[While living on Polaris for a month, I wrote about the boat’s kerosene stove (cooker), which sparked a lively debate in the comments about the benefits and drawbacks of various cooking fuels on boats.
Continuing that theme, we just got a note from our good friend and Norwegian Correspondent for the Norwegian Cruising Guide, Hans Jacob Valderhaug, who cruises extensively with his wife Eli Husum on their Hallberg Rassy 32, Anna. In fact they are bound for Svalbard as I write.
If you are thinking of kerosene for cooking and/or heating, what follows by Hans Jakob will be useful.]
We have used paraffin/kerosene for heating and cooking for 30+ years. I quite agree with John that there is hassle involved, although we do not regularly sacrifice a small animal.
Cooking/heating with paraffin requires dedication. You need to get intimate with the burners at regular intervals, meaning a couple of hours bathed in paraffin once a month or so.
There are leaks, build up of carbon deposits, broken pricking needles – you name it. For users of the Optimus/Taylor range of cookers there is the added confusion of two different burners available, requiring different spare parts and the two-legged variety requiring longer pre-heating than the four-legged variety. There is also an issue with different types of aluminum washers required.
The pre-heating ritual is less of a problem, flare ups are rare once the routine is established. We pre-heat using methylated spirits [industrial alcohol]. We tried pre-heating using a blow torch one season but did not like it.
Our set-up for the last 10 years is from Taylor: A two burner stove with a one burner oven and their K 79 heater, both units run off the one tank. There are numerous joints in this set up, and we have had issues with leaks. I have no knowledge of the Bertschi burners, but they seem rather complex.
Paraffin/kerosene should only be considered if your boat, your cruising area or your safety hang-ups rule out propane/butane. If your decision is made I would strive for simplicity.
If making a new installation I would consider the two burner cooker Optimus 155W (now in production again) with integrated tank. I had one of these in a previous boat and it worked perfect until I brought it home one winter and put it in the dish washer—the cooker was fool proof but not idiot proof. [I was not able to find a source for these online, but the Taylor stoves are readily available.]
For heating I would go for a diesel heater of the Reflex type and a gravity-fed diesel supply. You need a long unsightly flue and there are issues with downdraught but these are issues that can be dealt with.
Eli informs me that we will NOT sail without an oven, so for us I guess it is sticking to our Taylor and accepting the ongoing maintenance battle.
[Me (John), I’m sticking with propane despite the dangers! Mind you, cooking and heating with kerosene saves Hans Jakob and Eli from the cruel fate of smelling faintly of diesel and musty bilges like most of us live-aboard voyagers. Instead they smell faintly of kerosene!
If anyone else has experience with kerosene, please leave a comment.]
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi John and Hans,
We have been cruising with kerosene stove onboard our two previous boats for almost 20 years.Of course we went through all kinds of frustrations with these but they did the job and we always were sufficient an safe with that fuel.
Things started to improve dramatically when we began to use pure mineral spirits as the combustible for the kerosene stove.Since then the clogging of burners and smelling are things of the past.Thanks to André on Mimosa from Treasure Cay, Bahamas who gave me the tip.At first we were reducing half and half with kerosene but we rapidly switched to pure mineral spirits.I wished I had known this at the beginning of our cruising.
We had a Force Ten with oven on our first sailboat and then onboard our Hallberg Rassy 31 a Monsun ( same as Hans ) . We used an Optimus 155 without the preheating device ( we use methyl hydrate in the cup under the burner of the stove ) wich is very good and simpler even if we were told that the one with a preheater system gave also good results.We saw a few Optimus 155 W on E-Bay from Sweden sellers and bought a back-up.It’s the high quality Optimus original burners that kept us satisfied but they were hard to find new.
Our new boat is propane.It will be a whole new set of rules and will certainly find it simpler . I think kerosene is also a good way of doing things if you can overcome the frustrations of the learning period and use pure mineral spirits only !
Yves & Elaine from Kluane
Yves from Kluane
Ditto the above on mineral spirits. I also used it in my kerosene refrigerator and found the wick lasted much much longer. Had I known then that mineral spirits’ flash point was only 105 degrees I would have been much more careful with it. Most kerosene lamp makers warn against it, because the font can get that hot, and vapor can find its way out to the flame, but a quality tubular wick burner with a metal tank (like my fridge) , or a primus type burner seems OK..
Cruised for 17 years using a TAYLOR cooker/oven. Had different degrees of frustrations due to using the different qualities of kerosene that we could find around the world. Nevertheless overall we were very satisfied. Had our cooker reconditionned last year at the factory in G.B. To my great surprise new two legged burners were installed (we always had 4 legged burners). These new burners should be avoided at all cost. One little cup of methylated spirits won’t do the preheating job – instead it takes about 3 cups (very very long preheating time) with the added danger of putting methylated spirits in an already very hot cup. Of course there is always the possibility of using a blow torch but that inihilates our wish of not having natural gaz on board. 4 legged burners are no longer available, but a co. in the UK: http://www.base-camp.co.uk is presently experimenting with new burners which will be easier to preheat than the 2 legged burners.
I cannot say that I have found much to disagree with her. Both LPG and kerosene have their pluses, assuming one pre-heats with a gass torch and uses mineral spirits in the kero stove. We knew this dodge back in the 70´s in So-Cal.
I have another demand of my cooker, it must be removable to the cockpit for warm weather use or stinky fried fish. So it´s a two burner propane cook top mounted in a movable stand for me.
I’m curious, John & Phyllis, what thoughts (if any) you might have regarding electric cooking.
Ten years ago, electric cooking on board anything short of a megayacht would have been insane. But I’ve been hearing some good stories about the latest induction cooktops and combination microwave/convection ovens; notably, it appears that Steve & Linda Dashew have become converts to induction burners and electric combination ovens; admittedly, their yacht is rather more sophisticated than most.
It’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on how these high-tech electric cookers compare to the kerosene/paraffin (or LPG) ones.
Thank you for all the good information on the practicalities of using kerosene for cooking.
As to electric cooking, we made a reference to it in an earlier post as something Steve and Linda Dashew are experimenting with and saying it is definitely worth looking into; maybe we can ask Steve and Linda to comment on it when we have a moment (John is presently at a week-long travel photography course in Maine having a great time but working all the hours God gave!).
We have used the Taylor “cooker” for a few seasons of cruising New England. Most unsatisfactory. The elaborate pre-cooking procedures and sooty overheads were too much. Now we keep it (perhaps) to simple with a sea swing, as we cannot find suitable storage for a propane tank ( no pulpits or lockers). Any ideas?
cheers, Eric and Sue
For those who are starting out with kerosene heaters or cookers I offer a short article on maintenance on my website.
http://sv-moonshadow.com/liveaboard/PRIMUS.htm
If you are using these for heat you will find my description of a “ballast tank” interesting.
The amount of frustration experienced with these burners has lessened considerably with the availability of K-1 kero in the US. I could never find mineral spirits at a reasonable price when I was using these stoves.
Hi Ed,
I read about half of your great dissertation on kero stove maintenance. At that point my eyes rolled back in my head and a I was left mumbling “propane, propane”. You and Hans Jakob are clearly made of sterner stuff.