Postby Hasbeen » 14 Nov 2014 22:55
A yachty friend of mine, had a large expensive gimballed stainless steel oven, & 4 burner methylated spirits, [alcohol] stove, with a 4 gallon tank for the methylated spirits.
He was very pedantic when boiling water for coffee/tea, to only put just enough water into the kettle, before lighting the stove. He reckoned the thing seemed to be taking longer to boil water.
Then his wife tried to bake a cake in the oven. It would not come up to the required temperature.
No net in 1970, but he did some study & discovered about alcohol absorbing water, & burning at progressively lower temperature as it did so.
He took a sample of his somewhere & had it tested. It was burning at 120C, no wonder it had trouble boiling water.
When he replaced the old stuff, with just a liter at a time of fresh metho, no further boiling problems.
I would never have fuel with any alcohol content in a car in hibernation. [xx(] It might start, but it may not have enough power to actually move. [}:)].
I used to add a little metho to my tank hoping to absorb any condensation in there. Then a chemist told me it was probably increasing the water content in my tank, so I stopped.
Fortunately our service stations around here at least, have stopped stocking alcohol blended fuel.
Hasbeen
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