Gas stove vs Meth Stove

Planning to get into bike packing and getting advice about luggage options and gear, would like some advice about cooking equipment, re the pros and cons of gas or meths.

Gas is clean, convenient, fast and easy to control. On the other hand you have a fuel supply that takes up lots of space full or empty and it’s hard to tell how much is left. Meths stoves can be even smaller and lighter. I find my gas stoves are less reliant on a wind shield.

Comes down to where your going how long your going and what can be sourced in the area.

How about a petrol/multi-fuel stove like a msr? All my touring, albeit a while ago, was done with one of these. Takes the worry out of fuel availability. My msr is still going strong in it’s 18th year too.

Tbh as this will be my virgin trip, it won’t be too far from civilisation, I have just acquired a Genesis cdf very cheap but would prefer not to waste cash on the wrong gear. Have ordered some Apidura luggage and deciding between a tarp or a tent so as a complete newbie any advice is appreciated.

I love my mini trangia for cycle touring,takes up little room and meths is had easily and when touring waiting a bit longer for it to boil is no real hardship,very basic though,if I was only going for a short while and space didnt matter maybe having the speed of gas would be nice.

If it’s just for an overnighter, skip the stove for now and get out there.

Had a look at the alpkit one that fits into their titanium mug, any good?

After running out of gas mid trip(started new and full) and being unable to get gas on the island at al…..

I no longer travel with gas other than in the car where its not the end of the world- because it is convienant and clean.

When bike packing i stick to meth. Have got a bearbones 8g and 400mm ti mug or solo , does a mean supernoodles , cup of coffee and rice pudding.

When touring i have an msr whisperlite- (10 years old , been all around with me , burned mos things, did have to get it service and some new bits once after some seriously crappy diesel i burnt that sooted it up) , alpine pan set and delux kitchen kit- very much weight but worth the comfort when we are touring for holidays rather than moving fast from a-b

Plus 1 for ditching the stove for a single night. Just take extra whisky 🙂

,Had a look at the alpkit one that fits into their titanium mug, any good

For one or two nights going solo I’ve got an alpkit kraku. Stove, gas lighter, silicon pot grab, folding spork and a few other bits and bobs all fit in an alpkit 650ml titanium mug which doubles as a pan. Really neat, compact, fairly light and quick to boil but not for long term use.

UK meths burns pretty dirty – bit smelly and sooty. If you’re on the continent the comparable stuff is clear and burns much cleaner. I quite like the little tins of waxy fuel you can drop in the the place of the spirit burner in trangias. Can’t remember what its called but you can get it in camping shops. Compact, burns cleaner, and you can’t spill it.

We have all sorts, old school paraffin, trangia meths, trangia gas, MSR multi, spider gas thing. Mostly prefer to use the spider gas stove for convenience, it’s quick and simple and packs small enough. Used it for general backpacking and high altitude alps bivis.

Short trips I like meths too. Have made a few penny stoves. Work well, cheap and light. Just make a wind shield too. Did a 10 days in Scotland early autumn no problem. I always carry some firelighting gear too just incase the opertunity Arrises.

Trangia are a doddle, but not exactly compact. Great kit, but depends on how light weight you want to go

Taking my trangia to make the tea this weekend though…based out of the van…

Get a white box stove from Back packing light.

Bike packing is all about fun, you’ll have a comedy time with it and have some stories for the next time.

For Max fun effect get a balloon bed too. Adventure Max then!

http://speedsterstoves.co.uk/30ml-spill-proof-meths/alcohol-burner.html

The only downside of a gas cartridge is that it tends to run out of punch when it gets low or in cold conditions, but can be revitalised by secondary heating, decent stoves allow the gas can to be turned upside down for direct feed. Some may consider certain methods of heating the can dangerous, but if you’re careful, no more dangerous IMO than what you might be doing the next day in a scottish winter or in the alps. I’ve never exploded in a ball of hell fire, yet.

I have a 6gramme (!) titanium Esbit tab stove, Alpkit ti mug, homemade windshield and spoon. For one or two day trips, it is ace – silly light,simple, reliable and can use sticks as well. Even double bagging the tabs is not a hassle.

