New SCAG Mowers are in.
Have you heard of Alkylate fuel?
Probably not since there are just two brands being promoted in the US.
B T South sells both brands but the one that has made it affordable is ASPEN Fuels.
Most people think that if they are buying a reputable brand canned fuel that they are buying the best fuel available. But alkylate petroleum compared to other petroleum is kind of like distilled water compared to other water. Alkylate fuel is created by condensing vapors into liquid. ASPEN alkylate fuel is around the same price or less compared to those inferior canned fuels, while being more gentle on your fuel lines and carburetor and by burning much cleaner which means a cleaner engine and virtually no smoke to be breathed by the operator.
Think about how you can use a trimmer or a saw for just 15 or 20 minutes and then hours later still smell the stench of 2 cycle smoke on your body and clothes. How could it not be getting into our lungs as well.
Aspen Fuels are better for your equipment, better for the humans operating the equipment, better for the environment and for what you're getting, it's not so bad on the wallet. All things considered it might not only end up saving us money on our equipment but keeps from breathing all that smoke that comes with lesser quality fuels.
The exhaust fumes produced are cleaner, with much less smoke and odor. The fuel also produces less in the way of vapors, and what it does produce is gentler, as the fuel is virtually free of benzene, toluene, sulfur and other aromatic hydrocarbons.
Even before the fuel is burned you can see how much gentler it is on your equipment's fuel system by a demonstration of putting a styrofoam peanut in the fuel. With ASPEN fuel the peanut just floats like it's on water. Try that on your current fuel and see what happens. If it goes like our tests it will dissolve the styrofoam peanut in just a few seconds. With ASPEN we've left it floating for days and weeks before.
To our knowledge the only two alkylate fuels being marketed in the US are ASPEN and STIHL. Above you can see where a burn test was done on nearly all the popular canned fuels and ASPEN and STIHL left virtually no soot.
There have been many similar tests done, below is one done in the garage of a youtuber. They all turn out the same in that the alkylate fuels burn substantially cleaner. The reason the test below appears to have dirtier results than the test above is because they used a greater volume of fuel.
ASPEN 4 (4 cycle) fuel burns the cleanest because it is pure fuel, where as the ASPEN 2 cycle and the STIHL 2 cycle, leave just a little bit of color because they have lubricating 2 cycle oil in addition to the fuel. But even so, they still look almost perfectly clean compared to the other canned fuels like VP Racing Fuel, TruFuel, Kawasaki, Echo Red Armor, Husqvarna/RedMax and others that are not alkylate fuels.
