Make an Ultralight Alcohol Stove (16g)

I grew up with Trangia for base-camping and so know how reliable they can be. My early backpacking days were spent cooking on gas and I like that too. In fact I still like the modern light gas stoves and the mini-canisters. However in the quest for Ultra Light I started to look once more at alcohol stoves because they are so big in America. I've now worked my way through five commercial very small alcohol stoves and have been happy with none of them for various reasons.

My biggest annoyances have been around how difficult some of them are to use and how unreliable they are at getting stuff boiling in typical for me UK conditions where the ground is cold and wet and so is much everything else. For my 2008 Ridgeway trip I took with me a home-built Alcohol stove (this one) that I was happy with. It was light and reliable and fuel efficient.

In 2009 for my second Offa's Dyke trip I left it at home and took with me a commercial Alcohol Jet stove which had tested OK in the kitchen. In real-world conditions it let me down and was frustrating to use - I'd get the jets firing up nicely, put the cup on top and then it would fizzle out. Somehow it wasn't able to maintain temperature with damp cold air and damp cold ground soaking away heat from it. I eventually gave up on it (resorting to Esbit which I also carried) and when I came to major town bought everything I needed to make this stove - it's that easy!

This stove will boil a cup of water reliably using less than 15g of fuel if used with a suitable stand and windshield. That's about as good as it gets for Alcohol. What really helps is that this stove has no preheat and so from the moment you light it all the heat goes straight into the water it's meant to be heating.

The other great thing about this stove is that you don't have to burn all the fuel (it only holds 19g anyway). Instead, the thing can be packed away with some fuel still in it and the lining will retain the fuel.

The stand is a separate optional project in the form of the Ultralight multi-fuel Stove; three tent pegs can be used as a stand....

Materials Required

• Glass Fibre Tissue
• Aluminium Mesh
• Fuse Wire or other exposed wire
• Small metal Tin
• Scissors

All the shots of construction were taken for the version I made whilst on a trip. The Glass Fibre and Mesh can be found in any car store and the small metal tin for me was a 'personal' 2" Vaseline tin bought at a Chemist for £1. For this project I used a Leatherman Micra to cut everything - it works but bigger scissors will help.

Construction 1

• Unfold the tissue and cut 1 strip which is slightly wider than your tin.
• Use the tin as a guide to concertina the strip to build a bundle
• Draw around the tin on the bundle
• Cut around the line so that you end up with a handful of circles
• Cut as many strips as you need to fill the tin
• Finally place all the pieces together and tie together with wire. The wire will help limit expansion and keep everything neat after lots of use!

Construction 2

• Cut a small square of Aluminium Mesh that is maybe twice the dimensions of your pad.
• Fold the mesh around the pad to form a sandwich or a wrapped biscuit with the folds on the same side as the exposed wires
• Trim surplus mesh. The goal is leave a nice smooth top surface

Construction 3

• Place the bundle in the tin

Using it!

This style of stove is very easy to use. You simply pour fuel into a cold stove until it's clearly visible. You then light it.

The alcohol pad and the mesh both help to stop the alcohol boiling away and so instead you get a controlled burn of all the fuel. When your water is ready you can simply blow the stove out or drop the lid onto it and you are done!