Cookin' With Coal

Sunny Boy wrote:Now that's a neat idea !

I've seen pix of a couple of ranges with a recessed plate in the top, but never saw the trivet in place, or had it explained. Thanks Randy.

Yes, and it works well too...cooked rice on it tonight to go with my pollo Mexican dish. (all with coal too)

Good eye Paul, it is came out of a bag a couple weeks ago.
We've been using the stove more and more for cooking it is just remembering too use it. Old habits hard to break.

Ordered two manometers today...one for the cook stove and one for the Kineo. It will be nice to be able to check exactly is going on with the draft. We are getting high winds here today...had to use the check damper for a little while when it was still 40° out. Now that it is only 28°, back to normal.

To keep with the cooking thread, I will be making a pot of soup for dinner tonight. Yes, will be cooking with coal and not wood.

Randy

Paul,
What are the settings you start out with on the Manometer? When re-loading, do you just open the damper all the way and then just damp down to a particular setting?

Randy

Photog200 wrote:Paul,
What are the settings you start out with on the Manometer? When re-loading, do you just open the damper all the way and then just damp down to a particular setting?

Randy

Yup, MPD full open, then direct (oven) damper open. Put on a fresh layer and after the snap, crackle, and pops stop, I switch over to indirect and set the MPD to about .04. With my MPD that's about a 30-35 degree angle. Seems to be the best spot for keeping the kitchen at 70 for the longest time before reloading.

Your chimney set up may have a different point that works well. It'll take a while of watching temps and the clock to compare and see. Once you find it, you can watch the mano as you close the MPD very precisely to the mano number you want and leave it there. The only time it gets a bit tough to nail the number exactly is when the wind is very gusty. At bed time, damped down for the over-night, it runs about .01.

You may want to watch it when it gets really windy. Yesterday morning as the cold front was rolling in, with the MPD still fully closed from being damped down the night before, and it was 49 degrees outside here, the wind gusts had the mano going negative by about .005 for a second or two. I opened the primary and the MPD just a hair to get bump the mano up to .02 when the wind was not gusting. Then it still stayed positive draft when the gusts hit.

The girl friend cooked a roast beef in the range oven today. With the stove doing heating duty, the oven temp was low and steady. Three hours at about 225 was perfect for cooking it so it was tender and juicy. Roast beef and rice with gravy, broccoli, and squash soup with minced ham. Yum ! And it was all cooked with the same amount of coal that heats the back half of the house !

It's now over three months since I last used the gas kitchen stove ! I'm not feeling that "propain" in my wallet.
Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:

Photog200 wrote:Paul,
What are the settings you start out with on the Manometer? When re-loading, do you just open the damper all the way and then just damp down to a particular setting?

Randy

Yup, MPD full open, then direct (oven) damper open. Put on a fresh layer and after the snap, crackle, and pops stop, I switch over to indirect and set the MPD to about .04. With my MPD that's about a 30-35 degree angle. Seems to be the best spot for keeping the kitchen at 70 for the longest time before reloading.

Your chimney set up may have a different point that works well. It'll take a while of watching temps and the clock to compare and see. Once you find it, you can watch the mano as you close the MPD very precisely to the mano number you want and leave it there. The only time it gets a bit tough to nail the number exactly is when the wind is very gusty. At bed time, damped down for the over-night, it runs about .01.

You may want to watch it when it gets really windy. Yesterday morning as the cold front was rolling in, with the MPD still fully closed from being damped down the night before, and it was 49 degrees outside here, the wind gusts had the mano going negative by about .005 for a second or two. I opened the primary and the MPD just a hair to get bump the mano up to .02 when the wind was not gusting. Then it still stayed positive draft when the gusts hit.

The girl friend cooked a roast beef in the range oven today. With the stove doing heating duty, the oven temp was low and steady. Three hours at about 225 was perfect for cooking it so it was tender and juicy. Roast beef and rice with gravy, broccoli, and squash soup with minced ham. Yum ! And it was all cooked with the same amount of coal that heats the back half of the house !

It's now over three months since I last used the gas kitchen stove ! I'm not feeling that "propain" in my wallet.
Paul

I did use my electric stove in the house a couple of weeks ago, but for the most part, I have been using the cook stove since September. I use it for hot water, heat and cooking.

Man, that dinner sounds fantastic! I have been hibernating and not making anything fancy lately...but need to get back into it. I made a huge pot of hamburger soup yesterday and froze 8 quarts of it.

Thanks for the mano settings, it will give me a place to start. With the wind gusts the last two days, I have had the mpd shut almost off as it was just pulling all the heat up the chimney. Will be glad to get these hooked up. I have not received a shipping notice yet, hope they ship soon. The mpd on the stove in the house has been completely shut off, that chimney has really good draw and with this wind, was also pulling the heat up the chimney.

Randy

You'll really appreciate it when you get the Clarion moved into the house and you don't have to "commute" to the coal stove. Or, do as a friend did - just move into the garage and rent the house out.

The stove is going to getting more good cooking done with it. The girlfriend (fiancée) got a new job near by, so we moved her here this past week.

