So how do you handle and store your fuel?
I get my fuel in metal cans (Powermaster) and use the DuBro plastic fuel can fitting gadget:
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXRS88 It's not a lot different in principle from the old brass fittings, but the plastic and aluminum don't corrode, and the aluminum bayonet fitting is sealed with an O-ring and does not allow the fuel to "breathe". Leave it in a hot car, and it will inflate but not leak air, close it when it's hot and the sides of the can suck in. Good as capping it off. Of course, the flow is one way so put a filter in the takeup line and that will take care of it.
Other than sealing it off, I don't take any care at all to be careful about storage conditions. I leave whatever fuel I am using plus a few extra cans in the back of my van in a box, and don't worry about temperature swings. As long as nothing goes in or out, the fuel won't degenerate from merely being heat-cycled over any normal temperature range. Good thing, too, since my house is not air-conditioned and can go from over 110 degrees in the day to low 50s in the same day.
As long as it's sealed up and isn't allowed to form condensation, and you keep it in an opaque container, fuel will last almost indefinitely. The fuel I ran at the NATs this years was a mixture of various partial cans of fuel I had used in 2004-2007, no issues as anyone who heard/saw the engine run can attest. I run 15% only at the NATs and TT, and the NATs usually takes about a gallon + about two tanks full, so I end up with opened but almost full cans that I only use once a year. I usually consolidate the partial cans right before I leave so I only have to carry full gallons.
I use a 5-ounce veterinary syringe with a Carl Shoup replacement stopper and the red (silicone) o-ring. Jim Lee makes a very good syringe stopper as well. The stock black stopper will wear out in about a year or so, and I am dubious about what it might be putting into the fuel. Since I started using the red o-ring stopper, I haven't had *any* hint of a plug "tater", black crud, or frosting. Maybe that is related to the stopper, or not.
I like the veterinary syringes over the Jett fueler even though I need a lot more than 5 oz of fuel. The Jett fueler is plenty big enough, but I like having a place to put a screw to hold the free end of the fueling tube. I actually have two screws on the flange of my vet syringe - one for the free end of the fueling tube, and another that carrys a short length of silicone I attach to the overflow to keep it off the side of the fuselage.
At least with Powermaster fuel, there is absolutely no value to filtering it externally and a whole lot of reasons to NOT attempt to filter it by decanting. There is *nothing* to filter, period. I also found absolutely nothing to filter from SIG fuel when I was using it. The up line of my fuel can pickup has a screen on the pickup end (comes with the DuBro kit) and I am using a Dirty Dan "Russkie" filter (screw-apart with a fine screen and never once have I found ANYTHING in either one of them, nor have I found anything in the airplane filter after the first few runs on a tank.
I used to run the Dave Brown six-shooter pump that works by peristaltic action, and that's pretty good too.
I know my stunt heros Paul Walker and Howard Rush (and about everybody else in the NW) use the condiment/ketchup pump. Maybe they have different pumps that everybody around here has tried, but I have seen several locals have nothing but severe contamination problems using them. I think they shed something during use. Note that Howard and Paul also use huge car fuel filters on the output because the small filters clog too quickly. Given that I have run literally a hundred gallons of the very same fuel through airplane filters and never had even a little bit of crud, I am forced to conclude that the particles they find are self-generated by the pump.
Similarly, I know of locals who routinely filter the fuel by decanting from one container to the other through some sort of filter medium, usually a coffee filter. That, too, seems unnecessary with either SIG or Powermaster, since there's nothing in the fuel to filter out, and the coffee filters tend to shed fibers into the fuel. Fibers are very bad, since they can make the engine run very funny but not actually make it quit. In particular, I have seen cases where a fiber got wrapped around the needle with the free end trailing out the spraybar, out the spigot, and flop around. This had the effect of sometimes defeating the atomization of the fuel, instead allowing to to stream down the fiber and just dribble into the engine. It ran VERY strangely since it only did that sometimes and at some input air angles. That's when we learned to always wipe the needle with our fingers instead of just flushing out the spraybar when you have problems.
I also use the Sullivan fuel system cleaning kit. It comes with two teeny-weeny bottle brushes that will go through the spraybar and physically remove anything like a fiber.
Brett