Calor gas and cold sausages

[peterb]

As VicS has said, you need heat to evaporate the liquid butane to form gas. The heat is taken from the liquid butane, thus cooling it down. The amount of cooling depends on how much liquid you have; a full tank can supply a lot of heat before its temperature goes too low, an almost empty one cools very quickly.

Do you have mains electricity? One technique we've used is to have an inspection lamp on a long lead, with the lamp inside a box covering the cylinder. It takes surprisingly little power to keep the bottle warm; 10 watts would probably be enough.

 

[johnwest]

Oil and Gas

Ruffles

From the local Haslar mechanic, try Asda the oil in the black can, failing that Halfords.
As for the gas we're just up G pontoon from you and even in the recent sub zero temperatures we haven't had any major problems.

j

 

[sarabande]

shaking the bottle to (temporarily) increase gas flow.

As gas evaporates from the surface of the liquid, it cools the side of the cylinder and the gas space above the liquid.

When you shake the bottle, you splash (fractionally) warmer liquified gas over the upper cylinder wall and also warm up the (colder) already evaporated gas. These two factors enable the evaporation rate to increase because the evaporation zone becomes slightly warmer.

However, the thermal mass of the bottle and liquid will stay the same, so the liquid gas will in effect become cooler, so next time you shake the bottle, there will be less heat available to warm up the evaporation zone. So unless you can add an external source of warmth to the outside of the bottle, e.g. by a mug of hot water, you have less and less heat in the liquid, until it declines to play any further part in the cooking process.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

Chicken and egg.

So unless you can add an external source of warmth to the outside of the bottle, e.g. by a mug of hot water, you have less and less heat in the liquid, until it declines to play any further part in the cooking process.

Which comes first, the gas or the heat?

 

[sarabande]

if I understand your question correctly, it's a linear process starting with LPG vaporising to become propane or butane (usually it is not a pure gas, but a bit of a mixture) to produce the heat.

I have a small Calor Gas bottle and torch for starting the domestic and kitchen fires. It lives outside, and a couple of mornings ago, with an air temp of -5C, was very reluctant to give anything but a tiny flame that would have put Tinkerbelle to shame. One cup of tap-hot water was enough to get the bottle metal warm enough to start the vaporising process properly.

Was that answer near enough to the question

 

[Bobobolinsky]

It has been pointed out that the reg can also have water codensate within the body. When it freezes, it stops the internals moving and won't let out vapour. Turn reg over so any water drips out the air vent