Originally Posted by
cyccommute
I have to disagree. I don't find canister stoves to be particularly unstable nor do I find determining how much fuel I have left to be difficult. I can determine the amount of fuel left by three methods. The canister cools significantly during use...it's called the Joule/Thompson effect. The liquid fuel is slightly warmer than the gas over the liquid. I can also tell by weight. The contents of the canister also slosh when the canister is shaken.
I also question the ability to tell how much fuel you have left in the alcohol 'cat can' stoves or stoves like the Trangia. Since they are mass burn stoves, you really have no idea how much fuel you have left. And what happens if you run out of fuel during cooking? I can change canisters on the fly if I run out but how do you add more fuel to a hot stove when you have to pour it in? I work with flammable materials all the time so I have a overdeveloped safety nanny sense but I'm not about to try to pour fuel into a stove that is even warm and try to reignite it.
There is also the issue of handling the fuel. At least with butane stoves and pressurized liquid stoves, the fuel is contained in a vessel and metered through a valve. If something goes wrong, I can close the valve and stop the process. With mass burn stoves, there is no valve. Someone here in Colorado started a forest fire with a mass burn stove when it got away from him.
I also "cook" on my stoves. I don't just reheat water. The control valve on every butane stove I've used is fine enough to have a hard boil or a slow simmer and every thing in between. If anything the control is almost better than my kitchen stove.
I can
look in the burner to see how much fuel is left. And I can
look in the clear plastic bottle, or inside the Heet bottle to see how much I have left for multiple usage.
The safety aspect of refuelling a hot Trangia burner is overstated. If it extinguishes, I just refill it. The burner is not hot enough for it to set alight the new fuel without a flame.
You should also know that immediately you put any fuel under pressure, the dangers associated with it go up. Alcohol stoves don't use fuel under pressure.
If a forest fire was started by someone using an mass burn stove, then tell us what type and how it was being used. I can then tell you about people who have been burned very badly by propane explosions in their tents. Or how they've singed their eyebrows trying to bring a rampant pressure gas stove under control.
Plus, we have already advised the OP to practice at home, which includes judging how the type of fuel he chooses does work.
I specifically mentioned the Pocket Rocket as being unstable. Others may or may not be. I commented on what I found with that burner. I like the way Trangia sets work with a stable base that by their very design help prevent pots from being spilled.
You may be a competent cook with the stove you desire to use. I have seen many others who are not. This largely comes back to the type of stove they have been using, and they weren't alcohol ones.
I also have issues with propane cartridge disposal. You can't refill them...
Gas has additives that aren't nice, and any leakage into a pannier is going to be awful to clean up, unlike alcohol that simply... evaporates.
I've also seen the result first hand of neglect with a propane gas stove, left on as its owners went to bed in a tent. The explosion resulted in shrapnel being scattered up to 20 metres around the campsite. Fortunately, no-one was hurt.
I think we've all used different stoves over a period. Your long-held belief that alcohol simply isn't efficient enough in BTU terms for you is OK. For others, they choose what works for them. The OP then can weigh up the pros and cons, including and beyond the BTUs (as a professional chef, I'm sure he is aware of those issues), and go from there.