3 Light Weight Alcohol Burners For Under $20.00
“Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.”
– Anonymous
Boiling an egg is a fairly simple task, the ingredient list and preparation are even simpler. How to boil the perfect egg.
Add water to the pot, and add eggs to the water and pot. Bring water to a boil and cook eggs for 3-5 minutes until done.
That was so easy a child could do it. It doesn’t get easier, that is until the rivers rise and the lights go down forcing you to evacuate your home on foot in a hurry with nothing more than the clothes on your back and the contents of your Get Home or Bug Out Bag.
Somewhere along the line, you’re going to want to take a break and boil water for purification and create drinkable water and/or cooking. Typical camping stoves are awesome for camping. A fun situation in which you know where your car is, in the parking lot a mile away, and the local Wal-Mart is just in town.
The ideal stove for a prepper is one that is efficient, lightweight, portable, and preferably cheap. Alcohol stoves are the perfect solution.
What is An Alcohol Stove?
An alcohol stove for our purposes is a small stove that uses either rubbing alcohol or denatured alcohol as fuel. While small, these little babies are fairly efficient stoves that create a hot blue (the flame is invisible in full light so be careful) flame that can heat a decent amount of water to the boil in no time at all.
Why An Alcohol Is Stove A Great Choice For Preppers?
Our DA stoves use denatured alcohol. DA makes for the perfect cooking fuel for preppers for three reasons
- It’s nonexplosive. There’s nothing like a blast in your camp on the first night of your bug out.
- Denatured alcohol is cheap and can be found anywhere.
- Denatured alcohol is easy to carry around, unlike petroleum-based fuels, DA can be carried in a plastic bottle without fear of degradation.
What Are The Top Alcohol Stoves For A Prepper?
What I’m looking for in a stove destined for my bug-out bag is something that’s lightweight, small, and doesn’t take up a lot of room. There are quite a few alcohol stoves on the market today, some great, some crap.
1. Solo Brass Alcohol Burner-The Solo Burner, brought to you by the Solo Stove out of Fort Worth Texas, known for great camping stove presents a nice alcohol stove most preppers would be proud to keep in their pack. This efficient little stove brings water to a boil fast (5-7 minutes unless you’re watching the pot).
This is something I’m looking for when on a forced(by circumstances) bivouac, sitting in my cold dark camp, waiting to chow down on my freeze dried rations that only need a little hot boiling water to set off a simple meal that feels like mother’s Thanksgiving dinner.
Price: $15.29-$19.99 each
Specs:
Boil Time: 5-7 minutes to boil 32 fl oz of water
Fuel: Denatured alcohol/methylated spirits
Weight: 3.5 oz without fuel
Material: Brass
An added feature any prepper can appreciate is a rubber gasket in the screw lid. This gasket allows you to keep your stove loaded, cocked, and locked at all times without the fear of the fuel spilling and ruining the contents of your pack.
2. Esbit Brass Alcohol Burner Camping Stove- The Esbit burner, offered
by the Esbit Company based out of Germany has a long history(dating back to 1936) of creating outdoor stoves “Made To Survive.”
Not only does the Esbit version of the brass alcohol burner feature a rubber gasket allowing you to store the fuel for extended periods of time this version includes a temperature regulator handle. Personally, I’ve found this handle to be of little use and a little dangerous in that that the thing has to be secured somehow before adjusting the flame.
I really don’t care about regulating the flame. I want boiled water and I want it fast. Of course, I could find myself singing a different tune as I find myself blazing (no pun intended) through my fuel supply.
Price-$17.99
Boil Time: 9-12 minutes to boil 32 fl oz of water
Fuel: Denatured alcohol/methylated spirits
Weight: 3.5 oz without fuel
Material: Brass
3. Beer Can Stove-Brought to you by the great people at the Coors® Brewing Company, one of my favorite brews, the beer can stove is the ultimate example of a dual-use, fun piece of equipment. The construction of a beer can stove is fairly straightforward, and the equipment list is simple and fun to create.
What Is A Beer Can Stove?
The beer can (or soda can) stove is a homemade stove anyone can create in a short amount of time. The equipment list is basic to say the least, the assembly instructions are even more basic. To create this stove you will need:
- 2-Beer or soda cans drained of their content.
- 1-Utility knife
- 1-Nail
- 1-Hammer
Put It Together
Drain the content of cans by drinking and enjoying at your leisure Measure about 1 inch from the bottom of the can and use your utility knife to cut off the lower inch. Grab your second can and repeat this process
- Press the two cans end together with the bottom portion of the can facing up.
- Using your hammer and nail (this is easier than using a push pin) tap a few holes in the center
- Using the same hammer and nail, tap several holes in a criss-cross pattern (e.g. poke a hole, rotate the can, and poke a hole on the opposite side).
- Once you’ve finished poking your can, heat the bottom of the stove for a few minutes. This creates a vacuum needed for the next step.
- Pour denatured alcohol into the center of your stove. The vacuum will suck the fuel right into your new stove.
Price-$13.99 per case of beer. This will yield 12 beer can stoves!
Boil Time: 12+ minutes to boil 32 fl oz of water
Fuel: Denatured alcohol/methylated spirits
Weight: 2oz without fuel
Material: Aluminum
The beer can stove is easily created by stuff most people sadly toss by the side of the road, it isn’t the most efficient stove available. It takes forever to boil a quart of water and it leaks like a sieve requiring you either store it in a zip lock style bag or carry it dry and add fuel as needed.
The advantage to this stove is it’s cheap, and you won’t create a record by ordering it.
Whichever cooking method you decide to go with, there’s something you should keep in mind. These cooking solutions aren’t the entire stove, these are the burners or heat
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