Call me old fashioned but I still love my old reliable Trangia when I go on a long trip.

However, I still can't get my head around whycampers in the UK have to use Meths rather then pure alcohol. Is it still really illegal to buy pure ethanol here.

Does anyone know of a clean alternative to using meths

meths be the king when cookin wit the trangia you dig me?

this brother be dablin wit the msr fly at moment, takes no time to make a brew for ma homies

peace

Nothing illegal about pure ethanol (unlike whatever mr fly has in his pipe:-) Its just that it has to be taxed pretty heavily. What aspect of meths are you finding 'dirty'?

Smell and soot - this hardly exists with pure ehtanol - points to fewer bad chemicals in my book (said without having done any scientific tests :) ).

Meths is a dirty fuel, not to mention that its actually toxic. Does anyone know of a pure ethanol supplier....

I'm still intrigued as to what's 'dirty' about your meths. Most of the soot is a result of incomplete combustion which is more a sympton of the stove than the fuel.

I'd try cleaning out all the nozzles on the trangia to see if that helps. My alcohol stoves burn any old B&Q meths perfectly happily without being 'dirty'.

You might be able to get pure ethanol from a high street chemist (at vast expense) but ethanol absorbs moisture from the atmosphere very rapidly so almost as soon as you open a pot of pure ethanol, its turning into 96% ethanol, 4% water. The water inhibits combustion slightly, giving you soot. Thus for your use, even if you could buy pure ethanol, you couldn't keep it that way. Pure ethanol may reduce the problem (I've not tried a direct comparison) but it won't eliminate it. From a chemical perspective, methanol actually generates less soot than ethanol (fewer carbon atoms per molecule), so the 5% methanol shouldn't be creating soot. Maybe the purple dye burns badly.

You're right tho' - methanol is nasty stuff. However, ethanol ain't too pleasant either.

To reduce the soot on your pans, you need to dilute the meths with a bit of water (no more than 1 part water to 10 of meths). That'll do the job for you.

Out of curiosity, Stove Man, hideously expensive in UK I know, but does vodka work?

Works in the sense that if the nozzles are large enough it burns (ok in my larger stoves but not my smaller, more efficient ones). But, its got too much moisture to be efficient and burns very sooty. It'll never really get going properly. Jamaican rum (180 proof) is apparently better.

Anyway, looks like all my alcohol stoves will be rendered redundant by the new MSR stoves - no pumping and 100g for a petrol stove.

http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2004/06/07/story4.html

http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/features/kitsink/kitsink.html

If you or anyone you know is going to France, you can but alcool a bruler in many supermarkets. It's much cheaper than the meths you get here, doesn't smell, is clear rather than purple, and seems to burn more cleanly IMHO.

buy not but :-)

I've found that French meths I used to buy did smell - a bit like fermenting swamp water but it's no worse than the smell of our meths. I know the whiff from my fuel bottle has been noticed! However I'm sure it burns better.

I think you need a licence to buy & to sell pure ethanol - any chemists out there?

If you can get it it does work great in Trangia's. You do still get some soot - after nearly 30 years of Trangia use (still my favoutite weekend stove) I've just learnt to live with it.

Stoveman - thanks for the links. I hope the new stove will burn paraffin or maybe that's asking too much of the new technology?

A major driver behind the new tech is the US army which wants to be able to burn diesel and aviation gas in a stove with no moving parts, and parafin & avgas are pretty similar so I hope it will burn both. I suspect the MSR one due out next year will be optimised for 'white gas', ie coleman fuel.

I'll second the stink of alcool a bruler. I think like meths the compositions vary a bit thus maybe some brands are better than others. Super-U is dreadful.

I love the smell of meths( maybe I'm just wierd). To help avoid balack pans rub some washing up liquid over the bottom before cooking. Does the trick

I got someone to bring me back some french meths ( thanks for the tip a few months back Alison) and as I now have five liters( apparantly it was very cheap) I will stay with that for a while but it works well.

Blimey....loads of posts...thanks for all the help.

Is French Meths less toxic than the UK stuff. It worries me cooking with something that is rated as toxic.

Cheers

Richard

It worries me cooking with something French!

I love food that's been cooked with garlic and a dash of French wine.

lol...mmhhh not sure that answers my question.

The garlic's fine (in fact the more the better - it keeps midges away) but doesn't have to be French and as for the wine well the Ozzies make better wine these days anyway. But Snails? Frog Legs? Why can't they just stick to chicken instead of all these things that taste of chicken anyway.