SHTF simple way to cook food and boil water

thanks ! too easy! and ~$5

Debating on ordering one of these, nice added feature being able to charge gadgets...



Last Edited by McMiller on 11/09/2012 09:17 PM

This works by generating a very small amount of electricity for very small electronic devices like a phone or led light. It uses a Peltier Cooler and a rocket stove:


A hobbist could buy the peltier device alone and make the rocket stove themselves instead of waiting for the Biolite to come out.

You can make a battery instead from charcoal and wood ashes. That's a simplier way to use the remants of cook fires versus burning fires for a long time to generate electricity.

Proof of concept:


Rather than do all that, you can buy a LED solar powered attachment that replaces a Nalgene bottle:


The issue with that is that it's rechargeable battery eventually fails. This could be utilized to charge up small electronic devices.

While the thermo-electric recharging idea is nice during an ACTUAL SHF scenario you won't need to recharge anything, no Internet or phone networks to bother with. It's all about mobility, stealth and simplicity.

Now if your talking about camping on the weekend then that's different.

If you've got 3 or so hours of sunlight, this little cooker will disinfect a quart of water at a time (to boiling if needed). No flame, no smoke, no fuel needed except sunlight. A very low key survival tool, with no visible smoke ever.
It will also pressure cook soybeans in an afternoon, and can be used as a simple pot still for making ethanol. Yield of ethanol is about 3 ounces per day per unit. Not bad for a square foot of solar energy....

[link to forums.sustainablecountry.com]

[link to ae-zone.org]

Will provide more links if there is any interest here.

Will any type of alcohol work?

I've had success with Heat, 91% rubbing alcohol (stinks, nasty), and home distilled old wine kicked up to about 120 proof.
Actually, standard vodka (40%) will work in a pinch, but it is awful darned hard to get lit. I would suggest it ONLY as a very very very very last resort, cuz it's such a terrible bummer to get going. But it does burn fair once lit.
You can often guess the proof of your spirits on how easily they light, and how much water residue is left. I use the bottom rounded side of an aluminum beer can for my testing. Put a few CC in there and see if it lights. Works great.

I still prefer the solar cooker linked above for when it's sunny.

I have this:

[link to www.amazon.com]

badadass thread 5*

I have several stoves but this one will always work and the price is right. The others will eventually run out of fuel.

[link to www.campingsurvival.com]

Totally non-adjustable.

Good for boiling water, worthless for cooking.

SHTF no french fries or omelets for you.

My 1974 fondue pot does the same thing.

It's my shtf cooking utensil, combined with the bbq.

Nice :) I still have mine from a thru hike attempt on the PCT. They are a great idea for SHTF scenarios! VERY light and the fuel is relatively diverse. You can use a gasoline additive with it (I can't remember the name of it), but it burns faster than alcohol. Thanks OP :)

I was just researching rocket stoves today. there are a lot of awesome ideas out there!

So I can make one of these later.

now THAT is COOL.

Now I feel like going to Radio Shack tomorrow...

Pretty cool but for $10 I would just buy this:

[link to www.outdoorgb.com]

soda can stoves are great for long distance hiking when you are trying to drop as much pack weight as possible and have the option of resupplying along route in some fashion, but when you have to carry your fuel, or resupply it, I personally would rather condense the stove and fuel into one item and just carry sterno cans.

I was thinking there would no uses but then I though my iphone has maps on it, it has firstaid apps and books, info on traps and trapping, books on weapons and survial ect. it be good to have certain info in the recovery end of things ect.

As for communication it be not used, sending off signals of your location, not the best if you are trying to hide n such!

just sayin

Last Edited by McMiller on 11/10/2012 01:41 AM

Cool little project.

Just made one and it works great.

I'm kind of ashamed now at my little makeshift tuna cans I used once with candle wax and Qtips! Thanks for the great ideas.

Try to think practically folks. You want to develop life skills to cope with a collapse situation. There's a place in any strategic plan for some gadgets within reason, but for the most part, prepping for the SHTF is about skills and supplies, not using gadgets.

For example, it's good to have tools like a knife. It takes time to find a piece of metal, forge it, and shape it, and put an edge on it. For this reason, it's good to buy a decent knife, but still ultimately to learn how to do it. That doesn't mean you need the most expensive knife out there, or the lighest, or the one with a hundred little tools on it.

