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General Information

No moving parts or seals!!
Everything needed to cook and eat (minus the food) fits in the pot.
Weighing in at 16 ounces, which includes 6 oz. of fuel (4 to 7 days worth, depending on usage).

Commercial Stove Problems

Some of the commercial backpacking stoves use fuel canisters, propane for example. With canisters, it can be difficult to bring only the amount of fuel needed for the trip. When trying to keep the load light, bringing a canister that lasts 5 days on a 2 day trip would be over kill. One solution would be to bring a used canister. The problem is, not knowing exactly how much fuel is left in the canister. If the amount of time left in a used container is known, but would not be enough for the trip, another canister is needed. Keeping track of multiple canisters can be done but is too much trouble for some. The possibility of needing more than one canister would make it more difficult to keep things light, and would take up more room in a backpack.

Commercial stoves using fuel bottles, which can be filled with only the amount of fuel needed for the trip, generally have other problems like moving parts and seals that can fail. A pump pressurizes the fuel in the bottle to push it to the stove. The pump’s moving parts and seals can fail. It is often necessary to carry spare seals and cleaning tools, "incase something goes wrong".

The fuels used in some commercial backpack stoves, do not burn clean. A black, sooty film is left on the stove itself, the windscreen, and the bottom of the cooking pot. This black film needs to be removed, or it will get on everything it touches. The equipment can be stored in its own bag to keep the soot from getting everything dirty, or the equipment can be cleaned after every use.

The BluuBull Stove uses very light plastic bottles to carry fuel and can be filled with only the amount needed for the trip. The BluuBull Stove burns clean, leaving no residue to be cleaned off. The BluuBull Stove also has no moving parts or seal to fail, add fuel light and.... it WILL work.

Cooking Time

It is common practice to measure the amount of time to boil a specified amount of water, as an indicator of how quickly a stove can cook food. This helps manufacturers compare their various stove models.

Cook times are affected by altitude, ambient temperature, water temperature, pot dimensions, pot material, fuel type and other factors. Stove manufacturers normally state the amount of time required to boil a specified amount of water. A manufacturer will use the same parameters for testing on each of their stoves. This gives a fairly accurate comparison of different stove models from the same manufacturer. What the consumer is not aware of, are things like; ambient temperature, water temperature, altitude, etc. Each manufacturer will test their stoves under different conditions. This makes it difficult to compare stoves from different manufacturers.

Below is a table of cook times. The conditions BluuBull Stove are listed with the table, so there is less confusion about how the stove will perform.

The times below are average time. Each cooking session may cook slightly faster or slower. Keeping the lid on the pot while cooking will improve cook times considerably.

Water
Quantity
Fuel
Amount
Time To
Boil
Time To
Burner Out
1 cup 1/2 oz. 3:50 4:30
2 cup 3/4 oz. 6:35 8:10
3 cup 1 oz. 9:00 10:45

Altitude - 2300 feet above sea level. Wind - 0 mph.
Ambient temp. 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Water temp. 73 degrees Fahrenheit.
30 second warm up time. Pot material - Titanium

A few bubbles appearing in the pot were not considered boiling. The time noted above for boil time, refers to the time it took to get the water to a rolling boil.

The times indicated for boil and burner out are from the time the burner was ignited. The warm up time of the burner is included in the boil time. The pot was not placed over the burner until the 30 second warm up was complete. For example the time to boil for 1 cup of water is 3:50, meaning it took 3:10 to boil the water and a 30 sec warm up.

Pro's and Con's

Cons (the bad side)

Pros (the good side)

What is Denatured Alcohol

Ethyl Alcohol (Ethanol for short) is the alcohol we consume in alcoholic beverages. Ethanol is used as a cleaning agent and can be used as fuel.

There would be a problem if Ethyl Alcohol were placed on the shelves of a hardware store. People would buy it for human consumption. As we know there are taxes and age restrictions associated with alcoholic beverages. To avoid the taxes and age requirements, a small amount of poison is added to Ethyl Alcohol (sometimes acetone) before it is sent to hardware stores. Denatured Alcohol is Ethyl Alcohol with poison added to it.

Denatured Alcohol boils at 172°F, freezes at -173°F, and mixes well with water. The vapors from Denatured Alcohol are flammable and will burn when the vapor content in the air is between 3% and 19%.

See the safety page for a link to the MSDS for Denatured Alcohol.

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