Mt Whitney Zone Forums Gear Heads Cold Weather Tips for Gas Stoves

I still remember the huge leather boots everyone wore back then. Somewhere in all my gear I still have the all leather Norwegian welt Lowa boots my dad bought me in the 70's.

HJ

John,

Is that your stove? It's in beautiful shape. Yeah, we've got lighter weight choices now, but I still love taking out the classics.

HJ

Ha! I have a 40-year-old Optimus 111b -- still stored in my hiking "junk" box. That thing must weigh 24 ounces or so ...empty! We actually backpacked with it a few times. Steel case, steel kettle supports, heavy brass stove structure. And noisy. But it could sure put out the heat.

I found these youtube videos:     Optimus 111B camp stove

This guy doesn't pressurize the tank, and fusses with bottles to prime. (His fiddling with the pump is funny.)
    Optimus 111 Hiker Stove

Correct lighting method:   Pressurize with pump. Open the valve and let a little fuel run into the bowl. Close valve. Light and burn (about 30-60 seconds). When flame is almost out, open valve to allow stove to operate. Once burner is fully heated, open completely for full burn.

Wagga will like this video:
    World Record Optimus 111 Stove Lighting

Jim, thats not my stove, but mine are in good shape. Actually, the main reason for buying the WindPro was to have a stove I could fly with and would perform better at altitude. Even when empty, there is a little bit of residual fuel in the 99 tank. Figured that might be a problem for TSA.

Steve, all those 111's going sounds like a shuttle launch.

John

now this is truly old school:

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A snowshoer who was lost in a blizzard for two days on Washington state's Mount Rainier said he stayed alive by digging out a snow tunnel and burning the dollar bills for warmth.

Yong Chun Kim, 66, of Tacoma, said he carried a lighter and other emergency supplies and burned personal items: extra socks, Band-Aid, toothbrush, packaging, and lastly $1 and $5 bills from his wallet.

Well, we got a little off topic (in a good way) in this thread.

I thought I'd bring us back to the topic of canister gas and cold weather. I'd like to dispel a myth that's out there: The myth of "fractioning."

Fractioning suggests that in cold weather, only that portion of your canister that is propane will burn. If you've got a 100g canister of 70% butane and 30% propane, 70g of your fuel would never burn and would just sit there essentially useless in your canister. This is not the case.

Well, if fractioning is "off," then what is the case? The short answer is that for the typical canister stove, more gas will burn than just the propane -- but you may still get some unburned butane left over. Want to know how it all works? I invite you to peruse my latest blog post: Gas in Cold Weather: The Myth of "Fractioning"

HJ

Thanks for posting that, Jim.

So you ARE saying that if you have an upright canister stove, more propane will burn off early and less butane, so over the life of the canister, there is more butane left behind, effectively raising the vaporization temperature. So once only (or mostly) butane is left behind, the vaporization temperature is pretty close to that of butane, 31F.

And the result is that the canister just wouldn't work on snow trip.

I'd take my Coleman Fuel pump type stove on any winter trip. Those will always work in the snow.

Did I not read that some stoves will use an inverted canister, thus assuring no fractionation - 100% burn?

Yes. If your secondary fuel is regular butane. So don't use regular butane. See point #1 in my blog post (linked to in the original post).

Well, it's not quite that simple. It depends on altitude, the fuel you're using, the outside temperature, and what techniques you use to keep the canister warm. I have another blog post where I tried to tie all these disparate things together. See Canisters, Cold, and Altitude: Gas in a Nutshell

You're always pretty safe there.

HJ

Well, there is no such thing as "fractioning" (where only the propane burns off), but, yes, that's correct that inverted canister stoves get 100% burn. Also, inverted canister stoves will work in weather that's about 20F colder than regular canister stoves. See point number 2 in this blog post.

HJ

Here is an experiment. Take a can of Coleman's fluid which is 10 years old. Then a same brand-can you bought last week. Toss some of each on the fire. During the decade, even in a "sealed" can, a lot of the more volatile short-chains will escape (Fractioning). Ask me how I know. Boom!

lol. Sounds reasonable, but that's a totally different use of the word fractioning.

HJ

Fractionation is a physical process. Here is the Wiki.

Essentially, given a container with a mix of different boiling-point compounds, and an escape route, the lower-boiling point compounds will preferentially exit the container, thus fractionating the remainder to a less-volatile residue. The first burn is like cherry-picking, and subsequent burns are, in insurance terms, "Adverse Selection", which is why, as you have advocated, the inverted canister is the correct solution. QED.

Uh, don't get to wrapped around the word "fractionating."

Here's my my point: There are those that suggest that there are temperatures at which 100% of the propane in a canister will burn off but 0% of the butane will burn. This is incorrect. No such temperatures exist.

HJ

Fractionation (in this specific case where the driving force is boiling point) is actually independent of temperature. At zero degrees Kelvin, evaporation is measured in molecules/fortnight, but the the lighter constituents will still fractionate, and at terrestrial temperatures it's faster, but still proportional to the boiling points of the constituent molecules.

Fractionation is useful in this context because it is widely defined and understood by the scientific community. In this case we are looking at the residue left in the container - it might be the reverse of what you are expecting, but it is still the exact same scientific principle.

And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

HJ

In China, the better tea commands a higher price, so those tea molecules evaporate at a lower rate... or something like that.

We agree on the end result, but not on the exact terminology. It might seem to be a technicality, but if you put diesel fuel in your gasoline vehicle, or vice-versa you would notice the difference while you wait for AAA.

Fractionation has a specific scientific meaning. Whether you are centrifuging Uranium 235 out of natural Uranium or merely operating a stove, fractionation is a physical law.

As far as I know, the physical law operates in China - and probably on any planet orbiting Sirius, the Dog Star - but that has yet to be proven.

Hikin' Jim,

You realize, of course, that's the same myth that says if you put wine in your spaghetti sauce all of the alcohol will just boil-off right away. It doesn't happen like that for the reasons you explained. The more volatile component (the alcohol, in this case) will be preferentially partitioned into the vapor, and only gradually depleted from the liquid over a period of time as the sauce is simmering.

Hmm, maybe a little off topic.

That's a fair assessment.

In retrospect, using "fractioning" to describe the myth that only the propane will burn was a poor choice of words since "fraction" and "fractionation" are so similar. I was actually trying to use layman's terms.

HJ

Not off topic at all. That's a great illustration, one that a lot of people can relate to.

HJ