You obviously need to spend more time climbing in France Dave. You are missing out on some of life's richest experiences. And the food's great too. :-p
nahhhhh, they dont do currys out there. At least I've never seem Frogs Legs Vindaloo or Snail Jalfrezi yet. Getting back on thread (sorry Richard)could you do a snail jalfrezi on a trangia?
Meths is toxic because: a) ethanol (the main, 95% component) is toxic, and b) the 5% denaturant (usually methanol) is also toxic.
You'd need to know what the denaturant used was for a country specific variant (it alters by country, but in general its c. 5% methanol) so french stuff ain't going to be any better, and clearly the ethanol could still kill you if you drank it. http://www.distill.com/specs/EU2.html gives you all the specs for european meths.
The nastiness of methanol is because it can be absorbed by the skin - ethanol is also pretty toxic but because we're accustomed to drinking it, people don't worry about it so much.
I'd be far more worried about handling it over prolonged periods (which I don't do - I use a syringe as I play with meths so much) than cooking with it (where it burns up).
Unlike alcohol, you can die from drinking a few 10s of mililitres of methanol, besides, drinking/ingesting it can damage the eyes, so I'd call methanol/meths more dangerous than pure ethanol. But as pointed out by Stove Man, you usually just pour a little into the burner and burn it when cooking, so given proper care and ventilation "pure meths", ie. just ethanol and methanol, should be OK. No idea about the other stuff in there that gives rise to the strange smell and red/purple colour.
A Tip picked up to avoid your beloved trangia from leaving soot all over the bottom of your pan, is to dilute the mixture of meths with water. About 20ml to a liter i think and the results should become apparent! if not up the mixture!
To get back to the MSR no pumping stove...... I'm a bit sceptical about the claim that there's something new here. I remember using a small Optimus petrol stove in the 60s which had no pump and just used heat to pressurise the tank. Quite dramatic when it got really hot and an extra jet of fire came out of the safety valve.....
There's a review of the new MSR on www.backpackinglight.com (tho I think you have to be a subscriber to see the detail - IMO the $30 subscription is worth every penny if you're into lightweight hiking). It's very different from the old svea style stoves which self pressurized with heat. It looks like the MSR fuel tank will not be under any pressure, the fuel is only transported by capilliary action, and burns above the jet.
It also appears that the initial versions of the stove will be sold as an integrated unit with pan, heat exchanger etc., weighing 4-500g. I guess they don't want to start out offering a small, light, simple cheap thing when its so new - it will be a shame to have to buy the whole kit just to get the burner.
> a) ethanol (the main, 95% component) is toxic, and
Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. If you drink enough ethanol, you will die. But we regularly consume it in all the alcoholic drinks we imbibe.
Methanol, on the other hand, is certainly toxic; blisters the skin, turns you blind, then kills you.
Meths is contaminated to bypass the duty normally levied on alcoholic drinks, allowing it to be used as a fuel.
Er, am I missing something here, but you don't actually eat the meths. I keep it all well away from the inside of my pans, so I hardly think I am going to get poisoned by using a trangia.
If meths is so dangerous, then you could always switch to a petrol stove, or gas-after all both are extremely tasty!
I thought the colourant was to discourage determined individuals from drinking it, which is very dangerous, but some people will try it.
BTW I've found Norwegian meths (red) to be the best. It seemed to be far more efficient-boiled water in no time, although the height of the flames meant extra care was needed...
The soot on pans is due to incomplete combustion. This is on the base of the pan, so I can't see it does much harm (unless you obsessively scrub the pans to try and get rid of the black). To burn more efficiently adding some water seems to help, although not too much or it doesn't burn very well at all!
I commented on stove man's assertion that ethanol was toxic, and I think he mentioned it because of a post on page 1, where concern was expressed about cooking with something labelled 'toxic'.
The name 'meths' is short for 'methylated spirits', meaning spirit alcohol, aka ethyl alcohol, aka ethanol, aka 'alcohol', to which has been added methyl alcohol, aka methanol. Meths features prominent 'toxic' labelling because it is primarily ethanol, what we commonly know as 'alcohol', and people would drink it if it weren't so labelled. By adding a small amount of a genuinely toxic alcohol (methanol), it is possible to sell ethanol for use as a fuel, as it is undrinkable, thus avoiding the need to pay excise duty on what would otherwise be 'pure alcohol', like Polish Spirit (97% bv ethanol). There are still some poor bastards mad enough to drink meths, though.
Of course, paraffin, diesel and petrol aren't exactly benign substances, and butane/propane are potentially fatal.
So, all fuels are toxic to some extent, and deserve care and respect in handling and use.
In some countries you can buy ethanol with petrol (+/- octane) as denaturant. Much more pleasant smell, not nearly as toxic as methanol. (It's name translated from Czech is "Surgical spirit", not sure if it is equivalent to UK stuff of the same name.) But you pay more than for the "common" denaturated ethanol (meths in UK).
Furthemore, I *think* that in some countries methanol is not used as denaturisant because of its toxicity. Some other organic smelly substances work wonders - you would not want to drink that :)
