Supercat: best backpacking alcohol stove design out there!

Over the course of my outdoor adventures, I have found the alcohol camp stove to be an invaluable piece of equipment. This stove creates a small high temperature flame that quickly boils water. The stove's flame is quiet, smokeless, odorless, and nearly invisible during daytime. These attributes makes it ideal for preparing hot meals and drinks when outdoors. After experimenting with several alcohol stove designs, I believe that the supercat stove, shown here, is currently the best design out there.

To build a supercat stove you first need to find a standard cat food can. Now the Supercat is incredibly simple to construct. Now the can comes with a relatively sharp lip. So using a pair of pliers, I first crimped down the edge of the lip. Next, I took a quarter inch paper hole punch, and I punched in 16 evenly spaced holes directly below the rim of the can. These holes serve as the primary flame ports of the stove. Finally I punched in another 15 evenly spaced holes directly below the first ring of flame ports. This secondary set of flame ports serves as guide rail between the fuel and the primary flame ports. The completely product took less than 5 minutes to construct.

The supercat can hold up to 2 fluid ozs of fuel. I prefer to use denatured alcohol. After lighting, the stove usually takes about 20 seconds to prime. After which the cooking container can be placed onto it. 2 ounces of alchohol fuel produces a burn time of approximately 16 minutes.


Now the super cat stove design has several inherent advantages over many other alcohol stove designs:

1. First of all, it is the cheapest stove design out there. A cat food can retails for around 50 cents, but such cans are commonly found for free in recycling bins everywhere.


2. The rim of the super cat is made out of thick aluminum. It is strong enough, and stable enough to serve as a stand for most cooking containers.Thus eliminating the need for a separate stand.

2. At just 1 quarter of an ounce in weight, it is the lightest alcohol stove out there.

3. Unlike other stove designs, the supercat is made from a single unibody piece of aluminum, thus there are no internal containers, adhesives, insulative materials, or o-rings, moving parts that can fail and cause a fuel leak. The sheer simplicity of this design makes it extremely rugged.

4. Now the flame ports, at a quarter inches in diameter, produces a stable, low pressure flame. Unlike higher pressure stove designs, the chances of a supercat exploding is effectively zero. Moreover, this design's loose tolerance allows it to prime itself quickly in a wide range of environmental contains.

Now when boiling water with the supercat, one trick that I use is to surround the stove with a sheet of tin foil. The tin foil serves as both a windbreak as well as a radiator. It absorbs the thermal energy of the flames and reflects it into the cooking container. With such a windscreen in place, it takes approximately 5 minutes and 30 seconds to boil 2 cups of water.

The supercat stove is cheap, simple, and rugged, making it my favorite camp stove so far. Anyway, thanks so much for watching, if you want to see more, please like, share, and subscribe to my channel. See you laters.