I like stoves like this and I've built some similar ones where the pot stand is an integrated tube like that. I think they perform so well because the internal pot stand increases thermal feedback whereas an external pot stand acts as a slight heat sink. So they boil pretty fast, but they also use up the fuel quickly due to the increased feedback. But my favorite DIY stoves all have integrated pot stands that take advantage of the feedback.
This is great thank you! Might be making one of these now! Fancy Feast name is perfect😻. Also...I love Shug! He is hilarious. I was getting into hammocks a while back and he was my go to guy!
I just built one of these. I used rubbing alcohol to do a burn test on it. I'm really impressed with it and the fact that it's super light. definitely earned a spot in my bug out bag.
Remember back in highschool science class, the first time you could play with fire and not get sent to the principal's office? Your teacher told you about the hottest point in a flame. Something nobody considers in making these stoves is the height of the pot above the flame. Next time you make a stove, or use on you have, once the water's boiling, raise and lower the stove some over the flame and see where the water boils faster. This height is where the pot should be. It makes a big difference. I can boil 27 ounces of 60 degree water in 3 minutes.
I used do this - vary the pot height with water boiling; and find that different stoves/pots work better with different heights, not always near the classic 1" sweet spot.
Have you considered some sort of simmer ring? I mad one out of a soda can bottom I need to remove the ring on the top of the tomato can so it would fit tight I was not able to get a real smooth cut with the tool I had but it worked ok and allowed only part of the flame 1oz fuel ran for 17 Min.
I have made several stoves of this design (by Zellph) using aluminum cottle middles without the vent hole for the inner portion & never experienced the volcano effect you described. If it's not to much trouble could you post a vid showing this phenomenon?
Hi Hiram I'm from the UK just made the same stove from a small HP bean can and the centre can used a green giant sweetcorn tin didn't have to cut the can I still got the 1 inch sweet spot and keeps the cans strength integrity. used meths and boiled 2 cups of water straight from the cold tap in 4.15
Hi Hiram, this one beats 'em all, but for the last couple of years I've been working on that fuel gel mixture, the one with the Heet & Calcium acetate, it needs more aluminum powder. The recipe a chemist found for me and I inadvertently found too for Sterno includes some metal microns (?). The gel burns up, it calcifies, it only lasts 15 minutes, _but Sterno lasts 2 hours._ Came full circle back to you stumbled across another giving you full credit for this stove. I have some zinc powder on hand, I make golden & silvery pennies, and so I'm going to give that a try when the lazy wears off.
My version of that stove is more stable (the top part does not neck in), has an insulated base for winter use, also instant light, weighs 14.6 grams and get's 2 cups to boil in 3:50.
so according to this test, this burns hotter than a trangia... I need to make one of these for sure. very good videos. I'm still pretty new to alcohol stoves but I had my trangia for about 2 years now.
I am wondering outloud if I can modify my out-d stove/burner to something like that. Snow melting and slow burning is what I had in mind when I ordered it. When it arives from china sometime mext month I can scheme on it more.
So from watching your videos I have concluded that the difference between a supercat, supercat with felt, and fancy feast stoves is so minimal it doesn't even matter, however the supercat with felt has the best efficiency of the three, it's also the lightest and simplest and a simple simmer ring can be made with another can ring cut out to wrap around it to block the holes.
Hey Hiram, I've watching a million of your videos! Have you found one pot ( titanium, anodized aluminum, stainless, tall, wide or whatever ) that gives you the fastest boil times on whatever stove you are using? I seemed to do they best with a Kmart grease pot. I also have a snowpeak mini solo set, the Coleman max set, and the gsi soloist pot. Thanks for all the great videos and keep them coming.
Used bigger versions for testing things like cooking oil, not recomended lol. It works but thats half the problem. It works really well lol. Got a mini inferno that dont like shutting off til the fuels gone.
