Cycling UK Forum

Thanks for replying paula. I will stick with the meths if it lasts longer. I use a squirty bottle like the hand sanitiser comes in to fill the stove with meths you have more control over how much you put in the stove and lessens the risk of spillage.

nick12 wrote:Bought some 80% alcohol (ethanol) hand sanitiser today.£1-29 for 100ml thought I'd give it a go in my popcan stove. It took about 10 seconds to prime but burnt well. It's sold in many places at the moment and could be useful if you have run out of meths and need fuel on tour and can't find any meths.
Tried some 70% alcohol which burnt but not hot enough to prime the stove sufficiently for the flame to come out of the jets. It would work in a trangia but be slow at boiling water.
The information on the bottle says danger flammable and then says wash hands and exposed skin after handling.

Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but was it hand sanitiser that the instructions on the bottle said to "wash hands and exposed skin after handling"?

Yes that's what it says

PDQ Mobile wrote:I spilled the meths because it was hot sunny early eve - slanting sun.
I stopped for a quick roadside brew.
Primed and pumped the stove and I thought the meths had burned away but the stove still flared.

So I added more meths!
The sun perhaps hiding any flame.
The new meths caught instantly.
And the small plastic meths container was aflame too.
Snatching my hand away resulted in flaming meths on the skin and all the spilled burning meths on a dry woodland floor!
Almost a disaster!!

This is why alcohol stoves are banned in some N. American national parks.

Bmblbzzz wrote:This is why alcohol stoves are banned in some N. American national parks.

Ancient paraffin Optimus actually.
Battered and soldered!
Just used meths for preheating. I still use similar.

It was the only time in lots and lots of camping. More haste less speed!!
Though the sun was more to blame than me.

'Fraid paraffin stoves are banned too. Any stove without an instant off switch, basically. AFAIA. Whether the rule is justified or not, I'm not so sure.

Bmblbzzz wrote:'Fraid paraffin stoves are banned too. Any stove without an instant off switch, basically. AFAIA. Whether the rule is justified or not, I'm not so sure.

Hmm, sounds like a typical American urban neuroses.
All the problems they have and they regulate poor little camping stoves!

As it happens my newer (but 20 years old) superb Optimus multi fuel jobby does have an instant on/off tap, even on paraffin, so I'd be ok!!

I couldn't fly with any fuel (or fuel container) though, unless I had one of Tony Oliver's touring bikes with the paraffin tank disguised as a down tube.
I don't expect Kentucky Bourbon burns any better than 5*Brandy or Whisky though. Perhaps it does?

My own slight misfortune was quickly extinguished without a problem.

I won't be going over to the good 'ol US of A anyway, so it's academic.

I prefer just about every aspect of nearby diverse and cultured Europe.

I agree it seems to be an over reaction, but AIUI it was a reaction to one or two specific incidents. Not urban though, it only applies to certain National Parks. I can't remember which ones. The drier, forested ones...

But you'd be fine in the rest of America.

I've never tried Kentucky bourbon, neither for drinking nor burning...

As alcohol is miscible with water it can be extinguished with water... I always wonder why meths stove instructions don't point this out?

Many years ago a mate used to swear that the best fuel for his MSR multifuel stove, 1980's version, was rum. He had found this out whilst soldiering in Belize. Apparently it was more volatile than the local petrol!
Supermarket rum back home didn't have the same effect and as for the economics!