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Musings about our ORIGO

Sven

Seglare
I just wrote a blog entry about our choice of the ORIGO stove. It's not my intent to pull traffic away from here so I've cut and pasted it here too:

Other than electric, diesel or CNG stoves, nothing beats non-pressurized alcohol stoves like the Origo for safety.


On Senta II with no generator an electric stove simply isn’t practical so that was not an option for us. We seriously looked at the diesel option as the ideal solution but costs and installation difficulties and maintenance hassles nixed it as an option, even after contacting some of the manufacturers and asking them to convince us ... they didn’t seem interested. When we bought her, Senta II had a CNG stove and oven but CNG is only available in select countries and carrying all those extra SCUBA tanks and the cost made it another impractical choice.


So we went back to ORIGO.


There are a few things worth noting regarding our experiences with the ORIGO stove and oven:


-Heat output

-Oven usability

-Fuel cost

-Fuel availability

-Odor

-CO danger

-Filling safety

-Usage safety


We are often asked if the alcohol burns hot enough for real cooking. The answer is yes. As a matter of fact, we do not use the stovetop burners at a setting higher than 2.5 out 5 because we have found that the heat from the flame licking around the bottom of the pot will start to melt plastic handles on pots designed for open flame cooking ! We can burn our eggs or pancakes with the best of them. We do use pots with a quite thick bottom to even out the heat but we always have plenty of heat.


The oven on the ORIGO is actually quite usable. The oven is small by in-home standards but will accommodate a nice whole chicken. We use the oven for bread-making too and once we had a 9x14x0.3” stone tile cut to put in the bottom we’ve had great results. The stone really evens out the heat in the oven and it also gives it more thermal inertia so the temperature doesn’t swing wildly every time you open the door and let the hot air out. There is no thermostat so you don’t set it and forget it, you keep watching the temperature throughout.


We have found that we use around 1 US gallon (~4 liters) of fuel per month. That’s for a 12-cup pot of percolated coffee in the morning, instant oatmeal, sauteed vegetables or boiled potatoes and fixings for a typical day. That also includes bread making, heating water for soups or coco under way or just boiling the chemical hand warmers to recharge them for the next cold night. The cost of the fuel ranges from $15 to $30 per gallon with $16-20 being the norm.


There was one point in time where the local chandler in Los Angeles couldn’t get ORIGO fuel for over two months and we never found out what the problem was. We got stove fuel from Worst Marine during that time but they too had to ship it in from outlying stores and we paid close to $30 gallon. We have been told that alcohol fuel is not available in the Caribbean so we’ll stock up before going there and we’ve been told that you can burn the local rum (!?) instead but not in pressurized stoves because the sugar clogs the orifices. Not sure if the rum story is a joke or not.


The ORIGO stove fuel burns quite cleanly and to us it doesn’t seem to have too much odor. Klean-Strip SLX Denatured Alcohol is only 1/2 to 2/3rds the cost of ORIGO fuel and it does have a sharper odor that would be offensive without adequate ventilation. We use the SLX most of the time because it is available in just about any hardware store and while we are in warm climates we keep lots of hatches open anyway.


Having good ventilation is critical even if the odor doesn’t get to you. We installed a couple of CO detectors with CO ppm readouts and we were surprised to find that even with one large open sliding hatch over the stove the CO readings could end up unhealthy if there was no breeze. We’ve probably had the alarms go off half a dozen times, sometimes due to a spike in CO and sometimes because of an integrated lower exposure over a longer period of time. Ventilation is of course also needed to lower the humidity produced by burning and cooking but CO exposure is the overriding concern.


The only time when fire safety is a real worry is when filling the canisters. Alcohol has really low viscosity and splashes with ease. No matter how careful you are, if you are pouring out of a 1-gallon can/bottle into the canister you will spill or drip some fuel. We tried using a fuel hose and hand-balloon fuel pump to siphon the fuel into the canister but even that will usually end up dripping some fuel unless you simply don’t fill the canister all the way. The solution is to always fill over the sink and rinse the sink after filling. Water, just a bit of a spray of water will immediately neutralize the alcohol and make it un-burnable. If the spilled fuel catches fire the flame is almost invisible so you need to prevent the risk of any fire in the first place.


Before we bought the stove (our second ORIGO) we scoured the web for articles about burns and law suits and insurance claims involving ORIGO stoves. We came up empty handed. There was one suit where the owner of the stove, according to the verdict, caused a fire by trying to fill an already burning canister from above. In a personal exchange on a sailing forum I also ran across one person who was adamant that a slip neighbor had their galley scorched by a run-away ORIGO oven but when pressed for details he didn’t have any so I suspect it was a pressurized stove or they were not burning alcohol. We should mention that we have had two instances where a stove-top burner would not shut off. In both cases we had a breeze come down the companionway across the stove and we think it deflected some of the heat over the canister top so the canister got warm enough to evaporate too much fuel, which escaped out past the metal plate used to regulate the flame. In both cases the flame would almost certainly have self-extinguished after a bit of cooling off from the cover being closed but we just sprinkled some water with our finger tips and that put it out.


The bottom line is that we are very happy with our choice in every respect and we’ll get an ORIGO the next time too !
 
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Dave N

Member III
How about a photo or two of the stone and it's location, that you put in the bottom, por favor?
 

Sven

Seglare
How about a photo or two of the stone and it's location, that you put in the bottom, por favor?

There isn't much to see but here it is.