If you're bugging out, for a very brief time based upon fuel carried with you, then an alcohol stove would cook something in an odorless way. To me, it's a very limited use item unless I can replicate the fuel to burn within it. If you're imagining a collapse and "liberating" i.e. looting Heet from a store to burn as fuel, then that's ethically different than most of the preppers I've met.

You could distill an alcohol fuel from a still as long as you have a thernometer, corn or potatoes grown in a garden, and understood fermentation. When distilling, certain substances "come over" at different temperatures and drip down through your coil. Early bootleggers however produced substances that were less than pure ethanol, and blindness often resulted from drinking them because some of the alcohols produced bound to the optic nerve.

So technically you might be able to produce enough alcohol to burn in an alcohol stove, but would you in a post-collapse situation? I doubt it. If you could distill them, then you'd save the rubbing alcohol for first aid, and distill ethanol for drinking. Either way, both would be extremely valuable commodities and wouldn't be wasted by burning in an alcohol stove.

Why would an alcohol stove be used at all? Mostly when camping in a post-collapse, it would be for a reason. Let's say I needed to scout an area. I want to be stealthy. I want to be like the First People and make an efficient fire with a low visibility and one that can be covered up. I need that fire for cooking and producing heat. If I'm concerned about stealth, I'm burning it at odd hours too. An alcohol stove might be used, but probably very rarely.

There's a ton of prepping skills that require a long amount of time to learn. I urge you to think as practically as possible to learn a series of skills that cumulatively accumulate. By learning in this manner, you can learn to cope as our ancestors did. They functioned in tribal ways to best live in harmony with their environoment.

If not, then you're a 21 Century person using gadgets to try to live, but then only for a very brief time period post-collapse. Learning agriculture, bushcraft, hunting, fishing, carpentry, parenting, medicine, these are prepping skills. Using gadgets means that you only can make it by being dependent upon them.

A useful gadget or tool is a rifle. It takes a long time to make certain tools. It's why they're purchased. If you're relying upon it post-collapse, then you're going to make it as long as it doesn't break or as long as you have ammunition. That means that for your long term survival, you better ultimately learn to trap animals in order to acquire amino acids in sufficient quanties in a regular way in order to live. The rifle has its useful period based entirely upon this principle.

To me, an alcohol stove has a minimal amount of usefulness. It merely has a "cool" factor. It can heat a cup of soup, or boil water. How many times can you use it?

A long time ago, there was a science fiction writer, I forget the name, and he wrote a story about technology. In the story, a man takes a truck and tries to sell it to a pre-industrial society. He think, the truck is eminantly useful. The first question they ask is, "How do you mate it so it produces offspring? How do you feed it? How do you care for it?" You see, unless you can replicate it, not to mention find ways to fuel it, or repair it, it has limited long term usefulness post-collapse.

If you want to use an alcohol stove for backpacking, then that's not the same as prepping at all. They make proper backpacking stoves that are miniscule and use multi-fuels.

Here's a video about prepping from a man I deeply respect and admire. It details how a prepper would most likely deal with a collapse.It shows all the most common practical ways to cook based upon availabilty of fuels and based upon skill levels.

The most likely candidate for non-prepared people is a solar tire cooker. It's merely an old tire that's covered with a sheet of glass, both of which have probably been liberated from junk.


Likewise, a reflective windowshade can be utilized to do something similar:



Most people will not have the knowledge to make a solar oven, but they can easily be made. This method is taught in 3rd world nations. The reason is simple. In a crowded village, as more and more people gather firewood, then it's used up. Unless you live in a fairly rural region, then there isn't enough carrying capacity to provide enough trees for firewood. Those trees are too important for food sources, lumber, tools, etc.

[link to www.solarcooking.org]

The link above lists the majority of designs. Some are very simple to make...now. In a post-collapse, many will be difficult to fabricate because of a lack of common things like black paint.

Well said, I do agree in all cases but in my case which is different than everyone elses of course. I already live in the bush in BC Can. I am a guide in the summers (Americans come up and hunt where I live) I have all the tools and skills needed to survive in the bush while being normal and healthy. What I would have knowledge in the form of phone is for making surviving easier and to strave of boredom. I wouldnt have to battle my way through a city like most. I just need to survive and spead the gossiple! Having companct portable knowledge is essential in making life easier and safer.

Cheers!

BLA BLA BLA BLA..... Some people ramble on and on.

This was just a video of a cool project.