Re: [at-l] alcohol vs dry gas

[Tim Hewitt <thewitt@fairchildsemi.com>]

Skeeter wrote: 
> 
> A short recap on a note I passed to the PCT list. I just got the small
> Trangia. My first test was using dry gas, and it boiled two cups of water
> in just short of 5 minutes, but with very high yellow flames that left an
> oily residue on the bottom of the pot. Test two I used denatured alcohol,
> and it took eight minutes to boil the water, but with a nice blue flame and
> no residue. My tenative conclusion is that the dry gas had some petroleum
> products in it. There was a tip on the pct-l about mixing 10% water in to
> tame the flames, I haven't tried this. Just saying be careful, 'cause the
> labels don't say what's in the bottles.

The dirty burn was isopropyl alcohol. It probably also had acetone in it -
apparently this is a common mix.  I found as you did, that these burned hot but
very dirty. I was willing to wait the extra few minutes.

There are three kinds of gas line driers that I found on the trail:

  isopropyl alcohol based
  methanol based
  petroleum based

DON'T BURN THE PETROLEUM.

Did I shout that loud enough?  Depending on how strong the mix, you could have
an awful explosion.

Most of the methanol or methol alcohol based ones burn very clean - it's the
bulk of what I burned on my thru. They come in 12oz containers that make for
fine fuel carriers and are widely available.

I never had to buy at the hardware store in bulk and leave fuel behind.

Easy to find, most stores that carry one kind carry all three.

-Paddler
GA>ME Class of 99
http://wcha.org/hike
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