@@MrHiramCook Thanks for making all these! You really inspired me to love the fancy feast design. I had watched a bunch of these guys making tornado / pedal jet stoves using steel wool as the wick so I swapped the carbon felt for wool too see how it holds up. Have you tried to make one of those pedal jet stoves the guys over seas are making on RUclips?
@@highdesertbiker "Pedal jet"? How is this? Some of Tetkoba's designs? BTW - I've used steel wool in some stoves, work OK, but not idea about durability. Anyway more by necessity, because carbon felt is expensive and difficult to get here in my "corner of the world".
CMG you do not need a cat. The cans that potted meat and Spam spread come in are the same size as the cat food cans. Then there are the cans with green chili's if you are in New Mexico. I think Frito Lay's also puts dips in the same sized cans too.
Hiram, I live in Vancouver and I can not seem to find anyone who sells carbon felt. Do you think that if I bought wool felt from the craft store it would work for the fancy feast stove. Felt, Must it be carbon fibre?
Sorry if someone has already asked this here or elsewhere, but: does the wick last indefinitely, or does it need to be replaced at some point? And if so, how often?
@DA Blackwell - Not sure if anyone answered you. The carbon felt may need to eventually be replaced because it shrinks over time, but it takes a long time. When it shrinks, you don't have to replace the whole thing though. You can just add a piece to make up the difference. I think Hiram has a video somewhere that explains this situation. The stove in that video, Hiram says he has used it something like 100 +/- times. I understand this isn't really a quantitative answer, but I think it would be some time before you need to worry about it.
+Doug Ramsey The alcohol is poured into the center of the tomato can. The bottom of the tomato can has been cut off and there are a couple of holes punched on the bottom end. That way the alcohol soaks into the carbon felt.
I am wondering about using an Esbit tablet in a fancy feast alcohol stove. Do you or anyone have tested this. It would seem that without needing for warming alcohal and questioning if the flame would be too close if a pot is placed on the stove with a tablet, how good the results might be. Using a raised pot stand and the tablet in the fancy feast stove should work okay I would think.
My first attempt at something like this a couple years ago I used pop cans of different sizes for the two cans... but the inner one just had a large hole in the top instead of the whole end removed. It works well but if you light it without a pot on it then sometimes vapour inside will pop and throw the inner can some distance. Some surprise the first time that happenned!
Can anyone please tell me why my stove has a yellow flame? Mine doesn't burn that nice hot blue flame like you see in this video. Did I do something wrong building it? Seems exactly as the one above. I'm burning HEET, and I burn ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL (which I just wash the soot off) but still......Yellow flames. Anyone?
Blue flame means you are getting a complete burn of the fuel. Yellow flame means you do not have enough air (oxygen I guess). Or you are using fuel that has impurities in it and they are stopping you from getting a good blue flame.
Hiram, i did about the same stove, check out my carbon felt stove with quick boil time. Worked amazing. Tho i should have used the hole, i took out the can to load the alcohol lol. check out my boil test bud
I think its time you returned that hat to the MAINE STATE PRISON! :-) Thanks for the video, Hiram. It seems as if you intuitively answer my questions before I can even formulate them.
Why not try this stove with a 3/4 inch gap instead of 1 inch. I bet 1 OZ alcohol would burn longer. My MAHALO has a gap of 1/2 inch and it's a miser on fuel and still a decent boil time.
Bobby Harper my degree is in chemistry and the essence of science is reproducibility. I find it takes a minimum of an oz to even light and have had it never boil water in the wood with a wind screen at near freezing temps.
Please don't let the other guys on you tube turn Fancy Feast into a simmer pot. It was never intended to be a simmer pot. Bar none, Fancy Feast is the best alcohol pot boiler for Back packing and light camping. Other alcohol stoves are a waste of time and money. Use Sterno in a Sterno over, if you want to simmer.
