You're done! Due to the double-walled construction and the integral can bottoms, the stove is much stronger than an empty aluminum can and can be expected to last years if you want it to. The best fuel is methanol, which burns blue and ignites quickly. Absolute ethanol is expensive, but denatured alcohol isn't and works well. The photos are taken with Iso-HEET isopropanol, probably 91%, which is what I had on hand; it works but burns yellow and is less efficient as the combustion continues up the sides of the pot, uselessly for heating food or water.



The stove is filled through the holes in the center, and primed by burning either a pool in the center or a little sloshed over the sides, which I find efficient. When the fuel in the chamber starts to boil, vapor rises up the side and comes out the holes, giving us our gas stove. It will burn merrily until it burns out, and with accesories you can simmer it, too; perhaps a later instructable there.



Special thanks are owed to Scott Henderson of PCTHiker and Zen Seeker of Zenstoves.net for the substantial technology behind this critter, as well as the anonymous distillers of cognac who developed it in the first place, or who are at least as far upstream as the story takes us.



The main known disadvantages of the stove are difficulty lighting in cold and windy conditions, as it doesn't carry a lot of thermal mass. A good windscreen and insulating pad would solve these problems; I have a fantasy of Jb welding a piece of aerogel to the bottom so you could fire it on ice without melting it. These stoves are favored by thruhikers, and there's just something liberating about building a 10 gram stove from dumpstered parts.