[at-l] Re: A watched pot....

[orangebug74@yahoo.com (Orange Bug)]

A chemist will get all the details correct, but there is a point in a
flame that is hottest. If you look at a candle flame, you will notice
several sections of the flame beginning with a clear area around the
wick, a blue flame, a bit of white and then the cooler yellow flame.
The hottest portion is just where the transition zone is between the
blue and the yellow. 

There is a similar hot part of the flame with alcohol. There is also
the problem with a large fairly clear flame, air turbulence and exhaust
of gases. If the pot is too close to the flame, either it will be
extinguished from lack of air or in too cool a part of the flame. Too
high results in getting too cool, also. Since the alcohol burns fumes,
the flame stays fairly constant until the fuel is about exhausted. 

Isopropyl just doesn't work as there is water in it which uses up a
good portion of heat to be converted to steam. The "preheating" helps
get more fumes going to start the damn thing, but that is where the
TinCanMan stove begins to shine with an open center section open to the
fuel. My experiments with these stoves leaves the distance about 1.5
inches, or closer to 3.74 cm. 

Bill...


--- Leslie Booher <lwbooher@halifax.com> wrote:
> I think there's some relationship between the pot and the top of the
> stove in terms of maximum and minimum separation.  What I think I'm
> trying to say is that you can get the pot TOO close to the stove.  

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