It actually can do quite well for simmering -- see "If I were to make a Simmer Ring...Test #2" by Hiram and "DIY Simmer Ring..." by ColoradoCamper. The first one simmers a really really long time (over an hour!) on one ounce of fuel, and the other simmers at a faster rate but won't easily go out in wind. I could only see a backpacker taking the ColoradoCamper style one on a trip. How many grams could that possibly weigh? Very worth it. I could see people using Hiram's extremely long lasting simmer ring design for keeping trays of food warm at parties. I don't think other alcohol stoves are a waste of time and money. I'm impressed with the RUCAS HD, for example. Looks really very durable -- wouldn't ever get crushed in a backpack even if you forgot to put it in a pot or something for protection. Please check into the methanol research of Dr. Woodrow Monte. Methanol is not safe at all, and there has even been a lot of it in the food supply in recent history. See 'Monte Diet' page at WhileScienceSleeps dot com Everyone should be using an alternative to methanol in alcohol stoves.
I like stoves like this and I've built some similar ones where the pot stand is an integrated tube like that. I think they perform so well because the internal pot stand increases thermal feedback whereas an external pot stand acts as a slight heat sink. So they boil pretty fast, but they also use up the fuel quickly due to the increased feedback. But my favorite DIY stoves all have integrated pot stands that take advantage of the feedback.
Built one of these today. It works really well. Thank you for the video!
This is great thank you! Might be making one of these now! Fancy Feast name is perfect😻. Also...I love Shug! He is hilarious. I was getting into hammocks a while back and he was my go to guy!
I just built one of these. I used rubbing alcohol to do a burn test on it. I'm really impressed with it and the fact that it's super light. definitely earned a spot in my bug out bag.
Remember back in highschool science class, the first time you could play with fire and not get sent to the principal's office? Your teacher told you about the hottest point in a flame. Something nobody considers in making these stoves is the height of the pot above the flame. Next time you make a stove, or use on you have, once the water's boiling, raise and lower the stove some over the flame and see where the water boils faster. This height is where the pot should be. It makes a big difference. I can boil 27 ounces of 60 degree water in 3 minutes.
I used do this - vary the pot height with water boiling; and find that different stoves/pots work better with different heights, not always near the classic 1" sweet spot.
Hey, what flavor of Fancy Feast makes the best stove? Turkey, tuna, beef, or what?
Great stove and another great video.
Have you considered some sort of simmer ring? I mad one out of a soda can bottom I need to remove the ring on the top of the tomato can so it would fit tight I was not able to get a real smooth cut with the tool I had but it worked ok and allowed only part of the flame 1oz fuel ran for 17 Min.
I have made several stoves of this design (by Zellph) using aluminum cottle middles without the vent hole for the inner portion & never experienced the volcano effect you described. If it's not to much trouble could you post a vid showing this phenomenon?
Hi Hiram I'm from the UK just made the same stove from a small HP bean can and the centre can used a green giant sweetcorn tin didn't have to cut the can I still got the 1 inch sweet spot and keeps the cans strength integrity. used meths and boiled 2 cups of water straight from the cold tap in 4.15
Hi Hiram, this one beats 'em all, but for the last couple of years I've been working on that fuel gel mixture, the one with the Heet & Calcium acetate, it needs more aluminum powder. The recipe a chemist found for me and I inadvertently found too for Sterno includes some metal microns (?). The gel burns up, it calcifies, it only lasts 15 minutes, _but Sterno lasts 2 hours._ Came full circle back to you stumbled across another giving you full credit for this stove. I have some zinc powder on hand, I make golden & silvery pennies, and so I'm going to give that a try when the lazy wears off.
Fits inside the Stanley Adventure camp cool set for storage.
Did you see my video about places to buy carbon felt?
My version of that stove is more stable (the top part does not neck in), has an insulated base for winter use, also instant light, weighs 14.6 grams and get's 2 cups to boil in 3:50.
How about with my Vargo Ti-Lite Mug - 750ml? It's 9.5cm in diameter.
so according to this test, this burns hotter than a trangia... I need to make one of these for sure. very good videos. I'm still pretty new to alcohol stoves but I had my trangia for about 2 years now.