This one

This combined with a nice titanium mug might just be the answer
http://speedsterstoves.co.uk/speedster-backpacking-products-meths-cook-kit.html

Anyone near a GoOutdoors store?
If so can you help?
I’m in northern Ireland and the item I’m after is in store only.
If you can help me out email address is in profile.
Thanks

How about mini Trangia with gas conversion kit….you can pick and choose depending on the trip then…

You can of course make your own meths stove out of a couple of pop or beer cans, do a search for “soda can stove”. Meths stoves do rely on a windshield to operate efficiently (or even at all in windy conditions) and are also more sensitive to cold temperatures than gas. If you haven’t used one before there’s a bit of a learning curve but like much these days there’s help and advice online.

Meths stoves are very compact, my setup takes up about a third of the volume of an Alpkit Ti mug, a gas setup fills it. A gas cylinder occupies the same amount of space whether it’s full or nearly empty whereas with meths you can take as much or as little as you think you will need for the trip. Gas is denser energy wise so can bring water to the boil quicker but then you are camping so not really in a rush and what’s an extra minute to wait for a brew in the general scheme of things? You can simmer gas stoves but depending on the design you might not be able to with a meths stove.

Meths stoves dirty? Usually that means you’ve got the fuel to air ratio wrong.

I used to use gas stoves exclusively now I use meths stoves most of the time.

The only stove a keep going with is my msr, burns anything easy to service and packs small. Also fast to cook with. Only bad time was when I was burning pure octane from the lab, little too excitable…

Some more thoughts/comments.

It’s worth having a look on the Bearbones site, lots of discussion on the forum there as well as articles on the blog: http://bearbonesbikepacking.blogspot.co.uk

The Alpkit Kraku is the same stove (or at least the same design) as number of other micro gas stoves, I’ve the Vango equivalent. They have a very narrow concentrated flame so if you’ve a wide pan, say a frying pan, it needs to have a fairly hefty base to dissipate the heat which kind of negates the point in having a lightweight stove in the first place.

A gas stove lets you use kitchen cooking techniques out on the trail. Due to the lack of simmering capability of (most) meths stoves most people seem to go for boil in the bag type foods that just need you to boil water to make a meal, a different way of looking at preparing food really. The advantage is that you’ve no washing up as all the mess is in the bag you carried the meal in. You can of course buy dehydrated meals (at £5 or so a go) but you can also make your own using your kitchen oven on very low heat.

All stoves benefit from some sort of windshield but with the low energy density and volatility of meths it becomes more important. Also a windshield helps focus the heat from the stove better. It’s also helpful to match the width of the stove to the pan/mug you are using: if the stove is too wide then the flames and therefore heat will rise to the side of and away from the pan rather than heating the base. This is the same reason it’s recommended to match the size of your pan to the ring on your cooker hob.

Technically it’s the vapour that burns not the liquid so in cool weather you need to pre-heat meths, this is easily done by sticking the fuel canister inside your clothes and letting your body heat warm it up. Worth doing with the stove as well, since they are so light (my homemade beer can stove weighs 10g) this doesn’t take long.

If you make a side-burner stove like the BearBones 8g & 20g stoves then you don’t need a pan support as the pan or mug sits directly on to the stove, this is part of the design.

With a bit of experience you get to know how much meths you need for a brew, make a meal, etc. so can take just as much as required for a trip. With a gas cylinder you are taking the cylinder whether you need it all or not. On the other hand for longer trips you start to need larger and larger volumes but since meths is so widely available it’s fairly easy to restock on your way. Meths can be stored in any sealable plastic container, it doesn’t melt some plastics like petrol, so you can use the appropriately sized container for the trip. Meths stoves being low pressure systems don’t require reinforced container vessels.

There was a survey of long distance hikers in the States and the only stove that no-one reported having any breakages was the homemade meths stove. If you do break it then you only need a sharp blade and a couple of cans (and the know-how) to be able to make a new one.

The Coleman 200g gas cannister fits inside an Alpkit MyTiMug 650 but not the 400, none of the larger gas cannisters fit inside the 650, so you can save a bit of space packing.

If you already have a stove then use that to begin with (unless it’s some huge heavy monstrosity) then over time you can figure out what you want from a stove and learn the pros and cons of that.

Balloon beds, now they’re fun!

Thanks for sharing your experience Whitestone. Which guide did you use to make a meths burner please. Ive bought a bearbones afterburner and id like to make a pop can burner to compare it against. Thanks.

