I'm going to have a rethink, and scale down the size of my Maxie-based cooker. Looking at my requirement with brutal honesty, I'm going to be cooking for one on a small boat with a very small galley. I don't really have room to store my 20cm Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker, though it has been a good friend to me when cooking year in and year out on a larger boat. 

I've ordered an 18cm cast aluminium pan as the basis for the cooker, so it's thicker-walled and heavier (though I think I'll forget gimballing for the time being - boiling a kettle and heating a can of soup will suffice while underway this summer). 

I've bought a tiny pressure cooker, a Premier Handi Hard Anodised Pressure Cooker 1.5 Litre made in India and sold by Amazon UK. It's actually 1.2 litre capacity, but I've found that it is exactly the right size for a one-pot meal for one person. Its diameter is 16cm. So I can follow that up by buying a 1 litre hard anodised camping kettle; I already have some 16cm stainless steel pans. 

This plan wouldn't do for living aboard; but I'll be sailing during the summer months only, in Weaverbird, and that makes a difference.

Annie Hill wrote:

David Tyler wrote:

Yes. I can bring a pan to the boil, and then turn the burner down to simmering heat without misbehaving - unlike a pressure kero burner, that will choke with carbon if the heat is too low, there is no tiny jet to block up. The only misbehaviour I found in three or four years of full-time use is that when the burner is getting old, the flame holes become enlarged, and then you can get a backfire and hear the combustion going on within the chamber.

I think it depends a bit on the way you cook: I found that even turned down, food boiled rather than simmered, so used a flame tamer.  That could be why my burner surrounds crumbled away faster than yours did, David.  Possibly the extra deflected heat?  BTW are the preheat dishes non-ferrous?

I do believe, also, that the very simple principle of operation is the best way of burning alcohol in a cooker. The burner made of the right materials, and mounted in a seaworthy stove = trouble-free and convenient cooking.

David Tyler wrote:

Yes. I can bring a pan to the boil, and then turn the burner down to simmering heat without misbehaving - unlike a pressure kero burner, that will choke with carbon if the heat is too low, there is no tiny jet to block up. The only misbehaviour I found in three or four years of full-time use is that when the burner is getting old, the flame holes become enlarged, and then you can get a backfire and hear the combustion going on within the chamber.

David,
thanks for a most interesting line of photos of the Maxie burner. A very clever device, indeed. So the thin jet of evaporated alcohol just drags enough air with it into the bigger hole of the burner to get «lean» burning?!

As for the sensitivity to the height of the tank; I guess many such burners could have used a float chamber regulator as used in most carburettors, and on the Reflex diesel heater. My needle valve-controlled Taylor diesel heater (in Malena and Johanna) was always tricky to make run at a constant setting. A friend of mine had the same heater. When he added a regulator from Reflex, the problem was solved.

Today I had a quick trip (through the rain) to check Ingeborg’s Origo 3000 stove. I had recently filled up both canisters with the cheapest denatured alcohol I could get. At full pelt, it now burned with a yellowish flame, indicating rich mixture and/or incomplete combustion (..if I got it right...). If I turned down the heat a little, the flame again went invisible. I then measured up 0.5 litre of water (about +10°C) and found that it took just over 5 minutes to bring it to boil. That is good enough for me. One fine thing with it, is that it can be set to very low heat for as long as you like without it protesting. I haven’t tried it for making bacon yet. Time will show.

Arne

 
Ingeborg's Origo 3000

PS: Can the Maxie be set to low heat without misbehaving?

Interesting stuff David.  

I wonder if you might be overheating the burner and that is the reason for softening the knob?  Most of the single burner stoves I've used allow more airflow to the burner.  For a replacement knob, I ordered some bakelite ones from ebay that seemed to work well enough with the Origo we had. I think bakelite has a continuous working temp around 120 C.

I think lead on the bottom is a good idea.  We used a Force 10 Seacook stove for years aboard our Hurley 20.  The low slung propane tank and high mounting point for the gimbals was enough to keep it stable with any reasonably sized pot on top of it.  Too bad the pot is teflon lined, otherwise you could use it as a mold to cast a lead brick to attach to the bottom of the pot.  Incidentally, since you are making a one-burner stove, why not gimbal it in two axes like the Force 10 Seacook?

It is a bit alarming that the needle valve is so poor that it can't withstand more than a few inches of pressure head.  I wonder if you could use some valve lapping compound to improve the mating surfaces?  It would be interesting to experiment with the turbo-charged Maxi you describe by raising the tank a little bit.

Thanks for sharing the results of your experiment.