Denatured Alcohol

[SvenG]

First, we love our Origo 6000. Threw out the natural gas stove and pressurized cylinders due to extreme cost ($60 for a 80 cf bottle !).

Did extensive searching and found only one case of an Origo accident and in that case the court found that the dunce tried to fill it from the top while there was a flame.

We do worry about availability when we get to the Caribbean but would worry more about fitting incompatibilities for pressurized gas (propane stateside and butane in Europe), especially as there are proprietary fittings used in some areas.

Originally Posted by READY2GO

I have used the flower pot at least 200 times. From my experience, I don't have a problem with it. If I could afford a $1000.00 heater, I might have a different view. Hard to beat a $1.38 heater. I don't use it or any heater while asleep. Theory is silver, experience is gold. We live on our 25 footer, and use it all the time. To each his own.

The clay pot does not add more heat to the environment, but how the heat is distributed could make it more comfortable. With an open flame virtually all the heat content is distributed with convection. Much of that convected heat will probably go straight out the cracked hatch or other vent (you do have that open, right ?). The convected heat that does not escape out the hatch is distributed by convective drafts which is not very even or comfortable as both cold and warm drafts will be created.

What can make the clay pot effective is indeed that it can distribute a good portion of the heat through radiation instead of mainly convection. The radiated heat will be absorbed and re-radiated by the surfaces that "see" the pot. That radiated heat can indeed be much more comfortable as it will tend to make the heat distribution more uniform and actually reduce the cold drafts that can be created by an open flame.

With all that said, we don't use a clay pot. We put on more sweaters. The flame just adds more humidity to our living quarters and even with two marine C0 detectors we feel better without.



-Sven

[Mark Johnson]

sck5,

In no way did I mean any offense to you or anyone else that choses alcohol. I think that it was in fact the correct choice for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with alcohol for what you are dong, because it is obviously working for you, and you are happy with it's down sides. My apologies if you were offended.

You did, however, miss the spirit of what I was saying, and I was addressing ONLY folks that hadn't yet equipped their boats. All of my information was true, and I have no bias. I was trying to be helpful. If I had a smaller boat, and mostly cruised close to hardware stores, only cruised occasionally and owned a house as well as my boat, I WOULD consider the Origo stove! DEFINITELY!!! It is hands down better than the one that set my first cruising boat on fire 34 years ago! I had a friend with an Origo, and he loved his. (on a 22' boat). It is a fine little stove and fuel source, in that context. That is NOT the context that I was talking about.

If you haven't had a propane stove onboard for over 20 years, you don't know how easy it is to find propane, or how much more convenient it is to use.

You miss quoted me in every case... As a boatbuilder for over 40 years, (and an ABYC member for much of it), I have bought a lot of denatured alcohol, as I used to use it daily as a cleaning solvent. It is in fact available at a lot of hardware stores, all over the US. I never, however, found any within walking distance of my home at the time, The closest small town, or my anchored out boat... (the Eastern Caribbean may be an exception... when I cruised there, I wasn't looking for alcohol). I found Propane everywhere I went, but needed to buy it so rarely. My experience has been that there are a LOT more filling stations carrying propane, within walking distance of anchorages, than there are hardware stores carrying alcohol, by a huge margin. (in numerous transits of the ICW, or all over the Chesapeake)

As a person who has spent all of my land life using propane for heat, I can assure you that the number of people on earth, that regularly use propane, out number those that regularly use denatured alcohol, by an astronomical number. (perhaps 100,000 to 1) PROPANE IS MORE COMMONLY AVAILABLE, especially in third world little towns that need propane to cook, but have NO hardware stores. (like all over the Bahamas or Central America).

I didn't say Alcohol "smelled". I said it had more smell than propane does "once propane is lit." (propane stinks "big time" before it is lit!) I don't consider Alcohol's smell a big deal, and I said so. I would however get the best quality alcohol, just like I only use pure "liquid paraffin lamp oil" in our dinette lantern. Both are quite expensive.

It was test by Practical Sailor, among others, that confirmed that the Origo was not as quick to boil water. Not MY opinion... (During the 21 years I spent building my own 3 cruising boats, To keep enthusiastic about it, I read (on average) 20 magazines, journals, and trade publications a month. Among them was Practical Sailor, which I have received for over 30 years. With the total of all this information being over 5,000 monthly publications, not counting the books, Plus there was all of the ABYC information to "try" to absorb, I can't remember exactly who did this test and who did that test. No, I can't point to a link that will tell you where a lifetime of research and experience came from.

The other mis quote was about "100 X harder"... Obviously I was making generalizations, when I said that: within walking distance of an anchorage, in much of the Bahamas, or Central America, Alcohol was a hundred times harder to find.
This IS true in much of the Bahamas. There are many places that don't have bread or water for sale, but DO sell propane. It is much more available than denatured alcohol, once away from hardware stores. This is doubly true in places like: Isla Mujeres, Mexco... Placencia, Belize... or Fronteres, (up the Rio Dulce), in Guatemala. Propane is more available there too.

