Best Trangia/Alcohol Stove Fuel

[SaraR]

Like most other people, I used to use T-Röd in my Trangia, as it worked and was easy to get hold of from any garage or hardware store, but it does soot a lot. On a trip once, friends of mine tried methanol and they found that it burnt hotter (a bit too hot) and faster, but definitely resulted in less soot.

According to Wikipedia, T-Röd is 95% denatured ethanol also containing butanone, acetone, ethyl acetate, bitrex (denatonium benzoate).

According to the SDS on Kemetyl's website, the content of T-Röd is:
Ethanol >75%
Propan-2-ol 5-<20%
Acetone 1-<5%
Butanone 0.1-<1%

Kemetyl suggests using T-Tenol instead of T-Röd, since the mixture of ethanol and methanol gives better effect with less soot. According to the SDS, T-Tenol contains:
Ethanol 50-75%
Methanol 5-<10%
Propan-2-ol 1-<10%
Tert-butyl methyl ether 1-<5%
Butanone 0.1-<1%
(I assume it's got some sort of bitrex type compound in it to prevent people from drinking it.)

So it seems like an ethanol/methanol mixture might be the way to go. Although, since moving to the UK, I just use IMS (industrial methylated spirit) as it's easy to get hold of and works well enough.

I've always kept my Trangia fuel in a Sigg bottle and I still struggle when people use one for drinking water.

 

[TLM]

The energy content of methanol seems to be about 30% lower than ethanol when burned. That is because it has that much more oxygen in the molecule. It burns cleaner because of that but more is required to boil the water for tea.

 

[Laurence Milton]

I wonder if Aspen 4 would be suitable for stoves. Must make a note to try it.

 

[nigelp]

No! Not in a Trangia.