Buying petrol for multifuel stove in UK

[Tinnishill]

The first posting in this thread was a query about using a multi fuel stove in the Western Isles. If you type the name of the island accompanied by the word “shop” into google maps it will give you an idea of the local services; the bigger islands have hardware shops and petrol stations.

The big advantage of a multifuel stove is in the flexibility of supply. It pays to identify every possible fuel and to have practised with it before leaving home, so no surprises. Modern multifuel stoves will burn diesel, which can sometimes be obtained in rural areas with a lot less fuss than petrol. Most farms or crofts will have a supply of “red” tractor diesel for agricultural machines and small boats. If you end up carrying a container of diesel (like the equally smelly paraffin and meths, actually) it pays to have it on the outside of the rest of your kit with the bottle stopper upright. With a pressure stove I have always used solid fuel tablets as the primer.

About gas cartridges. They have an injunction written on them against puncturing them or disposing of them in the normal refuse chain. This injunction is the manufacturers attempt to avoid responsibility for harm from subsequent explosions. Jetboil make a tool called the “Crunchit” specifically for puncturing empty gas cartridges. I use the tin opener on my swiss army knife. Once they have several puncture holes in them and have been vented overnight I stamp on them and drop them in the next recycling bin I pass. Just use some common sense.

How much gas to carry depends on how much cooking you expect to do. If it is just boiling water for instant dehydrated food about 50g per person per day should do. More normal cooking of supermarket type food would be more like 75g per person per day. If the weather is cold you will use more. I expect a Colemans 440g gas cartridge to last 2 people 3 days. Before leaving home with a part used cartridge it helps to have an estimate of how much gas remains in it. I weigh new cartridges to establish the gross weight. A full 440g Colemans cartridge weighs 620g gross, so the metal work weighs 180g. The electronic kitchen scales establish how much gas is left.

Using wood as a fuel can be a lot of effort, probably best suited to something like a Scout camp, where you are feeding a group which is staying put for a few days or to a solo traveler using a volcano kettle and instant dehydrated food. It is entertaining, though.

About DofE use of trangia stoves. The safety incident report that I read described a group who were cooking an evening meal with meths burners. The kid doing the work thought, wrongly, that the burner had flamed out and started to top it up from a fuel bottle without checking first. The flow from the bottle ignited. The kid didn’t drop or chuck the bottle but turned with what was effectively a flame thrower in their hand. After that incident bio-ethanol gel was pushed as a safer alternative; the cooler flames turned meal cooking into an interminable experience and some of the little angels started entertaining themselves by lighting spoonfuls of the fuel and flicking it at each other. A lot of groups have moved on to gas trangias. I have seen a number of flareups from badly managed stoves and have twice seen cartridge valves becoming jammed open, leading to a vast cloud of explosive gas. The DofE safety problem is not related to the equipment, but to the human factors. Inexperienced and time constrained adults are not training the participants to a high enough standard in campcraft or navigation.

Personally, nowadays I tend to use either a meths trangia or a gas spider stove, depending on the activity.

Have fun.

[pjclinch]

Modern multifuel stoves will burn diesel

Prefix "some" to that: do check rather than assume. I think it's the case that the hotter the stove needs to burn to run a fuel (with diesel at about the top of the chain) the more unpleasantly sooty it's likely to be in use. As Tinnishill says, make sure you're familiar with any fuel you use from practise rather than learning the hard way at a hard time.

Pete.

[PDQ Mobile]

Tinnishill.^

I agree with most of the post, except that diesel smells as bad as"paraffin or meths".

Meths soon evaporates and leaves little residue and to my nose paraffin smells a lot nicer than diesel.
Diesel stinks and if you get it on anything it takes for ever and a day to get rid of the smell.

Paraffin does eventually disappear.
Paraffin burns better in most stoves IMV.

For my money good old fashioned paraffin still takes some beating as a camping fuel esp for long cooking and winter camping.
Others prefer petrol and it's easy availability is certainly a plus over ever rarer paraffin.

Gas for a super quick roadside brew also IMV the best.
A multi-fuel stove enables this flexibility.
And the two fuels can be combined by a sensible and careful user, (see my longer post upthread).

[SA_SA_SA]

...about DofE use of trangia stoves. The safety incident report that I read described a group who were cooking an evening meal with meths burners. The kid doing the work thought, wrongly, that the burner had flamed out and started to top it up from a fuel bottle without checking first. The flow from the bottle ignited. The kid didn’t drop or chuck the bottle but turned with what was effectively a flame thrower in their hand....

Do the DoE not use the spring loaded Trangia fuel bottles? I presumed the spring was to (hopefully/usually/most of the time) cut off the flow when the above happened, as presumably flame would make most loosen their grip on the plunger?

[pjclinch]

...about DofE use of trangia stoves. The safety incident report that I read described a group who were cooking an evening meal with meths burners. The kid doing the work thought, wrongly, that the burner had flamed out and started to top it up from a fuel bottle without checking first. The flow from the bottle ignited. The kid didn’t drop or chuck the bottle but turned with what was effectively a flame thrower in their hand....

Do the DoE not use the spring loaded Trangia fuel bottles? I presumed the spring was to (hopefully/usually/most of the time) cut off the flow when the above happened, as presumably flame would make most loosen their grip on the plunger?

"The D of E" is an award scheme backed by an organisation that has a recommended kit list, but that's not the same as everyone doing it uses the same stuff. When my daughter did a bronze expotition last year they were using can-top gas stoves (at least one of the groups had "these can be quite unsteady with a loaded pan on top!" as part of their Learning Experience...).

Pete.

[ambodach]

I use paraffin for things other than camping. I doubt that it is sold from a bulk supply nowadays. I buy 5 lt. bottles but is also available in smaller containers.