Roughing it easy: Alcohol Stove (soda can)

Pros

Lightweight
Low cost

Cons

Easily damaged

Soda can spirit burners are, in my opinion, where all the fun is at with alcohol stoves. Made from two soda cans, these spirit burners work just like the commercial version. Several web sites have good instruction on how to make these stove. This site has some very good instructions with visual aids and templates.

With an abundance of empty soda cans, I made so many stoves that I started giving them away. I experiment with the number of burner holes, the size of the burner holes, placement of the burner holes. I even made some side burner soda can stoves. I experiment with all the different variations. My observations were a little surprising in light of my expectations. I found that burner count and holes affected the boil time and fuel consumption. Larger holes burned more fuel, but did not decrease the boil time proportionately. Same with more burner holes. I finally just arrived at what I thought was the "best" combination. More to do with ease of construction than science.

For my top burner stove, my boil time (using the Trangia Mini pot) were

Number holes	Boil time	Fuel
32 small	6 minutes	1oz. (30ml)
24 small	6 minutes	1oz. (30ml)
24 large	5 1/2 minutes	1.2oz. (35ml)
side burner	5 minutes	1.6oz. (45ml)

Soda can stove suffer the same drawbacks as other non Trangia stoves. No way to snuff the flame, no way to conserve fuel from one use to the next use within the stove, no pot stand, and no wind screen. I must note that the stoves are sturdy enough to support a pot with 500ml of water. Of course the only stove that will actually burn with a pot sitting on it is the side burner. But the flames of the side burner, with the pot sealing the stove, shoot so far from the stove that most of the heat is lost past the width of the pot.

You will need a pot stand and wind screen for this stove. I am currently using the Vargo Hexagon Wood stove for a combination pot stand and wind screen. The jury is still out on the the Vargo Hexagon. It flexes with the weight of a pot on it, but it has never failed.