The Origo 3000, my trusty marine alcohol stove

A review of the Origo 3000, the 2-burner stove in my boat's galley

My girlfriend cleaning our Origo 3000

About 7 years ago, I ripped a compressed natural gas (CNG) oven and stove out of my galley. I was tired of walking around with empty high pressure gas cans looking for a place to fill them.


Also, I'm a low-tech guy. Whenever possible, I try to keep it simple. This means, if I can do something with less wiring and without a digital interface, then I opt for that.


When I start thinking about cooking dinner, the last thing I want to deal with is faulty wiring or a funky pressure regulator an empty gas tank. This line of thinking brought me to this very sturdy and effective alcohol stove.

This 2-burner stove is made of stainless steel and it burns pure alcohol. So, when I need more fuel, I go to home depot or my local hardware store and buy a 1 gallon jug of pure ethanol. This costs about 15$ per gallon. I live on board my ship and I cook often on board. I probably burn through a gallon of alcohol fuel in one month. This means, a few times a year, I go to the hardware store and buy 5-6 of these 1-gallon containers. I stash them in my dock box and pull one out when needed.

Getting fuel has never been a hassle. The stove itself costs about $360 - so it's a bit pricier than a Coleman classic propane stove.

Origo 3000 fits on top of a mini-fridge

As you can see in the photo below, I place my Origo stove on top of my mini-fridge. To keep it from flying off the fridge, I put a bit of velcro tape in between the stove and fridge, this keeps things in order when I'm heeled over at Sea.

My Origo 3000 now sits on my mini-fridge.

You can see on the close-up photo below, that there's a knob for each burner. If you want more heat, you turn to the right, this removes a steel cap and allows for a larger flame.

For the past 7 years, I have (accidentally) beaten the hell out of this stove, and it still works perfectly. I love sailing in heavy weather. Before I began attaching the stove to the fridge with velcro tape, I often knocked this thing over and it crashed onto the floor. This happened a lot. There's no damage at all on this thing. Simple and strong design.

I bought mine on Amazon. Here's a link to the Origo 3000 stove page on Amazon. You can check - but I believe they will ship it for free.

Jess still at it, working up to a shiny stove.

Don't ask me how I got Jess to clean the stove (usually that's my job.)

I know there are some people who complain that it's tough to get a pan really hot with this alcohol stove. This hasn't been a problem for me. A pot of water comes to a boil fairly quickly. I suppose there are some things that wouldn't work. Stir fry in a wok probably wouldn't work with this thing. Not sure, I never tried.

Hope this is informative for those thinking about an alcohol stove!

Captain Curran

If you're looking for more thoughts and opinions on stoves, this forum includes many other sailor's opinions on all sorts of boat galley stoves.

Fair winds!