............................................................................ .......Side Burning Stoves...........................................................................

I've been making Alcohol stoves for years. Their varying virtures are due to their size shape and design as well as wind, tempurature and altitude, all affecting their usefulness.

If you make your own stoves, you will likely never be quite satified. The good news is that they all work nearly as good as the next or prior one. If you only have one Alc stove, it can be made to cook most anything that you want to cook.

That can also be said about nearly all other camping/hiking stoves. A decision to use an Alc Stove can be defended or opposed like a half full or half empty glass of water is pondered.

One of things that I like about an Alc stove is that I can be completely unprepared for cooking, and with an Al can and a pocket knife I can make a stove if I need one.

I'm always on the outlook for a new and different can to make a stove out of. You can't believe my delight when my son brought me 2 cans that I'd never seen before. Both were about soda can sized drinking water bottle/cans that used thicker Aluminum than a soda can.

I decided to make these bottles into top burning stoves. I've prefered top burning stoves because I can put a bottom of a soda can that has a 1 inchish hole in it on top of a top burner to create a small simmer flame. Simmer flames are very important when actually cooking food and not simply boiling water. Mutiple simmer flame tops with 1", 1.25" and 1.5" holes are a useful way of managing your Alc stoves heat.

Top Burner Stoves

Theses stoves are examples of possible stove sizes as small as pocket size. All will boil a cup or two of water. Any of these would be side burners if the hole in the top were put in the side and not put in the top rim. These stoves can also be nested for space saving. 2 or 3 stoves are handy if you're trying cook Meat, potato, and vegetable all at once.

Top Burner with Simmer Cover

The side burner stove shoots the flame out to the sides while expands the flame. It also heats up the stove more which generates more Alcohol gases. Side burners are also useful because you can set/balance your pan on top of the Alc stove illiminating the need fo a pot stand. By using a bigger sauce pan that could cover the whole flame I was able to boil 2 cups (16 ounces) of 70* water in 4.25 minues.

That is a very fast boil for an Alc stove. Lately I've started putting about 3 layers of paper towel in the pressure chamber which wicks the Alcohol up closer to the top of the stove. That increases the flame by about 25%. There's no oxygen in that pressure chamber so the paper towel doesn't burn. Alc Stove with paper towel, made from Vienna Sausage can. Without the paper towel those flames would be about 1" tall