On Tue, 6 Oct 2015 06:56:46 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Alcohol stoves. Are those fueled by the jelly in a can?

===

Alcohol jelly in a can is called sterno, sometimes used to keep food
trays warm in a buffet. I've never seen it used to cook on a boat but
I suppose it might be possible.

The traditional alcohol boat stove was pressurized like a Coleman
camping stove. Most of them were made by a company called Kenyon. You
started by pumping up pressure in the tank. Then you'd crack open the
valve a little bit to fill the priming bowl around the burner jet.
Next you'd light the liquid alcohol in the priming bowl and stand
back. The alcohol would flare up and heat the burner jet while it was
scaring everyone around and setting the curtains on fire. When the
jet was hot enough it would act like a carburetor and vaporize the
alcohol when you re-opened the valve. At that point you could light
it and start cooking if you hadn't yet set the boat on fire or singed
your eye brows. Both were relatively common occurrences.

In later years a company called Origo invented a non-pressurized
alcohol stove that was considerably safer but the burners only held a
limited amount of fuel so you'd often run out while cooking.

The whole rationale for using alcohol was that you could put out a
fire by throwing water on it. If you do that with gasoline or
kerosene it spreads the fire. Alcohol had a big hazzard however in
that it burns with a nearly invisible flame, right up until the
curtains or your clothing caught on fire. It also has a much cooler
flame than propane or Coleman fuel so it takes forever to cook a meal.

When we bought our 2nd cruising sailboat in the early 80s, I
immediately replaced the alcohol stove with compressed natural gas.