I can’t remember the exact page but #4 on this page http://www.bikepacking.com/gear/hop-can-stoves-how-to-make-5-ultralight-bikepacking-stoves/ is my current fave. The other (actually it’s probably the site I used) is Zen stoves http://zenstoves.net/BasicSideBurner.htm

Don’t worry about using the exact drill size etc., a drawing pin or map tack is enough to make the vent holes. You can experiment to your heart’s content 😆

Worth reading this page http://zenstoves.net/How.htm as a background which can help you understand what makes things better/worse.

Goodness didn’t realise you were so passionate about how to boil water or heat food, obviously a bit of reading and researching to do. But on the balance of things seems a Meth burning stove might be the way to go.

Ah, it’s a long time since we’ve had a Trangia fight.
Trangia / meths stoves, It’s a love hate thing, you either love them or hate them.
I hate them, born of years in my youth of eating food that slightly tasted of kerosene or meths, carrying a rucksack that always slightly wiffed of kerosene or meths, fiddly stoves that needed preheating before you could even get a brew going, burnt offerings because you couldn’t properly simmer, black pans impossible to clean in the field, because of the incinerated carbon units welded into them, black soot all over the base of the pans which then got all over your rucksack clothing and tent.
Happy days of course, I wouldn’t change them, but I did eventually move to gas stoves and never looked back

Just a thought on the those pop can stoves, presumably you can use a redbull or premix G&T can for a smaller stove?

mattoutandabout – where did you get your 6g stove? Looks perfect.

Not passionate about them just avoiding work!

So long as you have two identical cans then you can make one of the stoves, I tried making one from a come can and a beer can and they were subtly different in sizing, probably the beer can had slightly thicker walls. Not tried to make one from Red bullsh*t or similar cans but no real reason why they shouldn’t work though the cross section of a pop can lets you place the inner wall in a consistent manner.

Gas cans with an MSR Pocket Rocket etc are simple, can do a fair bit of cooking on them.
Mini meths stoves are a bit more compact but best for brews and ‘just add water’ meals that cook fast. I tend to use meths stoves, the larger Bearbones stove is a neat option but a pop-can stove works 90% as well, just not as durable.

Meths / denatured alcohol is a lot easier to find in Europe so I take the meths stove on rides there. Getting screw-thread gas cans there can be a PITA, they’re mainly Coleman fittings ime

Not tried to make one from Red bullsh*t or similar cans

End up pathetically small .. coke or beer cans work much better.

The alpkit / ebay trangia copy is also good, had one on a trip last summer, the simmer ring let us cook almost proper food. Bacon, pasta, omelettes, peppers etc.

where did you get your 6g stove?

It is 6g on own, 13g with bag(!)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Esbit-Ultralight-Titainium-Solid-Stove/dp/B002AQET2C

http://www.backpackinglight.co.uk/cookers-and-stoves/RA101.html

Gas stove – MSR Microlight & Snow peak Ti Solo cookset – and a sitting mat !

Another meths fan here.

If you spill it, or land on your pack and burst it, or it falls over and sets fire to itself, you just pour water on it and it’s gone.

Try doing that with a wisperlite full of petrol.

The bigger bearbones stove is the better one, the small one will boil 200ml of water and not much more. You don’t really miss the simmer function, just boil water, add food, bring back to boil, and stick it in a pot-cosy. Pasta just takes 15min then rather than 12 (or whatever it is your cooking).

The bigger bearbones stove is the better one, the small one will boil 200ml of water and not much more.

8g should boil 400ml easy enough. What mug and windshield are you using?

cheers matt!

I’m hopefully touring for a week and a bit in yorkshire in summer and am also debating which of my stoves to take for early morning brews and emergency boil in the bag type meals. I’ve a choice between:

gas – MSR pocket rocket
meths mini trangia (or trangia burner plus triangle)
petrol – Optimus SVEA124 climber stove

Can’t really decide.
meths one is simple, but slow, however fuel should be available in towns if i run out.
petrol – fantastic sound when it gets going, quick, not sure how easy it would be to acquire 0.5l of fuel if I run out – might have to siphon it out of someones lawnmower 🙂 , can’t imagine a garage selling me such a small quantity in a non-regulation container !

decisions, decisions….

I have to stop reading this!
Totally confused 😕

Just make a penny stove and experiment at home. Really easy to make and will let you see if it works for you.

This is pretty much the one I have made several versions of. Right down to using a tin lid as a priming tray.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Alcohol-Can-penny-stove/