how many here cook with wood?

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chuckwood

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Not too many, I'd guess. But our ancestors all did. In 1892 my great grandfather built a very nice 5 bedroom Victorian house for his family here in TN. Fancy oak woodwork inside, 11 foot high ceilings, and the kitchen had it's own special chimney to plug the wood burning cookstove into. No electricity, no piped in water, no piped in natural gas either. Power in those days came from steam engines and horses, home heating was either coal or wood. It's hard to imagine how miserable it must have been in summers with a wood burner cooking in the kitchen. But in winter, I'm sure it was another story. I'd still someday like to have a wood burning cookstove, maybe not as fancy as these, but check 'em out

 
I have been known to put a pot of beans or stew beef on top of the wood stove to cook. I can remember both my grandmothers had a wood cook stove. Where they lived was one of the last places in the county to get electric power. One grandmother had her stove right off the kitchen on the outside of the house. The room was closed in but thats how she kept the heat out of the house.
 
This year my BBQ Cookin' Wood refused to sell. Last year it sold like hotcakes. I make it with small splits of oak and apple wood, packed in 17-lb sacks. One guy told me that people just let the campfire wood that I sell die down and cook with the coals. Then again, weather has been rather lousy for BBQ cooking because of the rain, heat, and humidity. El Nino did a number on my sales. Maybe next year things will be different.
 
I have been known to put a pot of beans or stew beef on top of the wood stove to cook. I can remember both my grandmothers had a wood cook stove. Where they lived was one of the last places in the county to get electric power. One grandmother had her stove right off the kitchen on the outside of the house. The room was closed in but thats how she kept the heat out of the house.

Imagine how tough those ladies were back then! They didn't have electric fans in those hot kitchens either. And the wood they used for cooking wasn't made using chainsaws either. I'll bet a lot of those women were just as good with an axe or a maul as their husbands were.
 
Imagine how tough those ladies were back then! They didn't have electric fans in those hot kitchens either. And the wood they used for cooking wasn't made using chainsaws either. I'll bet a lot of those women were just as good with an axe or a maul as their husbands were.
back then, both of my grandfathers worked at saw milles I suspect they brought home slabs for heat and cooking. I can remember going to visit and Grandma always had a pan of biscuits on the stove. Left over hog meat and plenty of fresh milk in the can house. I do remember they used to cook very large meals when they cooked, it wasnt so they could eat all they wanted, it was so that there would be left overs and not have to fire up the stove three times a day.
 
I like to make a good wood fire outside, drink some beer, and cook hamburgers or whatever tickles my fancy at the time. The taste can be so much better. Make some silver turtles on the coals.


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The best smoked rolled pork roast I ever cooked was in a barrel cooker that I heated with oak hardwood. About a 4-pounder, I let it cook for at least three hours at about 275 F. I added a little more hardwood fuel each hour. My recipe originally came from James Beard, the true master of all time. Charcoal was not needed.
 
We cook on our wood fired cook stove, but not full time,

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I absolutely love the oven,

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It takes very little wood to cook an entire meal, including desert in the oven...

SR
 
You never cooked me anything Rob :(.

I will warm stuff on top of the stove sometimes, and I always have water on top for humidity.
I don't think the learning curve would be hard cookingon wood/coals. One thing I noticed early on burning wood is that the stove will stay at a constant temp of 325 to 350 for very long periods of time. I'm guessing that this is the reason most older recipes call for similar temps :).
Here are some ribs I cooked up a few yrs ago. I had a big bonfire and the next morning I blew all the fines off with my backpack blower. Then I placed the grate on top of the logs and cooked it for about 3 hrs. I kept spraying the logs with a spray bottle to keep them from flaming up. It was a lot of time involved, but the results were awesome :sweet:.IMAG0076.jpegIMAG0079.jpeg
 
Unless they have wood fired microwaves, I have no plans on using wood to eat.
BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN.
I have an electric heat pump and a wood stove. no gas, no oil or anything else. During the blizzard of 93, I was without electricity for 9 days. The house I was living in didnt have a wood stove. I cooked on top of a kerosun heater that I kept around for emergency heat. Those heaters wont do much more than heat up a can of soup. I sold that house in 99 and bought the one I am currently in. I threw out the old wood stove in the basement because it was rusted thru. The first coupe of years, I relied on electricity and the back up kerosun heater. I came home from work one week in Oct and to my surprise my wife had bought a wood heater. Of course I didnt have a stick of firewood on the place. I scrounged what I could and burnt mostly green wood that winter. Now whenever we have a big storm and the power goes off, the kids, inlaws, friends, all come over to my house because my stove keeps them warm. I have a 40qt stainless stock pot I keep full of water on the stove during the winter and three or four of those 30gal plastic barrels I keep full of water also. This gives me some cooking and drinking water, as well as water to flush toilets for a few days. With my wood heated hot water system, I also have 80gal of water I can drain out of the tanks if things get desperate. While I dont make it a everyday thing to cook on my wood stove, I sure aint going to rule it out if I start getting hungry. I also still have a kerosene heater and 5gal can of kerosene stored in the basement. I might need to check out that kerosene as I have had it for at least 10 years or more. Does kerosene go bad???
 
BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN.
I have an electric heat pump and a wood stove. no gas, no oil or anything else. During the blizzard of 93, I was without electricity for 9 days. The house I was living in didnt have a wood stove. I cooked on top of a kerosun heater that I kept around for emergency heat. Those heaters wont do much more than heat up a can of soup. I sold that house in 99 and bought the one I am currently in. I threw out the old wood stove in the basement because it was rusted thru. The first coupe of years, I relied on electricity and the back up kerosun heater. I came home from work one week in Oct and to my surprise my wife had bought a wood heater. Of course I didnt have a stick of firewood on the place. I scrounged what I could and burnt mostly green wood that winter. Now whenever we have a big storm and the power goes off, the kids, inlaws, friends, all come over to my house because my stove keeps them warm. I have a 40qt stainless stock pot I keep full of water on the stove during the winter and three or four of those 30gal plastic barrels I keep full of water also. This gives me some cooking and drinking water, as well as water to flush toilets for a few days. With my wood heated hot water system, I also have 80gal of water I can drain out of the tanks if things get desperate. While I dont make it a everyday thing to cook on my wood stove, I sure aint going to rule it out if I start getting hungry. I also still have a kerosene heater and 5gal can of kerosene stored in the basement. I might need to check out that kerosene as I have had it for at least 10 years or more. Does kerosene go bad???

I have a 15kw diesel Gen set and 300 gals of fuel with access to another 500-600 gals. Wood stove for heat, gas cookstove.
 
I burn about 7-10 full cords of wood cooking every year. Cooking maple syrup, that is... I suppose that's not what we're talking about though.


I cook pretty often on my Morso during the winter. Certainly not exclusively, but when it's hot and I'm cooking, we usually work together.


On the topic of wood cook stoves in summer heat, though, I learned a great term for softwood: "biscuit wood". The name coming from when wood was used for cooking, and the cook needed to heat the oven to make biscuits but didn't want a lasting fire. Softwood or biscuit wood was the firewood of choice. That's pretty much what I refer to softwood as now. When I remember anyways.
 

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