Trangia Alcohol Burner

[jm12084]

I recently found a Trangia Alcohol Burner at a garage sale. The person running the sale did not have any idea how it works. I want to build a lightweight stove for it for my backpacking trips. My questions are to those who may have such a burner are :

How much alcohol do you put into it ?

What kind of alcohol do you use ?

How far should the stove be from the pan during use ?

Any advice would help.

Thanks,
Joe

PS If you have a good URL on how to build stoves let me know.

 

[Ann]

This site will give you lots of info.
The key to stove efficiency is to make the best windscreen possible.
I have a mini-Trangia, and a Trangia 25. I also have some home made pepsi can stoves but the most efficeint alcohol stove is the Trangia 25, although not very lightweight it has an excellent two piece windshield and is not a fuel hog.
http://www.ultralight-hiking.com/stoves-trangia.html

Site for directions for home made stove:
www.pcthiker.com/pages/gear/pepsistove.shtml

 

[Rick]

Hi Ann - Great site you referenced!!! Haven't seen you around the board in a quite a while - We just moved up near Mt Wachusett, MA from PA, so I am excited to be in the NE again. hope all is well with you!!!!

....onto the topic My mini trangia is horrible at efficiancy - I usually cannot get a boil going in under 10 minutes for 2.5 cups fo water. (I have a westwind as well as a mini-28). I use them with my MSR windscreen.
As for fuel, I usually burn denatured alcohol or methyl alcohol used by painters (available at any hardware or variety store).

I learned from my pepsi can stoves when in Alaska that Heet is pretty much denatured alcohol (in a yellow bottle) and works awesome - it same stuff you put in your auto gas tank in the winter - I beleive all auto gas line antifreezes are some form of denautred alcohol. Heet comes in small sizes and is available at any convenience store. I tried it in my Trangia and it worked fine as well.

I am saving my Mini-28 for my young one when he starts camping in scouts, otherwise it has been moved to the back of my backpacking workbench and I stick exclusively with the Pepsi Can stoves for 3 season and my trusty old MSR for winter.
Good luck