Cookin' With Coal

 
ddahlgren
Member
Posts: 1769
Joined: Tue. Feb. 19, 2013 3:30 pm
Location: Mystic CT
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Crane 404
Contact:

Post by ddahlgren » Sat. Aug. 29, 2015 8:06 am

I suspect it is all about the porous microstructure than anything else the actual oil used ins a detail that only needs a small change in temperature.


 
User avatar
Sunny Boy
Member
Posts: 25551
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Sep. 15, 2015 8:44 am

With the cold damp weather the past few days, we've fired up the range again.

Insulating the heat shield box on the back side of the range has made it very easy to get oven temps over 400 F without pushing the range and over heating the kitchen.

Another plus is the range's vented oven. All the baking fumes get pushed out by natural draft, through a cluster of holes in the upper right rear corner of the oven, into the flue just before the pipe collar. So now, I can finally try my hand at re-seasoning a small fry pan with flaxseed oil and not stinking up the kitchen. :)

Like Randy did, after I stripped the pan to bare metal with oven cleaner, I ground the inside bottom surface of the pan smoother. This is one of the Lodge "pebble-finish" pans. It's ok, but not the same as other pans I have that are smooth.

I pre-warmed the pan and then wiped on a thin coating of flaxseed oil that I squeezed out of two flaxseed caplets. That went into the oven, upside down on a cookie sheet. Left it there for an hour at about 425F degrees.

After that hour, I took it out and let it cool down. Then repeated that process again. It's in for it's fourth baking now.

Here's pix before, and after baking numbers one, two, and three. It's darkening up very nicely. And as Randy mentioned, the finish is smoother and harder than I've ever been able to season a pan before.

You can see in one picture how smooth it is by the refection of my hand.

And yes, the flaxseed oil stinks while it's baking. But, once it's baked on it doesn't stink anymore.. However, the oven vents work so well that there is not even the slightest whiff of it until the pan is taken out of the oven to cool down.

I'm looking forward to seeing how well it does with cooking eggs.

Paul

Attachments

DSCN7803.JPG
.JPG | 209.8KB | DSCN7803.JPG
DSCN7967.JPG
.JPG | 225KB | DSCN7967.JPG
DSCN7968.JPG
.JPG | 209.8KB | DSCN7968.JPG
DSCN7971.JPG
.JPG | 216.9KB | DSCN7971.JPG

 
ddahlgren
Member
Posts: 1769
Joined: Tue. Feb. 19, 2013 3:30 pm
Location: Mystic CT
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Crane 404
Contact:

Post by ddahlgren » Tue. Sep. 15, 2015 7:04 pm

Whats with the hand print?

 
User avatar
Sunny Boy
Member
Posts: 25551
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Sep. 15, 2015 9:14 pm

ddahlgren wrote:Whats with the hand print?
That's a reflection to show how much hard, glossy finish the pan has now.

Paul

 
ddahlgren
Member
Posts: 1769
Joined: Tue. Feb. 19, 2013 3:30 pm
Location: Mystic CT
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Crane 404
Contact:

Post by ddahlgren » Thu. Sep. 17, 2015 4:43 am

OK just did not want to picture you in the burn center checking the finish LOL

 
User avatar
Photog200
Member
Posts: 2063
Joined: Tue. Feb. 05, 2013 7:11 pm
Location: Fulton, NY
Baseburners & Antiques: Colonial Clarion cook stove, Kineo #15 base burner & 2 Geneva Oak Andes #517's
Coal Size/Type: Blaschak Chestnut
Other Heating: Electric Baseboard

Post by Photog200 » Thu. Sep. 24, 2015 9:12 pm

I am sold on the flaxseed oil, it is what I will use from now on. Good to see you got similar results Paul.
Randy

 
User avatar
Sunny Boy
Member
Posts: 25551
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Fri. Sep. 25, 2015 6:52 am

Randy,
I'm really sold on this, strip the pan to bare metal and use flaxseed oil, baked on at over 400 F, method, too.

I was surprised how little oil is needed. In caplet form the oil is quite thick and covers alot of the pan. It only took oil from two of those flaxseed oil caplets to coat that 5 inch pan. Just a light coating each time, was enough to spread the oil evenly over the entire pan - inside and out, with a paper towel. Then baked for an hour at 400F+, upside down over a cookie sheet.

I've now used that small pan three times to fry eggs. I start by getting the pan hot and melt a pad of butter to evenly coat the bottom. I like my eggs "over hard" as the army cooks called it. The pan formed a nice burnt crust around the edges. And no after-taste from the flaxseed oil.

