DIY Alcohol Stove

Don has been watching youtube videos on alcohol stoves for weeks. To the point that I’m going nutty listening to them.

If you’ve never heard of alcohol stoves, they are popular with backpackers, preppers, and survivalists. They are super lightweight and you can make them yourself from aluminum cans. Don made one from a can of AXE body spray when we finally had an empty bottle. I won’t go into all the steps simply because it’s all out there on youtube already:

How to Make an AXE Can Alcohol Stove
How to Make a V-8 Alcohol Stove
How to Make a Rolled Edge Aluminum Bottle Stove
New Alcohol Stove Design

But I can tell you it took him maybe an hour to make it.

We only used a very small amount of 91% isopropyl alcohol which Don is adding below using a cooking injector.

Lighting it up…

After a minute or two he added a stainless steel cup from our backpacking cache to test heating water.

It sat nicely on top but we hope to buy a Vargo Titanium Hexagon Wood Stove to add to our supplies that we could set the stove inside and the cup would be supported more securely in the Vargo.

In total, the alcohol burned for maybe 5-6 minutes and the water boiled before it burned out. (We didn’t time any of our test.)

Seems to work pretty well. At least the concept anyway. Don wants to refine his technique and see if he can create something with a smaller flame. It made for some great pictures but that huge flame isn’t entirely practical for a camping or survival use.

Sharing will enrich everyone with more knowledge.
~ Ana Monnar

Other articles on alcohol stoves

• Rumors, Myths, and Lies of the Alcohol Stove (thesodacanstove.com)
• Alcohol Stove (ultimate-ultralight-backpacking.com)
• Beer Bottle Stove (adparare.wordpress.com)