I am wondering outloud if I can modify my out-d stove/burner to something like that. Snow melting and slow burning is what I had in mind when I ordered it. When it arives from china sometime mext month I can scheme on it more.
HI Hiram, could you please do a boil test with this stove using a 12 cm zebra pot? Thank you
WHat is carbon felt and where do you get it?
So from watching your videos I have concluded that the difference between a supercat, supercat with felt, and fancy feast stoves is so minimal it doesn't even matter, however the supercat with felt has the best efficiency of the three, it's also the lightest and simplest and a simple simmer ring can be made with another can ring cut out to wrap around it to block the holes.
The detail is that "Fancy Feast" is more easy to make, just one hole and for simmer ring anther cat can over the first.
Thank you.
Hey Hiram, I've watching a million of your videos! Have you found one pot ( titanium, anodized aluminum, stainless, tall, wide or whatever ) that gives you the fastest boil times on whatever stove you are using? I seemed to do they best with a Kmart grease pot. I also have a snowpeak mini solo set, the Coleman max set, and the gsi soloist pot. Thanks for all the great videos and keep them coming.
What is the diameter of the inner can in a regular fancy feast stove?
Used bigger versions for testing things like cooking oil, not recomended lol. It works but thats half the problem. It works really well lol. Got a mini inferno that dont like shutting off til the fuels gone.
Shug is awesome!
What method do you use to cut the tomato paste can leaving such a smooth edge?
I was able to achieve almost identical burn times to this video except my boil was at 4:10 using steel wool instead of carbon felt
Good to know. Thanks for sharing.
@@MrHiramCook Thanks for making all these! You really inspired me to love the fancy feast design. I had watched a bunch of these guys making tornado / pedal jet stoves using steel wool as the wick so I swapped the carbon felt for wool too see how it holds up.
Have you tried to make one of those pedal jet stoves the guys over seas are making on RUclips?
@@highdesertbiker "Pedal jet"? How is this? Some of Tetkoba's designs?
BTW - I've used steel wool in some stoves, work OK, but not idea about durability.
Anyway more by necessity, because carbon felt is expensive and difficult to get here in my "corner of the world".
@@Sokol10 yeah I can't remember the exact name but there's a couple of those Japanese guys making the pedal jet stoves
how it's performance in windy condition?
CMG you do not need a cat. The cans that potted meat and Spam spread come in are the same size as the cat food cans. Then there are the cans with green chili's if you are in New Mexico. I think Frito Lay's also puts dips in the same sized cans too.
Hiram,
I live in Vancouver and I can not seem to find anyone who sells carbon felt. Do you think that if I bought wool felt from the craft store it would work for the fancy feast stove. Felt, Must it be carbon fibre?
+lee larsen www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=carbon+felt Hope this helps!
Great vid. Very informative. Just subbed. Where does one get carbon fiber foam and is it expensive?
Cee Alt Here's a source www.minibulldesign.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=6
Where do you find carbon felt? i am australia so perhaps it coes by a different name here?
I have found at my local store bituminous felt which sounds similar.
+Shini the carbon felt Is good because it won't char.. I've had trouble finding it.
Let me see what I can work up.
Sorry if someone has already asked this here or elsewhere, but: does the wick last indefinitely, or does it need to be replaced at some point? And if so, how often?
@DA Blackwell - Not sure if anyone answered you. The carbon felt may need to eventually be replaced because it shrinks over time, but it takes a long time. When it shrinks, you don't have to replace the whole thing though. You can just add a piece to make up the difference. I think Hiram has a video somewhere that explains this situation. The stove in that video, Hiram says he has used it something like 100 +/- times. I understand this isn't really a quantitative answer, but I think it would be some time before you need to worry about it.
Excellent Video ;-)
Do you pour the alcohol into the felt or the center tomato can?
