Melting metal

I was melting aluminium outside today. I wanted to use alcohol and one of those old torches what runs on gasoline. ... It got my adrenaline running quite the bit. When i lit it, the pressure and flame only got worse by the second. It was nearly as my fear was amplifying it. At one point, the flame was coming out with such pressure, that the flame extinguished. I was relieved that it was over. Clearly it was a bad idea to use alcohol instead of gasoline. Maybe i put too much pressure into it too.... eheheh... whoops!

Anyways, later i made a fire and started to melt aluminium. It took a good hour or two. What annoyed me greatly is that when i was trying to stir the molten aluminium, it felt as the heat was almost like pulled into me. The flames constantly followed me around and the wind kept changing the direction.
At one point, i burned my hand by leaning on the grill (stupid move), but strangely, i didn't get burned as bad as i imagined to. The metal would have clearly scorched any organic materia in mere seconds. All i got was just a red stripe and a little of pain. No blisters, no nothing. How strange.
In the end, i think i had mold too many cans, that the metal just froze, even tho, the fire was much more hotter. I was able to salvage a good piece of it, but mostly was just oxides. *Sighs* <.<