One of my backpacking friends was interested in the Super Cat stove I was using (see jwbasecamp.com for detailed instructions). I told her all about the virtues of alcohol stoves, but in all honesty, I thought the stove was a bit "tippy" with my 3-c pot, and I wished I had something more stable. She asked why I didn't make a stove with a wider can.

Well, I did. I learned not all 5.5 oz pet food cans are created equal. Some are definitely thicker and heavier. Since my daughter has a dog to inherit the food in the can, I searched in the dog food section and found a great can that was thin enough to tolerate a paper punch but strong enough to be a stove. Plus, it's blue, which adds to the cool factor. There may be cat food cans that would work just as well. I made 20 holes, sort of evenly spaced, and was careful to make the holes 3/4" below the rim. I found if the holes were higher, the stove wouldn't stay lit. The stove has successfully fed me all summer long, even though most of my camps were at around 7,000 ft elevation. I can even use the bigger 2 qt pot and boil 3-4 C of water in it when Mr. B makes a rare appearance on a backpack trip. My Super Cat weighs .23 oz, and the Super Dog weighs .4 oz. Since each stove is less than half an ounce, I think the small increase of weight of the Super Dog isn't a bad tradeoff for a lot more stability and a bigger range of boiling volumes.

cool. Whats your boil time?

I wasn't very precise with measuring time. The fastest I can remember was 1.5 cups of water at around 5 minutes. The water wasn't very cold. The longest I can remember was at around 7,000' and 3 c of colder water for 2 of us. It was taking 10 minutes or more. But we weren't in any hurry. It was obviously faster with less water and warmer water.

There's a pretty good thread going on right now about elevations and boiling time.

As for fuel, I was using not quite 1 TB (half an ounce) of alcohol (HEET in the yellow bottle) per cup of water. Sometimes it was too much fuel, and once or twice with the colder water it was exactly right.

5 minutes to boil 1.5 cups is pretty good! I've had similar results with my cat can stoves, so if you have managed to make something more stable for your pot without sacrificing efficiency or weight.... then it sounds like a success.