The first time, the eggs stuck in three small places about 1/8 inch diameter. No big deal to clean it after cooking using hot water and a sponge while the pan was still warm.

Second time, the same method, but egg-stuck areas were even smaller. Pan wiped clean with just a paper towel while warm.
Third time, I only used a half-pad of butter and the eggs would not stick at all. Again, just wiped the warm pan clean with a paper towel.

I'm only using a hard plastic spatula for now. However, I can feel the flaxseed oil surface had made a very good, seasoned base coating. It is very smooth, tough, and better adhered to the cast iron compared to any other oil I've used to seasons pans. Which includes bacon, olive oil, vegetable oil, PAM, and the new version of Crisco. No matter how had I use the plastic spatula, it won't scrape through the flaxseed finish. It has with all the other oils I've used in the past for seasoning.

With the range oven now easily able to get and sustain over 400 F, I'll be "up grading" more cast iron pans with flaxseed oil. ;)

Paul


 
User avatar
Sunny Boy
Member
Posts: 25551
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Fri. Sep. 25, 2015 3:21 pm

Melissa was helping a friend clean her garage and saw this small coal stove. At first I thought it was what are commonly called "laundry stoves". But after seeing all the pictures she took of it, I think it's a canning stove.

It's an F.H Stowe model 8. All I can find online is that Stowe was one of the many stove manufactures in Troy NY in the later half of 19800.s That info also suggests that the company was only in business for about a year 1881 to 1882 ? The stoves says 1881 on top.

f it were meant for cooking, putting one pot on top off center, or lifting off one pot of two on top, would easily unbalance and tip the stove over.

What then made me discount it was a laundry stove is that it only has three legs which are rather close together.

The top of the stove is the same size to fit the oblong shaped old "water boilers" which were commonly used to heat water for washing and for canning. A boiler would sit evenly centered on the top and thus would not unbalance the stove.

Plus, the stove top is very low to the ground. I can see where it would be too low (think back ache) and tippy to be leaning over and swishing any clothing around in a tub of hot water.

However, when boiling the jars during canning, the jars usually sit in a wire frame work made to fit inside the boiler, with handles that stick up out of the hot water. Putting the canning jars in and out of the water just involves lifting them straight up and down, so not much risk of tipping the stove over doing that. And having done canning on our range, I can also see that a lower stove top would make put the jars in and out of a tall tub of boiling water much easier and safer to do.

Looking at the thick cast fireclay firebox liner, the small size of the firebox, and the fact that it doesn't have a separate loading door to refuel often with wood without clearing off the stove top to reload it, I'm pretty sure it was meant to run on coal.

So, here's pix of this little Stowe canning (?) stove from 1881.

Enjoy,

Paul

Attachments

20150922_123129.jpg
.JPG | 92KB | 20150922_123129.jpg
20150922_123139.jpg
.JPG | 112.2KB | 20150922_123139.jpg
20150925_132224.jpg
.JPG | 105.2KB | 20150925_132224.jpg
20150925_132029.jpg
.JPG | 90.3KB | 20150925_132029.jpg
20150925_132303.jpg
.JPG | 87KB | 20150925_132303.jpg

 
User avatar
Photog200
Member
Posts: 2063
Joined: Tue. Feb. 05, 2013 7:11 pm
Location: Fulton, NY
Baseburners & Antiques: Colonial Clarion cook stove, Kineo #15 base burner & 2 Geneva Oak Andes #517's
Coal Size/Type: Blaschak Chestnut
Other Heating: Electric Baseboard

Post by Photog200 » Sat. Sep. 26, 2015 7:29 am

It does indeed look like a small cook stove. Back in the day, they use to have small stoves like this for summer kitchens. They were small enough to move around and could be stored away during the winter. As you mentioned already Paul, it would be a good height for canning and they did a lot of that in outdoor kitchens.

Randy

 
wilsons woodstoves
Member
Posts: 370
Joined: Mon. Dec. 16, 2013 7:55 pm
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood, Crawford, Magee, Herald, Others

Post by wilsons woodstoves » Fri. Oct. 02, 2015 8:40 pm

I like that brick lining. Is that 4 pieces of brick? looks like mint cond.
Wilson

 
User avatar
Sunny Boy
Member
Posts: 25551
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Fri. Oct. 02, 2015 9:53 pm

Yes, it's four separate castings - one has a crack in it, but the castings are still in tight. The stove has had very little use. Amazingly good shape for being 134 years old !!!!!

