Heating water and food
 

Hello Everyone,

Has anyone here considered using, "Gel Chafing Fuel - 2 Hours"

I bumped into this product yesterday at a supply house. I bought one can to test it and it works great. It provides 2 hours of heat. Light it, place it under a saucepan to heat water or whatever.

What do you guys (and gals) think of this approach, instead of coleman fuels and stoves and all?

It seems like a good option to me. 72 cans comes in a case for around 60 bucks. Each can provides 2 hours of heat. I tested it on 2 cups of water and I used 15 minutes of burn time to get the water to "NEAR" boiling. I need to test again. Next time, I will put the heat source closer to the saucespan. I have not seen this discussed before here, and looks like a nice alternative to heating water and food.

check out this site

http://www.sterno.com/pro/pages/gel.html

Re: Heating water and food
 

i've got a bunch. it's good to warm things up quick.

Re: Heating water and food
 

Keep in mind it evaporates, rotate your stock, or when you need it most you'll have a shriveled up nugget of 'gel' rattling around in the can and no alcohol to burn.

Re: Heating water and food
 

Exactly what I have found also.......

My personal preference for a canned fuel is propane.

Re: Heating water and food
 

[I]I wonder if vacumn sealing will greatly increase the usable time. Also, the website I listed above has "Gallons" for refilling. I imagine that would last much longer too.

The beauty of this approach is that it is compact and lightweight and easier to store.

My .02 ♪

Re: Heating water and food
 

i am with tn andy on this ......... propane and i will add wood to this

Re: Heating water and food
 

I think the way to prevent evaporation is to pressure pack it, not vacuum packing. i have no experience on this but it just seems logical.

Re: Heating water and food
 

http://wings.interfree.it/

28 designs for stoves you can build for free to ten bux, depending on whether you find materials or buy them.

TIP: Get a pint bottle of hydrogen peroxide and dump it out. Replace the cap with a pop top from a sports bottle. Now you have a tough non-spill container for your alcohol.

Re: Heating water and food
 

Some chafing fuels are based on diethylene glycol (DEG), rather than alcohol. DEG doesn't evaporate much at room temp at all.

If in doubt, the label would probably say what the fuel is, and one could always leave a sample can open for a while & see how much evaporates.