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I have just bought a Taylors cooker and heater off eBay. With the stainless steel and brass I was attracted by their timeless beauty. However, I'm now starting to worry about my fuel choice. Do most cruisers use LPG for a reason? I suppose the heat is familiar,clean and instant, but it must be a real pain to fill up your gas cyliners, and no doubt local cylinders will be incompatible with your regulator.....

The Taylors use paraffin (kerosene). Am I destined to have sooty bottoms on all my pans, along with flames shooting across the galley? Is kerosene readily available when cruising?

Should I reconsider my purchase and put the Taylors gear back onto eBay?

 

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My choice for cruising is still parafin/kerosene - I'm studying about building my own stove with 2 Primus omni fuel cookers. So you have additionally the option for gas, benzin or diesel. Check: http://www.primus.eu/Templates/Pages/3_cols_white_middle.aspx?Secti...

Cheers

Wave

 

We used metho for many years. The safest fuel by far but not hot enough for quick cooking like gas. We 'inherited' 2 small single-burner butane campstoves with the boat and now use one butane stove for hot work and the metho for slow cooking. Butane is safer than LPG - being lighter than air, butane doesn't pool in the bilges and build up to explosive levels - and you don't have to lug around big cylinders. The butane comes in small aerosol cans available at supermarkets, hardware stores, camping shops, etc but this is way more expensive than LPG (and prices can vary wildly - up to 400% in Townsville!)

We carry 4x fourpaks of the canisters and 4 litres of metho which lasts the two of us up to 6 weeks while cruising. We cook a fair bit and for friends - I'm a chef. We also have a 360mm stainless kettle bbq mounted on the stern which gets used a lot. 5 kg of brickettes is adequate for 6 weeks but the kettle burns coconut shells & woodchips too so there's no problem with fuel when out cruising.

Kerosene is fine for heating and cooking. It should also be almost universally available, although is being replaced by propane in many parts of the world. If you pre-heat the burner properly  you should get almost completely smoke-free combustion. Alcohol is good for that pre-heating purposes so be sure to carry enough of it. Personally don't much like the smell and it's messy if spilled but it is a fine, practical fuel.

Is butane lighter than air?

No, air has a density of 1.225 g/l @ 15°C. and Standard Atmospheric Pressure while butane is 2.52 g/l. Butane is more than twice as heavy as air

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_butane_lighter_than_air#ixzz19SrB8Ai0
maybe more discussion is needed.............................

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