The DIY Beer Can Stove Is The Best Camping Stove You’ll Never Buy

Post author By Tom Allen
Post date May 10, 2011
9 Comments on The DIY Beer Can Stove Is The Best Camping Stove You’ll Never Buy

Jetboil? Trangia? Primus? I laugh in your faces!

The lightest, cleverest and most practical camping stove I’ve ever seen can be made by hand from a single empty drinks can.

Every so often, simplicity and genius are combined in a way that leaves you wondering why on earth anyone didn’t think of this earlier, and why you’ve never come across such a thing before. This is one of them.

It barely tips my kitchen scales. It requires no maintenance. Your camping mattress is the windshield. It burns medical alcohol (a.k.a. surgical spirit) — available from any pharmacy — or gas-line antifreeze, or any other highly concentrated ethanol/methanol you can get your hands on. And you can make one in a few minutes with a knife, a pop-can and a bit of ingenuity.

20ml of fuel boils a large tin mug of water in under 5 minutes. Anyone for tea?

Read Wikipedia’s article about beverage-can stoves and the multitudinous variations on this basic design.

(If you’re looking for something a little more robust, check out the MSR Dragonfly.)

9 replies on “The DIY Beer Can Stove Is The Best Camping Stove You’ll Never Buy”

At first, I couldn’t see how the flame was supplied with oxygen but I see that there are ridges in the ‘internal’ part of the beer can cooker. That’s simple ingenuity in action. Brilliant.

Have you seen these Tom?

Penny Alcohol Backpacking Stove

Tara and I brought one as a backup and it worked excellently! It is a bit more work to build, but they are really efficient.

unless my Cyrillic deceives me I reckon that’s a “Gin and Tonic” stove… Classy!

That’s brilliant Tom. I have been searching for something to use as a back up to my MSR pocket rocket, if ever caught short without gas. Just the job. Thanks.