We offered to buy it but it's already spoken for. :(

Paul

 
User avatar
Sunny Boy
Member
Posts: 25551
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Mon. Oct. 12, 2015 9:24 pm

I'm not a fan of the onset of cold weather, but the prospect of the good cookin' that I know is coming when the range gets going makes it that much more bearable.

Especially one of my favorites - apple pie made from fresh picked local apples. We can have apples anytime, but they always seem better this time of year.

And it's also a good time of year for baked buckrum.

Huh? What the hoo-ha is buckrum you ask ? :shock:

Buckrum is a special stiffened material used in garments, drapes, and upholstery. The kind I need was used under auto upholstery when it's placed over the structural wood in antique cars.

Can't buy it this heavy weight, so we make our own by duplicating the original muslin glued to 10 once burlap. Both layers are stretched and tacked onto a wooden frame and then they are coated with carpenter's glue. The muslin and burlap bind together in a flat sheet, plus the glue adds stiffness to hide wood grain, screw holes, nail heads, and edges of the wood framing and panels.

The range is great for drying the large sheets quickly so that we can get several sheets done in a day.

Not everything cooked by a coal stove has to be eatable ! :D

Paul

Attachments

DSCN1116.JPG
.JPG | 154.4KB | DSCN1116.JPG
DSCN1001.JPG
.JPG | 93KB | DSCN1001.JPG

 
User avatar
Smokeyja
Member
Posts: 1997
Joined: Mon. Nov. 21, 2011 6:57 pm
Location: Richmond, VA.
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood #6 baseheater, Richmond Advance Range, WarmMorning 414a x2
Coal Size/Type: Nut / Anthracite
Other Heating: none
Contact:

Post by Smokeyja » Mon. Oct. 12, 2015 9:51 pm

Sunny Boy wrote:I'm not a fan of the onset of cold weather, but the prospect of the good cookin' that I know is coming when the range gets going makes it that much more bearable.

Especially one of my favorites - apple pie made from fresh picked local apples. We can have apples anytime, but they always seem better this time of year.

And it's also a good time of year for baked buckrum.

Huh? What the hoo-ha is buckrum you ask ? :shock:

Buckrum is a special stiffened material used in garments, drapes, and upholstery. The kind I need was used under auto upholstery when it's placed over the structural wood in antique cars.

Can't buy it this heavy weight, so we make our own by duplicating the original muslin glued to 10 once burlap. Both layers are stretched and tacked onto a wooden frame and then they are coated with carpenter's glue. The muslin and burlap bind together in a flat sheet, plus the glue adds stiffness to hide wood grain, screw holes, nail heads, and edges of the wood framing and panels.

The range is great for drying the large sheets quickly so that we can get several sheets done in a day.

Not everything cooked by a coal stove has to be eatable ! :D

Paul
I love seeing your photos and reading about you using this stove! much inspiration for my own restore.

 
User avatar
Photog200
Member
Posts: 2063
Joined: Tue. Feb. 05, 2013 7:11 pm
Location: Fulton, NY
Baseburners & Antiques: Colonial Clarion cook stove, Kineo #15 base burner & 2 Geneva Oak Andes #517's
Coal Size/Type: Blaschak Chestnut
Other Heating: Electric Baseboard

Post by Photog200 » Mon. Oct. 12, 2015 10:03 pm

The apple pie looks more tasty, but is is always good to see other application being used!

Randy

 
User avatar
Photog200
Member
Posts: 2063
Joined: Tue. Feb. 05, 2013 7:11 pm
Location: Fulton, NY
Baseburners & Antiques: Colonial Clarion cook stove, Kineo #15 base burner & 2 Geneva Oak Andes #517's
Coal Size/Type: Blaschak Chestnut
Other Heating: Electric Baseboard

Post by Photog200 » Tue. Oct. 13, 2015 8:47 am

I helped to organize a birthday party for a friend of the family this past weekend. I got the range fired up with coal and cooked a pork shoulder to make BBQ pulled pork. It was in the oven for 16 hrs and just fell apart beautifully. Was a big hit. This is the kind of cooking that the stove really shines with coal. You can really cook low temps and very long cooking periods. When cooking with wood, the temps get to hot, and you have to feed it every hour. With coal, I put the roast in before going to bed and it cooked all night, no feeding every hour.

Sorry, forgot to take photos, was crazy getting everything together.
Randy


Post Reply

Return to “Hand Fired Coal Stoves & Furnaces Using Anthracite”