Cambridge, NY, in the beautiful foothills of the Green Mountains.
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cooking on a wood stove
Has anyone ever cooked on a wood cook stove? I'd like to get an antique stove to cook on. Any positive or negative experiences? Any advice on buying a wood stove? What to look for? [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
Yes, everyday until I was 16 when we moved off of the farm. It also provided half of the heat for the house. Everyday you would go out and get the wood and coal and every day you would emty the ashes.
She would bake all of the bread and cook all of the meals on that wood stove. My mother loved the electric stove when we moved to town.
It is not as easy to regulate the heat in a wood cook stove, it takes lots of practice to make regular meals on them and to bake bread. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
<font color="blue"> It is not as easy to regulate the heat in a wood cook stove, it takes lots of practice to make regular meals on them and to bake bread. </font color>
My dad had a camp in Canada that was in the middle of nowhere. You had to portage in across a lake to the cabin. It was a great place to fish and just relax. The stove was fired by wood and you are right about needing practice to cook on it. After a while I was able to do pretty well with it. Just had to plan ahead to have the coals just right as you started to cook. I always seemed to get it too hot. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
Ahhh!! One of my favorite topics. We installed a Sweetheart cookstove last year. I absolutely love it. I am including a picture of it - though folks may get tired of that pic. I have posted it a few times already.
I have wanted a cookstove for the longest time but the price was incredibly high. Lehman's has a great selection - Lehmans non-electrig catolog
The Sweetheart is still available today. I picked mine up used. A couple brought it 20 some years ago for their lakehouse and never installed. Upon retiring to the lake house they needed the space in the garage so they sold it.
My wife found a few out of print books on the web about woodstove cooking. They were not that helpful. Mostly you need hands on experience.
The heat is not instantaneous. Takes about 40 minutes to heat up. Just long enough to mix up a quick bread. The cook surface will boil directly over the firebox all the way down to a slow simmer at the side farthest from the firebox. You need hot mitts or pot holders - as the entire cook surface is hot so handles get hot. Anyway to regulate temp for a pot you just move it around till you find the desired spot. Easy!
The oven is a little trickier. The firebox on my stove has 4 dampers to control heat. Then there is a draft control lever. This directs the gases up the flue. When starting the fire you let the exhaust go straight up the chimney. When it is burning well you slide a lever that directs the gases around the ovenbox and THEN up the flue. This is what heats the oven.
Temperature is regulated by the dampers, the wood size/type, open/closing the oven door and postion of food in the oven. Now I know that all sounds complicated but it is not. You quickly learn what works.
Let me describe a Sunday morning breakfast. First put a slab of bacon in a cast iron fry pan. Put it on top of the cookstove. Go out side and get some wood. Light the fire. Leave all dampers open to get it going quickly. Play with the dogs outside for 5 minutes. Back in the house. Put more wood on the fire. Close the oven damper so the oven starts to heat.
Make a cranberry quickbread batter (no yeast only baking powder and soda)and put in the oven if it is hot enough. Set a timer to go off every 10 minutes. Move the frypan with the bacon from directly over the firebox to over the oven. Fill and put on the tea kettle. Check on bread (10 mins). This first check is really just to make sure it is not burning.
Chop onions and peppers for omelets. Check on bread (20 mins). Move around in oven if neccessary. Sautee peppers and onions in bacon grease. Move bacon pan around. seperate slices. But I don't let it cook to fast. If you let it slow cook it hardly shrinks at all. doesn't curl either and tastes wonderful. Check on bread (30 mins). Rotate in oven to put other side closest to firebox. Adjust firebox dampers if needed. Add wood if needed. If I need a quick hot burst I throw in pinecones. Mother natures own incendiary devices. We collect these in the fall. Usually a trash can or two full of them.
Take a 10 minute breather to play with the dogs. Check on bread (40 minutes). Pour first omelet. Add peppers, onions, bacon and cheese. Move on cooktop to desired spot. Pour hot water from kettle to make tea. Serve first omlet. Check bread (50 mins) remove and cool if done. Or leave in a little longer.
Feed family while bread is cooling. Enjoy!
It is more work than a gas range that is for sure. But it is not hard. You just have to pay attention. I have cooked all sorts of food in it. Stirfry on the top, cookies, pies and breads in the oven. meatloaf, chicken and roasts. A full meal is usually a weekend thing (except for stirfry) due to the time involved. But if it is very cold will will have the cookstove burning anyway so cooking on it is a bonus.
My favorites are baked breads. I don't know why but they come out wonderful. Then chilli or stew slow simmered all day.
I can't imagine not having it. I will take it with us if we ever sell the house. We have a fireplace insert that burns wood around the clock. The cookstove is in the basement. But it is definitely the 'center' of the house. we congreagate around it while I am cooking.
So I guess you can tell I love the cookstove and heartily recommend one.
About 25 years ago I purchased an old Glenwood K range with tan enamel in mint condition for $150. There were some pieces missing - notably the entire firebox as this stove had been converted to kerosene pot burners. I was able to locate missing parts (the oven grate and the side extension). I was also able to find a place in Massachusetts that cast replacement parts for old Glenwoods. He set me up with a complete new firebox with coal burning grates, gears for the shaker, etd.
I have this gem in my basement and we use it if we want to work down in the basement in the winter, or sometimes I fire it up with wood if we are having a real cold snap. Heating the basement helps keep the rest of the house warm since heat rises. We keep it ready to go in case of power outages which can be common in the winter here in New England because of storms.
Sometimes I fire it up on a Winter weekend and bake beans in the oven, or simmer a pasta sauce on top over the low, even heat. My grandparents - now long deceased - used to live near Skowhegan Maine, and they had one of these old kitchen ranges in the kitchen that they used to cook on and for heat. There was NO central heat in the house. I watched my grandmother cook all manner of things on that old stove.
About 10 years ago my brother in law and family was coming up from Washington for Thanksgiving. My wife and I thought it would be really great to cook the turkey in the woodstove oven. I started it at about 10:00 am, expecting that it would be done by about 2:00 like in an electric stove oven. It was in fact done at about 7:00. It was a late dinner. But that turkey was GREAT!
I have since learned that draft control is very important, and for high temp in the oven the wood has to be split fairly small and must be really dry. We still talk about this every Thanksgiving day. One of those great family stories.
I see in Lehman's catalog that you can buy new wood ranges like the guy who posted a photo of his on this thread. I couldn't believe the prices. But by all means get one if you can!
PS - we used to think it was great when I was a kid watching my grandmother made toast by just putting the bread directly on top of a stove lid. Needless to say, she kept the top of that stove spotless/
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