Soda Can Alcohol Burner
This is a great little burner that can boil a few cups of water in about 3 minutes, takes up minimal space on a camping/hiking trip, and is made out of nothing more than a pair of soda cans so it's very lightweight. For a more compact version, you can try Red-Bull cans, although, I haven't tried it so I'm not sure how long that would take to boil water.
This is a pretty quick and easy build and doesn't require much more than a tape measure, a marker, a pair of scissors or tin snips, and a drill with an 1/8" and 1/2" (3mm and 12mm respectively) drill bits (you can substitute the drill with a good sharp nail or small phillips screwdriver if your access to power tools is limited.
Step 1. Set an empty soda can on a flat surface, measure up about one inch and hold the marker steady while you spin the can marking around it's entire circumference. You can also use a sheet of paper to get an accurate mark. Just wrap the paper around the can at the 1" (25mm) mark and make sure the entire edge of the paper lines up with itself. This will ensure you get a line that's parallel with the bottom of the can. Repeat this process for the second can.
Step 2. Carefully poke your scissors through the upper portion of the can, away from your line. Working around the can in a circle, keep cutting in a spiral pattern until you get down to the line and carefully make the final cut around the can on the mark you made in step 1. Repeat this process for the second can.
You should now have 2 can bottoms that are each 1" (25m) tall with a smooth straight edge along the cut line.
Step 3. Carefully and slowly press the two can halves together until the cut edge touches the ridge of the opposite can and they stop moving. It's a little tricky getting them started and the straighter your cut line is, the easier it will be to get one rim inside the other. It may help to press the edge of the rim of the inside can towards the center, just enough to get the seal started. Once you have the cans sliding into each other, it's important to press the two halves together firmly and evenly to avoid crushing one of them. You will be compressing the air inside as they are squeezed together, so slow constant pressure is the key to having them seat evenly. The trapped air will leak out, but it helps keep the cans from being crushed during assembly.
Step 4. Next we need to drill the holes for the cooking flame around the rim. If you put the holes in the valley of the rib, you can set a pot on your burner without smothering the flames. The pot will sit nicely just above the flame openings. First we'll put 4 marks on the rim. If you are looking directly at the bottom of your burner, make a mark at the top, bottom, on the left and on the right, as shown in the first photo. Next, you will put a mark in between each of these marks giving you a total of 8 evenly (or as close to evenly as possible) spaced points to drill the holes.
Step 5. After marking the holes and making sure they are all evenly spaced, drill each one with the 1/8" (3mm) drill bit. The drill bit may want to "walk" off of your mark. If this is the case, take a nail or the point of a phillips screwdriver, place it over the mark, and hit it with a hammer, just hard enough to make a small dent. This will keep the tip of the drill bit exactly where you want it to be.
Step 6. Now it's time to mark out and drill the center hole. This hole is much larger and it's purpose is to provide an easy way to fill the burner with fuel. It may seem strange that we would put such a large hole in the middle of the burner since we want the flames to come out of the ring of holes around the rim. There are two solutions to this. The first is to simply place a penny on the hole when the burner is warmed up and burning well. This is why some have named this a "penny stove", it's not because it is so cheap to make. The second option is to just leave the whole open and use the pot that you're cooking with to cover the hole.
Here is a photo of the burner with a cooking pot sitting on top of it. You can see how the burner holes are positioned so that they efficiently heat the pot and quickly bring the water to a boil. A pot with approximately 3 to 4 cups of water took just under 4 minutes to boil with no windscreen and outside temperatures in the mid 50's. I had filled the can about 3/4 full with alcohol and it burned for over 20 minutes.
There you have it! I've found that the best fuel to use in this compact little burner is HEET gas line anti~freeze, which is methyl alcohol. I keep my fuel in a stainless steel flask that is clearly marked as it is easily stored in my pack with my cooking kit.
Filling the Burner
I usually fill the burner about 1/4 of the way with alcohol. To add fuel, simply set the burner on a flat level surface and pour fuel into the large center hole. Since it's the fumes that are flamable, I "swish" the fuel around the walls of the inside of the burner right before lighting it so that there is more surface area to evaporate. This is especially helpful with cold fuel.
Lighting the Burner
This burner uses alcohol fumes as it's fuel and needs to be "primed" before it's ready to cook on. It remains lit because the alcohol inside the burner heats up which increases the rate at which it evaporates. Until the alcohol gets warm enough for this increased evaporation, the burner may not stay lit if you put a pot on it and starve the large center hole of oxygen. One thing to be careful of with this type of fuel is that it burns almost completely clear and it can be difficult to see if it is in fact lit. You can usually see the "heat shimmer" when it is lit, or you can carefully wave your hand over it about 6 inches (150mm) above the burner.
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