The preheating process requires the use of a couple teaspoons of denatured alcohol. You can buy a quart of this at any hardware store for a few dollars and it will provide you with hundreds of lightings for the stove. just fill up the little brass cup near the top of the stove with the alcohol, light with a match, and let it burn until the flame is almost ready to go out. At this point, start pumping the stove. This will cause the pressure to begin to build in the fuel tank, which will cause the kerosene to work its way up the center of the stove to the burner. The burner will be very hot, so the kerosene will boil and kerosene vapor will begin to come out of the top of the stove. The flame from the burning alcohol will ignite the kerosene vapor.
The heat from the burning kerosene will keep the burner hot so the process will continue on its own without using any more denatured alcohol.
If you don't want to take denatured alcohol with you when traveling, it is possible to start the stove using kerosene instead of denatured alcohol, but it requires two or three preheating cycles because the kerosene does not burn as hot as the alcohol.
| Buy One Brass Pressure Stove - $50 + $8 s/h | |
| Buy TWO Brass Pressure Stoves - $90 + $12 s/h | |
| Buy FOUR Brass Pressure Stoves - $160 + $18 s/h |
St. Paul Mercantile 1-888-395-1164