Oven stone.jpg

It is just a bit smaller than the SS bottom plate (that you lift up to light the flame). It stays in place by itself but I do check to make sure it hasn't shifted to block the airgap on either side. I would have preferred a 1/2 or even 3/4" thick stone but the stone cutters were really busy and we had very little time when we were trying to get it done. When you are asking for a $8 stone (including cutting) and they are running forklifts for $50,000 jobs you don't want to push too hard :egrin:

You can imagine the difference in heat distribution when you consider that the flame is probably a 2.5" circle in the middle, under the 1/8" (?) SS plate, as opposed to having the stone in between. And then there is the thermal inertia for the oven too. I actually considered getting a 1/2" SS plate cut to 9x14" but that would have cost an arm and a leg.



-Sven
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Filling Hint

It might be worthwhile to mention the trick way to fill an Origo cannister that I learned a few years ago from a cruiser.
It was so simple, once explained, that I felt silly for lacking emough imagination to have thought of it years ago!

Get an empty smaller size soup can. Clean it up and remove the label. Then drill a quarter inch hole in the center of the closed end - a little large dia. might be OK.
When you take the cold cannister out to refill, just set it flat and park the soup can centered over the screen in the center, then figure out how much alcohol you might need and pour it right into the soup can. It quickly drains down at a controlled rate with zero spillage.
You still check for fullness the usual way by tilting the cannister 90 degrees and when you have enough fuel in that you can see liquid just inside the lower lip, it's full.

And that's it!

Loren
 

Sven

Seglare
Hi Loren,

Get an empty smaller size soup can. Clean it up and remove the label. Then drill a quarter inch hole in the center of the closed end - a little large dia. might be OK.

Thanks for the suggestion. It might be worth trying. I'm not sure if you do that down below or while dock-side but with proper placement in the sink it might work at sea too ?

The manual bulb pump idea actually also works pretty well if we just put a shut-off in the line at the end. Stopping the siphon is the only problem with the current solution. Now I need to find a shut-off :nerd:



-Sven
 

Emerald

Moderator
The stone sounds like a great addition. I think I'll have to add one. Regarding the filling of the canisters, and I know this is stating the obvious, but it goes much easier making sure the indent is on the down side. With the luxury of really weekend cruising, I do typically fill the canisters on the pier so as not to spill on board. Filling them with any sort of movement becomes much more challenging.
 

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Rick R.

Contributing Partner
Great!

Having prior experience with pressurized alcohol on our Owens cruisers, I was very happy to discover that our Ericson had the non-pressurized ORIGO.

To fill, I use denatured alcohol poured into a plastic Dixie cup. I then carefully pour it in the canister in the sink. No spillage....


I really like Loren's idea about an old soup can.


Sven, we haven't used our oven yet but with temps around here getting into the 50s and 60s at night, we will soon. I will also get a stone tile to place inside.

Thanks
Rick
 

Sven

Seglare
Regarding the filling of the canisters, and I know this is stating the obvious, but it goes much easier making sure the indent is on the down side.

Our canisters don't have the indentation (not on the old stove nor the new one or the spare canister we picked up). No idea why. Maybe I should add one ?

I am surprised that ORIGO hasn't come up with a product to address the issue.

Thanks,



-Sven
 

Sven

Seglare
One thing about the stone ...

Ours has not cracked but I do wonder if it will at some point since it is not a kiln-fired brick. If it does crack we'll just get a new one.



-Sven
 

exoduse35

Sustaining Member
Jjust a thought about filling... WhenIi used to fly radio control airplaines, we used to have small crank pumps that would strap to the side of a gallon can and a hose to the tank port. A few turns and you are in business! You may want to check a few hobby shops and pick one up if they work for nitro alcohol can't hurt one! Edd
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Here is a pdf of the factory oporating instructions.
Cannister capacity is listed as : 2.5 pints each.

Might be helpful info to have or print out.

Loren
 

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Emerald

Moderator
Our canisters don't have the indentation (not on the old stove nor the new one or the spare canister we picked up). No idea why. Maybe I should add one ?

I am surprised that ORIGO hasn't come up with a product to address the issue.

Thanks,



-Sven

Interesting - my stove is from the late 90's, and they are the original canisters. The indents really help let the alcohol flow down into the wadding. Wonder why the change. :rolleyes:
 

Grizz

Grizz
A Dedicated Turkey Baster?

We have found that using a turkey baster, dedicated for this specific purpose, meets our needs, even in rolling/pitching conditions. Granted, it's best to avoid filling in those conditions and we usually do, but...

And 1 more thing: we discoved this summer that if the steel deflector plate isn't reinstalled correctly (via notches on the inboard edge), it WILL bang around the interior and eventually shatter the tempered inboard glass into a million small chunks of glass. Not a sight or sound you want to hear at sunset with 48+ hours of racing staring you in the face. Still finding small chunks, although the tempered replacement lite fit perfectly.

Just another wrinkle thrown into the void. Take care.
 

Sven

Seglare
So much for the spare canister !

When I went to check for the indentation in the canister I instead found the following:

Canister wear.jpg

The canister was under the stove and rubbing against the hull.

It is now in the trash :esad:



-Sven
 

Emerald

Moderator
Wow - I would not expect that. I think I would contact Origo and see if they don't swap it out for no charge.
 

Sven

Seglare
Wow - I would not expect that. I think I would contact Origo and see if they don't swap it out for no charge.

They might but I should have realized that rubbing against the glassed hull could be pretty abrasive.

My fault.



-Sven
 
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