alcohol or propane stove?

[Russ]

Two of the most popular threads in the past 30 days.

Porta Potties and galley stoves.

Shows where priorities are.


--Russ

[DaveB]

Duane, you must be refering to I but lost the wording. Kerosine is much like a alcohol burner except it burns much hotter BTU's ( used it for 3 years living aboard) you need to prime the cup with alcohol first. I didn't say anything about primeing alcohol as it doesn't need it.
You also mentioned origo non-pressurized alcohol fuel , thats great for non flair ups but Btu's are much more lower than Propane,CNG,Butane and Kerosine. I have used all types of fuels that you mentioned on many of my boats.
Fact is all the four fuels I mentioned are much more BTU's than Alcohol , this includes non-pressurized or open flame and the faster I get the cooking done..the less problem of a open flame.
Dave

Those who think alcohol requires pre heating and is subject to flare ups obviously haven't had experience with a non-pressurized Origo stove. It requires absolutely no preheating to light and never has flare ups of any kind. Those are characteristics of the old style pressurized alcohol stoves. Even that type of stove was preferred on a boat for many many decades over any pressurized gas for one simple reason, it only takes a spark to light the gas while it takes an open flame to ignite the much harder to light alcohol. It's a very recognized fact established long ago that alcohol, while not the hottest fuel, is the safest fuel to use on a boat.

We've cooked hundreds of meals on our Origo without any issues about cooking time or temperature. One canister of Alcohol will operate the stove for weeks before it needs filling. You can fill a canister almost 4 times from a quart of fuel. I go through far more tanks of propane for the grill than I do quarts of alcohol and the galley stove gets used way more often than the BBQ.

[Québec 1]

When I got my boat I thought I would not like my origo alcohol stove by what I had read on this site. After 2 years I can only say that I find the design of the origo must do something special cause it seems to cook my food and heat my water as quickly as my green propane coleman camping stove. I can't explain it, but I think the origo alcohol stove does its job well and complements the simple well engineered construction of my 26M.
Q1