I think she took the job just to be nearer to a kitchen coal stove ! She loves to cook on it because it's very much like the R&S Acorn coal range she grew up with (pix below). Her parents house is a big old place like mine. They heated the back half with the coal range - and a coal parlor stove in the parlor heated the front half.

I'm trying to find out more about the parlor stove. During Christmas visit, her oldest brother and I were discussing his massive Oak stove and questions about the old parlor stove came up. He thought it might have been a Glenwood. I'll be posting another thread on that about their family stoves.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:You'll really appreciate it when you get the Clarion moved into the house and you don't have to "commute" to the coal stove. Or, do as a friend did - just move into the garage and rent the house out.

The stove is going to getting more good cooking done with it. The girlfriend (fiancée) got a new job near by, so we moved her here this past week.

I think she took the job just to be nearer to a kitchen coal stove ! She loves to cook on it because it's very much like the R&S Acorn coal range she grew up with (pix below). Her parents house is a big old place like mine. They heated the back half with the coal range - and a coal parlor stove in the parlor heated the front half.

I'm trying to find out more about the parlor stove. During Christmas visit, her oldest brother and I were discussing his massive Oak stove and questions about the old parlor stove came up. He thought it might have been a Glenwood. I'll be posting another thread on that about their family stoves.

Paul

Paul, I thought about moving out there...but no running water. LOL It will make things a lot more convenient when it is in the house!

Congratulations on the engagement! She sounds like a keeper!

Are you moving the acorn into your house?

Randy

Randy, thanks.

No, the Acorn was bought by Good Time Stove, near by in Goshen MA, when her father sold the place and moved to a senior home a few years ago. It needed major restoration. I keep meaning to call them and see what's become of it.

I wish I had gotten more pictures of the details, but we had a dead line and were busy helping him pack up and move.

It had some very interesting features, like claw type coal shaker grates. And a front control handle and bar linkage along the right side and around the back to open/close the back oven damper. That was so you didn't need to reach over, or move pots/pans to work the oven damper during loading. And the Acorn logo was separate pieces inset into the round top plates, which were somehow all made so that the iron was red. Didn't look like any rust I've ever seen.

Paul

The stove designs are very nice! I like the front control for the oven damper so that you don't have to reach over back.

I can see the stove was in very rough shape, looks like rust jacking in a few places even happened. It looks like it had not been used in a few years.

I wish you guys all the best, and I am sure I will be hearing about many more good meals on the Glenwood!

Randy

Paul,you wooed her with a coal range ???? you had better keep that coal range in good shape !!!! ,so she really didn't fall for you ? it's the range Congratulations,keep warm.

windyhill4.2 wrote:Paul,you wooed her with a coal range ???? you had better keep that coal range in good shape !!!! ,so she really didn't fall for you ? it's the range Congratulations,keep warm.

David,
Are you getting close to making a decision about what kind of stove you are going to get? I seem to remember another thread about two more weeks?

windyhill4.2 wrote:Paul,you wooed her with a coal range ???? you had better keep that coal range in good shape !!!! ,so she really didn't fall for you ? it's the range Congratulations,keep warm.

Thanks - I'd like to think so, but, . . actually, . . she bought the range for me.

We were at a stove store and I was checking out wood stoves. I'd had coal stoves before, but not a kitchen range. And, around here wood is cheap and there are a lot of guys selling it. I just wanted something for when the power goes out.

She asked the dealer about being able to cook on top of the wood stove. She explained that she'd grown up cooking on a coal kitchen range. He told her that they'd just taken in an old coal range in trade and asked if we'd like to see it. She fell in love with it at first sight. So, not having room in her house, she bought it for me.

Now, eight years later, I still have not finished unpacking the wood stove !

Paul

Randy,

I think that as soon as a decent coal range, at the right price, shows up on CL near Dave, we'll be hearing about it.

Paul

Role reversal !! she wooed you if she likes cookin on a coal range that much,she should be worth keeping Paul,wish you many happy years !! Randy,we hope to have the $$ within a week,not for sure yet what to get,we would love a coal range,they do take a fair amount of space,we are limited there,this brutal cold spell has us thinking that we should get a higher BTU stove in the house that could handle the entire house heat demand & take a big load off the OWB,we can't get an 8 hr.burn on full load of wood when it's so cold,we are tired of tending way late at night to try to make it to the morning.Yesterday was brutal,the wind took so much heat out of our house & shop,8' pickup load /1/2 cord gone in 24 hrs. Not sure having coal range 20 - 25 ft.from kitchen is satisfactory for the cook & lower BTU,haven't totally decided yet which way to go,may depend somewhat on what is available,selection is less now than 2 months ago in the used market,i like what I read about the Hitzer,Alaska,DS Circulator ,all hand fed & can do some cooking on at least the DS & Alaska Kodiak,DS is reasonably priced too.Still enjoy following this thread,Cookin with coal & heatin too. Yep, Paul you will hear about it regardless the choice,but especially if we get a coal range,is a pretty cream & green Pittston on cl around Scranton ,Pa.hopefully B4 this time next week we & you will know what we got. Keep warm!!