Wood fired cookstoves?

[willsaw4beer]

I've been considering one for awhile and noticed this one.

http://ithaca.craigslist.org/app/1457474677.html

Should I keep looking, and/ or just wait for a good price on a new one? Are there any manufacturers or models new or old to look for?

 

[isaaccarlson]

Take a look at the Kitchen Queen cook stoves, we got one and it is nice.

We have not had a chance to hook it up yet since the house does not yet have a roof but I think it is REALLY good for the money spent.

 

[A. Stanton]

My neighbor burns with one of these; and it smokes like a banshee. Plus I think you have to put small pieces in em.

 

[Billy_Bob]

I cook on my regular woodstove!

Although I have a large woodstove, so there is a large flat surface on the top to place pans.

Yesterday morning I put large pot on the woodstove (pot about 1 ft. across the top and 1 ft. high). Made lima beans and ham. Cooked it all day long.

Then I'll cook turkeys on this too. Just stick the turkey in the pan on top of the woodstove. It does not brown like it would in an oven, but cook it all day and the meat is falling apart.

The only thing is you need it to be cold all day so you don't blast yourself out of the house!

 

[milkman]

Wood cookstove

Spent what I thought was way too much time in my youth cutting cookwood, then mom got a bottle gas stove in the 50's. Nothing like biscuits baked in a wood stove oven, they were never the same with the gas oven.
I now have the cookstove that my aunt bought new in '42, cook with either wood or bottle gas, large flat surface with caps for the wood side and gas burners on the right side. Wish I had room in the house to hook it up, could put it in the shed with a stove pipe I guess. Wood cooked biscuits with butter and molasses would sure go over good.

 

[willsaw4beer]

Well the folks got back to me, and apparently the stove still is available. Is $300 too much to spend for a cheap cookstove? Quite obviously if I go look at it and it's a tin can heap I won't buy it. Just not really sure what they sell for used.

 

[charlieh]

solid fuel cookers in the uk arent that rare, i use a rayburn regal, which i burn a mix of wood and solid fuel on, if i could have any though i would get a esse ironheart, dont know if you guys can get them out there

very nice, and burn efficently

 

[Ductape]

Thats a nice lookin' cook stove ! There are some nice, retro looking, air tight cookstoves available here....... but they sure are few and far between.

 

[woodbooga]

Well the folks got back to me, and apparently the stove still is available. Is $300 too much to spend for a cheap cookstove? Quite obviously if I go look at it and it's a tin can heap I won't buy it. Just not really sure what they sell for used.

The listing was deleted when I clicked the link.

I've seen them in antique shops around here for between $350 and $2,000. I've seen nice ones for $450 and crap overpriced for $1000+.

We've been using ours for years. And my in-laws for many decades.

Some experiences:

Cons:

- they were disigned for cooking first and heating second. Hence the small firebox, which allows the operator to modulate heat levels easily from a quick oven for baking biscuits to a slow roast for a whole chicken or similar dishes. I list this as a con because the small firebox precludes any kind of an extended burn. Even a well-banked fire will give you only 3 hours or so.

- Not airtight. Hence the previous smokey comment. I find this is really only an issue early in the fall and later in the spring when inducing a good draft is more difficult. We have young children and can let no smoke in the house. So we keep the rear chimney setting on kindle (as opposed to bake) for longer.

-Don't believe the 'heat indicator' gauge on the oven door. Assuming it works at all, it'll give you a relative ballpark of oven temp for baking. Invest $3 in a candy thermometer.

-Kindling. You'll use lots of it. I mean lots.

Pros:

-Once you get all that surface area heated, a cookstove is a massive piece of cast that will throw off massive amounts of heat. IMO, this reason comes close to negating all of the previously mentioned drawbacks.

-There's nothing it won't burn. The punky stuff others turn their noses up at, the 2" twigs, the odd sized chunks and splinters. It all goes.

-The gas oven gets zero use from Sept. to May.

-This is a squishy sort of reason, but boy is it fun to run a cookstove. Constantly tending to the fire, you develop a completely different relationship with it than you would with an appliance you load 2-6 times a day.

-It'll make you good at spatial geometry. Looking at a bed of coals in a firebox makes you consider how to puzzle piece your splits in to make maximum use of the available volume.

Probably a lot more, but this was just off from the top of my head.

 

[flotek]

the modern cookstoves like the one pictured are really neat ,i would love to have one i n the kitchen but i doubt i could ever get the wife involved on the venture ,are these epa certified ? do these newer ones have secondary burn technology and such ?I bet it would make you start to appreciate our history/ancestory more knowing all that was involved to make dinner back i n the day.toasty wood heat and hot food in one appliance ,my 2 favorite things