+Doug Ramsey The alcohol is poured into the center of the tomato can. The bottom of the tomato can has been cut off and there are a couple of holes punched on the bottom end. That way the alcohol soaks into the carbon felt.
I am wondering about using an Esbit tablet in a fancy feast alcohol stove. Do you or anyone have tested this. It would seem that without needing for warming alcohal and questioning if the flame would be too close if a pot is placed on the stove with a tablet, how good the results might be. Using a raised pot stand and the tablet in the fancy feast stove should work okay I would think.
The cat food can would have the holes punched in the sides>
Doug Ramsey
cool vid, thanks Hiram, and congrats for Your vid #400 on this channel! ;-)
My first attempt at something like this a couple years ago I used pop cans of different sizes for the two cans... but the inner one just had a large hole in the top instead of the whole end removed. It works well but if you light it without a pot on it then sometimes vapour inside will pop and throw the inner can some distance. Some surprise the first time that happenned!
I wish or hope that you could caution people about the Carbon Felt, the debris can get So Itchy to your skin upon contact.
Can anyone please tell me why my stove has a yellow flame? Mine doesn't burn that nice hot blue flame like you see in this video. Did I do something wrong building it? Seems exactly as the one above. I'm burning HEET, and I burn ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL (which I just wash the soot off) but still......Yellow flames. Anyone?
Blue flame means you are getting a complete burn of the fuel. Yellow flame means you do not have enough air (oxygen I guess). Or you are using fuel that has impurities in it and they are stopping you from getting a good blue flame.
chivone21 Sounds like results from rubbing alcohol fuel.
Hiram, i did about the same stove, check out my carbon felt stove with quick boil time. Worked amazing. Tho i should have used the hole, i took out the can to load the alcohol lol. check out my boil test bud
Hey guys, do you know if the fancy feast stove work with a jetboiler pot?
Yes it does.
I think its time you returned that hat to the MAINE STATE PRISON! :-) Thanks for the video, Hiram. It seems as if you intuitively answer my questions before I can even formulate them.
Why not try this stove with a 3/4 inch gap instead of 1 inch. I bet 1 OZ alcohol would burn longer. My MAHALO has a gap of 1/2 inch and it's a miser on fuel and still a decent boil time.
I can never get close to these results in the real world 5000ft and temps in sub freezing. even the alcohol is hard to light.
Tim Barton Shug beat the trangia with one of these.
Bobby Harper my degree is in chemistry and the essence of science is reproducibility. I find it takes a minimum of an oz to even light and have had it never boil water in the wood with a wind screen at near freezing temps.
You can watch Shug's alcohol stove boil water in mountain subfreezing temps.....repeatedly.
Solid design. Just stick with alcohol lol
Please don't let the other guys on you tube turn Fancy Feast into a simmer pot.
It was never intended to be a simmer pot.
Bar none, Fancy Feast is the best alcohol pot boiler for Back packing and light camping.
Other alcohol stoves are a waste of time and money.
Use Sterno in a Sterno over, if you want to simmer.
It actually can do quite well for simmering -- see "If I were to make a Simmer Ring...Test #2" by Hiram and "DIY Simmer Ring..." by ColoradoCamper. The first one simmers a really really long time (over an hour!) on one ounce of fuel, and the other simmers at a faster rate but won't easily go out in wind. I could only see a backpacker taking the ColoradoCamper style one on a trip. How many grams could that possibly weigh? Very worth it. I could see people using Hiram's extremely long lasting simmer ring design for keeping trays of food warm at parties.
I don't think other alcohol stoves are a waste of time and money. I'm impressed with the RUCAS HD, for example. Looks really very durable -- wouldn't ever get crushed in a backpack even if you forgot to put it in a pot or something for protection.
Please check into the methanol research of Dr. Woodrow Monte. Methanol is not safe at all, and there has even been a lot of it in the food supply in recent history. See 'Monte Diet' page at WhileScienceSleeps dot com Everyone should be using an alternative to methanol in alcohol stoves.