Has anyone tried bio-ethanol in their stoves. They are selling it in Go Outdoors as a gel or liquid as an alternative to meths. No smoke, no smell, clean pans!!! I've had a quick search online and it is supposed to be as good as meths. Anyone used it??

No smoke, no smell, clean pans!!!

In fairness, meths doesn't smoke and if you're stove's working well / designed well then it shouldn't dirty your pans ... and I quite like the smell

Meths = ethanol with stuff in it to make it taste rank. You can make ethanol in a bunch of different ways, but they're chemically the same, I think.

The Trangia trick from my DofE days was to dilute your meths with 10% water to stop it smoking so much...

P.S. I presume everyone's seen this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B002ATI4VG ?

Meths = ethanol with stuff in it to make it taste rank. You can make ethanol in a bunch of different ways, but they're chemically the same, I think.

Yep.

The Trangia trick from my DofE days was to dilute your meths with 10% water to stop it smoking so much...

The Trangia is at fault ... adding water just masks the problem. Throwing the burner away would have cured it

s8tannorm wrote:

Meths = ethanol with stuff in it to make it taste rank. You can make ethanol in a bunch of different ways, but they're chemically the same, I think.

Yep.

The Trangia trick from my DofE days was to dilute your meths with 10% water to stop it smoking so much...

The Trangia is at fault ... adding water just masks the problem. Throwing the burner away would have cured it

Now don't go getting all potty-mouthed about the venerable Trangia. Many happy days of my youth spent carting that lump around

Ive used Bio-ethanol for a while in my trangia burner, got 2l for a 5er at BandQ, its a bit sooty, but doesnt really bother me
Burns a little more violently than neths, but its so cheap i keep using it :)

I use a trangia for car camping. I do have the gas burner instead of the crap meths trangia burner though