Camping is another of my interests. Last weekend I went on my first overnight backpacking trip. I realized that we would want some way to heat water for our morning coffee and it would be nice to have a nice hot dinner when we made camp. I heard about people making backpacking stoves out of aluminum beverage cans. This idea appealed to me for several reasons. First, they use readily available materials that are usually discarded with the recycling.  Also the stoves are very light, simple and effective and the fuel is alcohol which is cheap and accessible.

I made a variation of the stove known as a Pepsi can stove. It’s pretty obvious why it is called this. We fueled it with 91% isopropyl alcohol which was a couple dollars at the drugstore. The isoproply alcohol leaves quite a bit of soot on the pot as it burns but I like that it was easy to find and I don’t mind having traces of it in my mess kit. My first effort was successful, the stove burned well and boiled water fast. Below are pictures of the stove burning during the day and at night . It is difficult to see the the flames in daylight.

Here is a link to the tutorial that I followed to make my stove.