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October 22

Liquid fire vs canned heat

Reliving the 70s last weekend, we hosted a fondue party. Had to rummage up the proper equipment, and discovered: things have been updated in the last 30-40 years :-) -- notably, the little burners now want you to use a liquid fuel rather than the cans of gelled pink stuff ("Sterno"). Having none of the new stuff, we used generic Sterno anyway, and, y'know, it just wouldn't keep the broth hot.

SO: does the liquid stuff have a greater heat content, or burn hotter, or whatever else, than the gelled stuff? A curious mind, attached to an aging hippie, needs to know ... --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any inherent reason that "napalm in a can" holds less energy. More likely those containers just have a smaller surface area for combustion to occur, or the flame height is not ideal for that particular pot (flame temp hits the highest temp at a certain height). StuRat (talk) 23:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sterno is about 70% alcohol, with the rest presumably water and gelling agent [1] (what exactly? Home-made fire gels use calcium acetate, but I can't find what Sterno is specifically: the MSDS just gives the ethyl and methyl alcohols). Liquid fondue fuel is just alcohol. The gelling agent probably doesn't burn, so there might be some reduced efficiency there. I think it's probably more likely just ventilation, though. Anyways, this (probably not RS) says that the liquid fuels are indeed hotter. Buddy431 (talk) 00:12, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]