Alcohol stove and GSI minimalist cookset

[rclouse79]

After a lot of playing around I have come up with a light weight cook set for backpack hunting that I am pretty happy with. I have gotten so many great ideas and advice on this site over the years I thought I would share for those who might be interested.

 

First here is the outside of the pot I bought. It is a GSI minimalist, which sells for $24 at Sportsmans Warehouse. It has a 0.6 liter capacity. The main reason I like it is has a cozy which lets it serve as a pot, bowl, and mug. It comes with a cool orange silicone pot grabber and spork.

 

Here is a view of everything packed. It fits quite nicely, but there is not much room to spare. I am also going to add a handful of strike anywhere matches.

 

 

The top of the 4 oz Nalgene bottle fits perfectly inside the stove, which fits just barely inside the pot. I cut off an old wool sock to put around the windscreen so it does not scratch the inside of the pot. I put superglue around where I cut the sock to keep it from coming unraveled. After a lot of searching at the store I found two 1.7 oz shampoo bottles for fuel that fit perfectly. Taking all of the fuel bottles I have enough to cook two cups of water four times for Mt. House, and heat up two cups of water for coffee or tea four times. If you wanted to forego hot drinks you could make Mt. House 7 times before running out of fuel. I am sure on most of these Coues hunts you will probably be starting with warm water, and could actually get away with using less fuel. There are faster stoves out there, but one of the things I like about the alcohol stove is you can bring the amount of fuel needed for the trip. If you know you are only going out two nights, fill up the 4 oz container and leave the others in your truck. These stoves are also stupid lightweight, and have no moving parts which might break.

 

 

I made the windscreen out of aluminum duct material from Lowes. You can pick up a big tube for $5. I folded each end over twice to make a latch to hold the windscreen together. I made to give about a ½ inch of clearance around the pot and made it tall enough so it would fit inside the pot and still leave enough room for the pot lid to close. I drilled ¼ inch holes in the bottom for air flow, but recommend a metal punch if you have it.

 

If you type bud light alcohol stove in youtube there are a couple good videos that show you exactly how to make it. To operate the stove you simply pour denatured alcohol in the center and light it on fire. After 30 seconds to a minute the fuel in the outer chamber will get hot enough and jets will flame out of the holes. At this point you set the pot directly on top of the can. I actually made a few different types of stoves (that has been my addiction this past week). When you watch a video the person who made it will tell you the number of holes for the most efficient stove. The thing they don’t take into account is the optimal number of holes is determined by the pot size. The less holes you have the bigger the flame jet will be. One BL stove I made had the recommended 19 holes. I found that when I used this with my tiny GSI pot the flames shot past the outer edge of the pot, and one oz of denatured alcohol would only get cold water to 130 degrees. This exact same stove will boil water on a large diameter pot in 4:30. I tested another stove with 32 holes on the gsi pot and found it would get the two cups of cold water in the GSI pot to 180 degrees with one oz of fuel. I was still seeing flames come out over the bottom of the pot so I decided to make a stove with 40 holes. This seemed to work perfectly. When viewing the pot at night there was a nice blue glow coming out from the windscreen, but no flames were dancing up the side of the pot. I am sure 40 is most likely not the optimal number of holes, but I was able to get water to 200 degrees with 1 oz of fuel which is good enough for me.

One trick I came up with for drilling the holes is to take the circumference of the bud light aluminum bottle and divide it by the number of holes. Then I drew a straight line the correct distance below the top of the can on a piece of paper and put marks at the correct spacing using a pair of calipers. The holes are not perfect, but are close enough for government work. I had some trouble finding these bottles, but finally located them at Walgreens.

I don’t know if anybody will feel like playing around with alcohol stoves but if so be warned that it is fun and addicting. I plan on taking this setup on my elk hunting trip this October.

[mp_moody]

I have a similar setup but use an MSR Pocket Rocket. This means I need to carry a small fuel canister (extra few ounces). Boils water much faster than alcohol stoves. Not quite as compact as your setup, but gets the job done as well.

[fatbastard]

I made a bunch of those little stoves too. I liked them, but ended up just buying one of the titanium Vargo stoves at Summit Hut because it is half the size of any venom can stove I ever made and probably ten times more durable. I use the minimalist cookset too.

 

I might be moving the vargo stove to a backup soon. Just picked up one of the Emberlit stoves. I have not tested it yet. I am excited about not having to carry any fuel at all though.