.

See my post above.

[MarkJ]

As the original poster hasn't been on the forum since July may I mention clearly how dangerous Metho, or alcohol stoves are....

On our first family boat when I was about 13 or 14 (it was an Endeavour 26 for the Aussies) and one weekend the 5 of us piled in for the weekend at Store Beach, Sydney harbour.
Mum was lighting the Metho (Alcohol) stove and something went wrong and the metho didnt vaporise but leaking liquid alcohol started burning and, well, leaking.

Being men, and Mum being a dozy bitch, we shoved her out of the way and grabbed for the fire extinguishers. We had 3 dry chemical extinguishers: Dads was first and squirted white powder dramatically at the increasing flames. As that ran out I put mine into action: More like an 80 year old bloke having his midnight piddle. Dad grabbed the last one and it did the same as mine! At this time the flames decided they had won and shot up towards the cabin roof. So we yelled and screamed a bit. Then Mum calmly stepped between us and dropped a blanket over the whole stove putting the fire out instantly but non-dramatically.

There are two morals to the story:
1) Don't have an alcohol (metho) stove
2) When you upstage men doing hero stuff you will still have to scrape their white stuff off the walls.


Mark

[David M]

I think it is safe to say that if you have the money, get rid of the relatively dangerous alcohol stove. Otherwise, be super careful and always have a fire extinguisher handy when using your stove.

[FSMike]

Mark -
The only time I've used a fire extinguisher on board was to put out an alcohol stove fire. It was a pressurized version that decided to spring a leak after I had pumped it up and lit it. It got quite exciting for a minute. Fortunately the first extinguisher I grabbed worked but what a hell of a mess to clean up!

By the way, does everybody know to turn their extinguishers upside down and beat them with a rubber/plastic mallet once a month to prevent the fire suppressant from settling into a solid non-functioning mass?

Or, if you're like me, have you actually remembered to do it this month?

Excuse me, I have to run a brief errand.