and again, jeez, but it's too much work to cut it cont: "I love the idea of cooking on a wood stove but have never had the chance - closest i've come is cooking over a fire, but i had foil so...not quite the same. If you have any tips,... feel free to send 'em my way" LOL- me too, although I've done a lot of campfire cooking-The girl who rented me my cabin said she called me because I was the only person who might think the woodstove was a plus. It was a pain-took over a year to figure out how to bake cakes and quickbreads you'd want to eat. (the firebox is on one side, so you have to *spin them* to cook evenly, very carefully so they don't fall) mine was a dinky thing, not the full feature Majestic Cook would have, so although it *had* a regulator for airflow over the top and oven, the bottom and far side didn't cook very well. I fixed that by lining the base of the oven with firebrick after my turkey turned out great, except that the bottom was still pink. Even after wrestling it to turn it upside down for a while! :( the fire brick worked good for flatbreads and pizzas too though, if you started early and got them good and hot first. Call that the first non-intuitive tip- it takes an hour to preheat a woodstove. the firebox is small, so you use kindling. resinous or very dry wood and aspen burn hot and fast, will scorch anything you try to cook. So you need several kinds/sizes of wood- hot burning, good solid long-burning heartwood, green or wet in a pinch to burn slow and maintain heat, and some smaller lumps and pieces to help regulate the oven temp as you go. I usually set the oven thermometer on the bottom, since it tended to fall off the racks when you slid things over it. obviously, the rangetop is hottest over the firebox, cooler to the side, so you slide your pans around to get the right temp. I curdled a lot of cream sauces before I got that right. You have a little lid lifter thing that slots into the burners so you can lift them out and drop wood straight onto the fire (smoke gets in your eyes) or set a pan right in the hole if you want to, for even more heat. (cast iron everything,btw- thin pans are worthless, they burn up.)Back by the chimney works well for long slow cooking, since it's fairly even heat- I used to do a lot of that, and pan-frying, on my main stove in the living room,(most people do- why run two stoves?) and I kept the gallon size teakettle hot there too. mulled wine, anytime. mmm. There's a damper you can open, that lets the hot air run over the oven/under the range, or blocks it and directs it right up the chimney, but that's kinda fiddly and it's best to have lots of kindling choices too. A ranch needs a big stove, with warming ovens above, a water reservoir beside the firebox, and maybe even two ovens, with better airflow all around. (The ovens are surprisingly small inside though.)Check Lehman's Non-electric Goods catalog- (Amish supply store in Ohio) for some good pix and options. There are convection fans that you stick to the pipe, to circulate the hot rising air, and such. I don't have a link, but they used to be online. There's usually a drawer under the firebox that catches the ash and clinkers. You dump this frequently-when it's full, the fire doesn't burn right and the oven doesn't heat. So, you need a big metal container beside the stove to dump it in-don't want to burn the house down. coal scuttles are good, but I've seen filing cabinet drawers, buckets and even big popcorn tins with blistered paint. the lid is good, because fine ash goes everywhere. When you're sure it's cool- minimum 24 hours after the last dump, IF you've stirred it to be sure there are no live coals hiding in the ash, it's safe to throw in trash or outside. Helps melt the ice on the walk, if you don't care about tracks. oh, and once you've cooked a full meal on a woodstove, you understand the phrase "slaving over a hot stove" I used to try to get guests to move out the living room where you could breathe, and they'd laugh and tell me it wasn't that bad, but I always felt like I was running a marathon in an inferno. pies and roasts were fun, though and it was great to have that uge variable cooking surface, and to do the pot-au feu thing all the time- I like soup.
no subject
cont:
"I love the idea of cooking on a wood stove but have never had the chance - closest i've come is cooking over a fire, but i had foil so...not quite the same. If you have any tips,... feel free to send 'em my way"
LOL- me too, although I've done a lot of campfire cooking-The girl who rented me my cabin said she called me because I was the only person who might think the woodstove was a plus. It was a pain-took over a year to figure out how to bake cakes and quickbreads you'd want to eat. (the firebox is on one side, so you have to *spin them* to cook evenly, very carefully so they don't fall) mine was a dinky thing, not the full feature Majestic Cook would have, so although it *had* a regulator for airflow over the top and oven, the bottom and far side didn't cook very well. I fixed that by lining the base of the oven with firebrick after my turkey turned out great, except that the bottom was still pink. Even after wrestling it to turn it upside down for a while! :( the fire brick worked good for flatbreads and pizzas too though, if you started early and got them good and hot first.
Call that the first non-intuitive tip- it takes an hour to preheat a woodstove. the firebox is small, so you use kindling. resinous or very dry wood and aspen burn hot and fast, will scorch anything you try to cook. So you need several kinds/sizes of wood- hot burning, good solid long-burning heartwood, green or wet in a pinch to burn slow and maintain heat, and some smaller lumps and pieces to help regulate the oven temp as you go. I usually set the oven thermometer on the bottom, since it tended to fall off the racks when you slid things over it.
obviously, the rangetop is hottest over the firebox, cooler to the side, so you slide your pans around to get the right temp. I curdled a lot of cream sauces before I got that right. You have a little lid lifter thing that slots into the burners so you can lift them out and drop wood straight onto the fire (smoke gets in your eyes) or set a pan right in the hole if you want to, for even more heat. (cast iron everything,btw- thin pans are worthless, they burn up.)Back by the chimney works well for long slow cooking, since it's fairly even heat- I used to do a lot of that, and pan-frying, on my main stove in the living room,(most people do- why run two stoves?) and I kept the gallon size teakettle hot there too. mulled wine, anytime. mmm.
There's a damper you can open, that lets the hot air run over the oven/under the range, or blocks it and directs it right up the chimney, but that's kinda fiddly and it's best to have lots of kindling choices too.
A ranch needs a big stove, with warming ovens above, a water reservoir beside the firebox, and maybe even two ovens, with better airflow all around. (The ovens are surprisingly small inside though.)Check Lehman's Non-electric Goods catalog- (Amish supply store in Ohio) for some good pix and options. There are convection fans that you stick to the pipe, to circulate the hot rising air, and such. I don't have a link, but they used to be online.
There's usually a drawer under the firebox that catches the ash and clinkers. You dump this frequently-when it's full, the fire doesn't burn right and the oven doesn't heat. So, you need a big metal container beside the stove to dump it in-don't want to burn the house down. coal scuttles are good, but I've seen filing cabinet drawers, buckets and even big popcorn tins with blistered paint. the lid is good, because fine ash goes everywhere. When you're sure it's cool- minimum 24 hours after the last dump, IF you've stirred it to be sure there are no live coals hiding in the ash, it's safe to throw in trash or outside. Helps melt the ice on the walk, if you don't care about tracks.
oh, and once you've cooked a full meal on a woodstove, you understand the phrase "slaving over a hot stove" I used to try to get guests to move out the living room where you could breathe, and they'd laugh and tell me it wasn't that bad, but I always felt like I was running a marathon in an inferno. pies and roasts were fun, though and it was great to have that uge variable cooking surface, and to do the pot-au feu thing all the time- I like soup.