Backpacking Gear

Cooking System

Beverage Can Stove

Months before I ever decided to take up backpacking, I'd been surfing Wikipedia and came across an article on can stoves. These are camping stoves that are made from various types of aluminum and steel cans — soda cans, beer cans, cat food tins, etc. They burn small amounts of alcohol at very high temperatures, just long enough to boil water. They can burn almost any kind of alcohol, but clean and efficient ethyl alcohol (ethanol, grain alcohol) and methyl alcohol (methanol, wood alcohol) are most often used. These two fuels produce the least smoke, soot and residue and the most heat. Why would someone bother to use a can stove instead of a traditional wood fire or a conventional camping stove? There are several benefits:

They are light.
They release less greenhouse gases and burn renewable fuel.
They can be used in areas under burn bans.
There's no need to search for dry fuel.
There's no ash to clean up.
Alcohol fuel is easy to find, and cheap compared to petroleum fuels.
Alcohol fuel has less odor.
They are cheap and easy to make.
They are made from recycled and recycleable materials.
The stored fuel is not under pressure, and is not explosive under normal backpacking conditions.
They burn quietly.

Can stoves aren't for everyone:

They don't burn long enough to simmer foods.
Their heat output is not sufficient for cooking some foods.
They have to be protected from crushing.
They are not reliable in very cold conditions
Alcohol flames are virtually invisible, making it hard to tell if the stove is lit.
Building can stoves may require tools and use materials that are hazardous.

My finished beverage can stove — made from two soda cans and finished in less than 45 minutes.

Once I decided that the can stove was for me, I settled on one of the simplest of the soda can designs for my stove — the Open Jet. This is simply two soda can bottoms forced together with an inside section made from a can wall. Alcohol is poured into the center of the stove. It seeps to the outer chamber through a fuel port — usually just a notch cut into the inner wall — and when the fuel in the center "primer" area is lit, heat causes the alcohol to vaporize. This vapor is under pressure, and escapes through holes at the top rim of the stove. As it passes near the primer flame, it ignites and forms a ring of jets which efficently burn almost all of the alcohol vapor.

I built my first stove out of two Sierra Mist cans. (Pepsi-brand cans seem to make the best stoves. Their bottoms have a shape which makes for a tighter seal, and thus more pressure.) I built it at my desk at work, using only a craft knife. I made the holes at the top with a push-pin. The cans didn't fit together very well, and I ended up with a crease that leaked vapor from the outer chamber. The holes were also very large, so I couldn't get a long enough burn. With the leaks and half of the holes patched with aluminum tape, it would just barely boil water. I wanted a more efficent stove that I could depend on for cooking meals.

The second stove I built at home in my garage. I used a full can of soda, covered in axle grease, to expand the top stove section. I did this by forcing the full can into the cut can bottom. This made it slightly larger than the other bottom (which would become the bottom of the stove) by just enough to prevent creasing. I made the holes using a T-pin and only allowed the pin to just barely puncture the aluminum can. I put 18 tiny holes around the lip of the stove. When it was finished, I sanded and polished the outside and sealed the inner chamber with some two-part epoxy. The whole process, minus the time for the epoxy to cure, was about 45 minutes.

My finished stove weighs only 10 grams, and will burn 30 ml of ethyl alcohol for about 15 minutes under ideal conditions. On the trail, it has performed perfectly, boiling enough water for hot chocolate and oatmeal or grits.

The Rest of the Cooking System

Aluminum cooking pot with homemade pot handle.

It takes more than just a stove to make dinner. The remainder of my cooking system is composed of:

A small aluminum pot
A homemade windscreen
A pot stand
A pot handle
A plastic spork

The pot was recycled from an old camping cook set. It's the same type of pot that is included in most Boy and Girl Scout cooking sets. It has a handle the locks in an upright position and a tight-fitting lid with a loop handle.

The windscreen is in its second incarnation. The first one, which I've taken into the field, was just a roll of aluminum sheeting with slots cut in the bottom for air flow. The new windscreen weighs about 10 g more than the old one, but it breaks down into five separate segments. Two of the segments can be raised or lowered to provide air flow. The whole thing is put together with binder clips. Three of the segments are slotted for the pot stand, which is made of three steel rods in a triangle. I started out with brass rods, but these melted under the intense heat of the alcohol flame.

Stove with windscreen and integrated pot stand.

The pot handle is made from part of an old air conditioning vent. I cleaned it up and bent it over the edge of a table top until it was the right shape and size to hold the pot securely. With it, I can move the pot on and of of the stove and pour from it without burning myself. Like the stove, the pot stand and the windscreen, it's made from recycled and recycleable material.

On my first backpacking trip, I carried a heavy enameled steel cup into the woods. It was too heavy to carry again. I'm currently looking at several lighweight options for dinner/drinking ware. The first is a silicone bowl. Other options are a plastic cup to drink out of and plastic freezer bags to rehydrate and cook oatmeal and other dehydrated foods. I'm leaning toward the silicone bowl, because I can reuse it, meaning less garbage to carry out.

My one and only eating and cooking utensil is a plastic spork by Light My Fire, a Swedish company known for light and durable camping gear. It's 9 grams of pure efficiency!

Click here to download my latest, but not comprehensive, gear list as an Excel spreadsheet.