I have MANY cruising friends, several circumnavigators... from Panama, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England, Scotland, Canada, as well as up and down the Caribbean. They ALL chose propane, and would agree that it IS more readily available than alcohol, but the real reason that people from all over the world choose propane, is the creature comfort of just flipping a switch, and lighting the fire, along with how nice it is to only need fuel 2 or 3 times a year. When a boat is your only home for many years, these things really matter.

I never said that alcohol took up more space either. This was yet another mis quote. I said IT WAS POSSIBLE. And I qualified my statement... If you compared the required space for my 5 months of fuel, in the form of one 5 gal propane bottle, to your 5 months worth of alcohol, and assume the exact same amount of cooking, I suspect that your fuel supply would need to be more than 5 gallons, and thus larger. I don't really know if it is true or not. Regardless, it is a moot point. It was a hunch.

To the person who was asking for information: The reason most cruisers of the world chose propane over alcohol, is to a degree all of the reasons I gave, but mostly it's just nicer to cook with, across the board. I can assure you that it's not a case of 5 million people "going along with the crowd", like Lemmings marching into the sea.

Sck5... You definitely should not consider Propane, because you consider the system you have to be better for your needs. Thats great! I'm glad it is working out.

NV51... You should DEFINITELY not use propane because you don't feel it is safe. I strongly recommend the Origo stove to you both. BTW, I wouldn't rule out kerosene, or diesel for you guys. Now THAT is an available fuel!

Happy cooking to you all... Mark

[Mark Johnson]

P.S.

Since I see from SvenG that they use Butane in Europe, my use of the word propane, when in the "world wide" context, should've obviously read "Propane or Butane". I assume that my cruiser friends from Europe, did use adaptors and /or new jets to do a minor conversion on this side of the pond. (I never asked.) None had any problems on the east coast or Caribbean, and all used propane on their European built boats. Thanks, SvenG...

BTW...

CNG, now that IS a pain in the ass! Talk about a fuel that is hard to find... M.

[nv5l]

Hi Mark, No worries. I've got an Origo 6000, and like it. I do have a diesel cabin heater, and would have considered a kerosene/diesel stove/oven, but there was no place to add a flue without completely rebuilding the interior. I don't cook much, just coffee, oatmeal, soup, etc., so alcohol consumption (burning that is) shouldn't be a big deal.

I guess I wasn't born with the cooking gene. Now if I could only make a solar still (as in whiskey, not water), that would be really be great...

[Downtothesea]

OK, this can go on forever like the "What is the best anchor?" threads. We all have our opinions and predjudices. If you want propane, install it. If you want alcohol, use it. One parting question: Why aren't there propane filling stations at every marina that sells gasoline and diesel? Could it be because it is just so dangerous and the liability is so great that they all choose not to? In my travels up and down the East coast I don't know of any marinas that sold propane or filled propane tanks! There may be a few that I don't know about but not many do! Hmmm...

[hard aground]

In Canada you have to have a liscence to pump propane. Not sell it, but the guy who actually puts the propane in your tank has to be liscenced. The pump jockey that fills your deisel tank at the marina just needs to have a pulse, and hopefully the common sense not to fill your holding tank with diesel. Perhaps the cost of having people who are capable of filling + the cost of the storage tank + scales etc + insurance for the previous may be the cause of propane not being at marinas.

[Wand]

Originally Posted by hard aground

In Canada you have to have a liscence to pump propane. Not sell it, but the guy who actually puts the propane in your tank has to be liscenced. The pump jockey that fills your deisel tank at the marina just needs to have a pulse, and hopefully the common sense not to fill your holding tank with diesel. Perhaps the cost of having people who are capable of filling + the cost of the storage tank + scales etc + insurance for the previous may be the cause of propane not being at marinas.

That's right and same here. Not many places fill anymore - but you can swap a bottle almost everywhere. Great fuel - for the caravan

[witchcraft]

We love our origo non pressurized with oven. Fuel smells IF you burn Methyl Hydrate, denatured alcohol works way better and is hotter. Does not take us longer to cook than it did on a propane stove when we had ahouse.
Easy to get down the ICW most hardware stores will have denatured alchohol. In the Bahamas we found it in Nassau, in Gregory Town , and at another hardware on Eleuthera. More expensive in those places, so stock up when you find it at a reasonable price.
Propane ( for our bbq) we found ourselves hitchhiking with a tank to a supply place that sometimes did not have any propane.
I currently use denatured alcohol (here in Canada) instead of *boat alcohol* which just has some methyl hydrate added, turning it a nice blue, but does not make it better than plain denatured alcohol. Check out hardware stores for the plain stuff.
Fair Winds

[boatman61]

I always carry both propane and alcohol on board.....
I use both for cooking.... if the recipe calls for it...

[jenny2]

I had them on two boats the last one on my kenner privateer,the stove had to go the fumes were to much. Also expensive to operate and messy to fill, now the Force 10 on my current boat is great if a burner gets blown out with the saftey valves won't let gas escape you have to push the control knob to relite, plus a electric saftey swich just shut it off no worries. On a 30 pound cylnder I can get six months out of a tank, here where my boat is the last time it was filled cost $24.00 not bad and I love to cook, also when its really cold I put a terra cotta flower pot over a small burner upside down to keep the chill off in the galley my 2 cents.