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safe cooking

24072 Views 300 Replies 39 Participants Last post by hellosailor, Apr 6, 2014

captain jack

Discussion Starter · Mar 30, 2014

i have read a lot of threads about stoves on boats. of course, the usual debate is alcohol or propane.

recently, last month actually, a powerboat at the marina my boat is berthed at caught fire and burned up completely. it was a live aboard. the guy was hurt but he lived. he was lucky. he bought another power boat off of their lean dock and moved into it. the cause? his propane stove.

that was a real piece of reality for me. no propane on my boat!

but, there are safety risks with alcohol, too. the threads i have read make that plain. so, the big question i have is what other options are there?

also, how real is the risk with alcohol?

as i get my boat ready to sail, this will be a choice i am going to have to face. it doesn't have a stove but i will want one for cruising. eating out at every port you stp at is going to be way too costly and you can't always be sure you will be stopping at a port for the night. thanks.

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mitchbrown

· #54 · Mar 30, 2014

barefootnavigator said:
Blow through a straw and you will create 100 times more pressure that is coming through the regulator, very low pressure system. It stinks to holy heaven, I can't imagine how anyone could miss a leak. One last note just because you get a leak doesn't mean your boat will blow up. You have to be an extra special type of moron to blow your boat up with propane.

Propane low pressure regulators are factory set at 3 PSI. if you can blow 100 times more PSI than that, id have to say you have been practicing.

Also someone mentioned that he/she only opens the valve 1/2 turn. Propane valves are double sealing valves and as such need to be all the way open or all the way closed or they can leak past the stem packing. How many super smart propane users knew that.

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mitchbrown

· #90 · Mar 30, 2014

barefootnavigator said:
one gallon goes 12 hours give or take.

The Origo manual states 6 to 7 hrs per full canister. It takes one quart to fill each canister. My experience is in line with what the manual states. If you don't use your stove much you will find that some alcohol evaporates in time.

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mitchbrown

· #91 · Mar 30, 2014

Puddin'_Tain said:
If you buy a gallon can, denatured alcohol is generally about $13 or $14 per gallon. However, a five-gallon can (a bit harder to find, but usually available at paint supply and some non-big-box hardware stores) runs $25 to $35, or $5 to $7 per gallon.

Thanks for the tip

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mitchbrown

· #227 · Apr 2, 2014

hellosailor said:
Coal? No good for boats, too hard to get good coal in most of the developed world, and too easy to have a monoxide problem.

But speaking of spaghetti, that's a classic "ain't gonna happen" on a 6800btu burner. Can't boil a big pot of water on that. Although, most of us were taught how to cook pasta the rich way, with a big pot of rolling boiling water. If you just bring the water to a boil, and then shut the burner and come back to stir the pasta every few minutes, it cooks up just fine. May take 20 minutes instead of 10, but it cooks just fine without the need for copious amounts of boiling water. Great way to save fuel, whatever kind it is.

FYI copied these specs from a force 10 propane marine stove.

3,400 BTUs per small top burner

8,200 BTUs per large top burner

5,100 BTUs oven burner
5,500 BTU Broiler

So you can see that the Origo alcohol stoves burners are right inline for marine stoves

Sure Marine Service, Inc. | Force10

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mitchbrown

· #248 · Apr 2, 2014

Your home range is an unfair comparison. You need to compare Origo to a marine Propane stove. As I showed in my post a couple pages back they are similar in BTU. Most marine propane stoves have a much smaller burner than do most home stoves.

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mitchbrown

· #258 · Apr 3, 2014

its amazing how the disinformation keeps being injected into these threads. I feel like people just post without having followed the thread from the beginning

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