Cookin' With Coal

windyhill4.2 wrote:

scalabro wrote:Man, I'm hungry now

Me too & it looks like he only did enough for 1 person & i'm also closer to him than you are.

Ok, ok .......................................... I'll throw some more on the ol' Harman for everyone!

(Marinated with some olive oil and Weber's N'Orleans Cajun seasoning - and it was very, very tasty! )

I always wondered how food would taste cooked over coal.

Randy

Way back in these threads, indoor grilling was discussed.

My first attempt at grilling was by placing the food in through the grilling door, over the fire. That method flavored the hotdogs. Not objectionable, but it was a noticeable difference. And it put the food very close to the fire. The dogs were starting to burn before the insides were fully warmed up.

My second attempt was copied from a link I posted to a site about cooking on a wood burning range. I cooked the hotdogs using a wire mesh grill over one of the open round cover holes above the firebox. With a fry pan cover over the grill and food so that the pan helps close off the hole and not kill the fire with too much over fire air. They turned out fine. And not being so close to the coals, they cooked more evenly.

Unlike outdoor grilling, any grill opening on top of a coal stove should act like a secondary damper. The air is being drawn keeping the coal smoke away from the food. So the food isn't being flavored by the coal smoke - just getting cooked by the radiant heat.

Paul

I remember that thread because I have used a wok cover to do the same thing...only on a wood fire. I cooked chicken that way and was mighty tasty but what a splatter mess to clean up afterwards. At least the cover kept it somewhat contained to a smaller area.

Randy

I was lucky that the fry pan I had for this use was just big enough to cover the screen. Not much stove top left exposed to get spattered. And the pan handle sticking off the side of the stove like you see in the picture didn't get hot.

Another plus was that all the grease just dropped into the firebed. No greasy, pan fried hotdogs, and no smoking up the house of having to run an exhaust fan to keep from setting off the smoke alarms.

Paul

This morning I started up the range with stove coal. It is my job to cook the turkey and make homemade sausage bread. The oven is going to be busy today!

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving! What am I thankful for? Ample food to eat and good friends like here on this forum. We may not always agree with one another but we all share a common thread...we love cooking and heating with coal. Stay warm and enjoy time with your families.

Randy

For anyone wondering why cook stoves and ranges are not prone to puff backs, nor do they need secondary air when burning coal, here's visual proof of why.

Since I've learned to better control the range at low settings during the shoulder months, I don't burn wood in the range. So since I don't burn wood I don't need the secondary dampers. In which case, I've thought it would be interesting to have mica windows in them for viewing the firebed.

I had some mica on hand so I measured and cut two pieces and slid them in between the broiler door and the spring-tensioned sliding damper of the secondary air. With the damper open that leaves just the mica covering the rectangular openings.

After a load up and ash shake the blue ladies were dancing wildly. By putting the range in night mode with the primary air only a sliver and the MPD closed fully, the flames got very relaxed.

The reason the Blue Ladies dance so well without any secondary damper opening is the many small gaps created by the cook top's ten removable plates and the slight gap around the broiler door edge. All those tiny gaps feed air in over the fire, starting at the broiler door, before the firebed, and continuing across the full length of the cook top surface that the hot gases are passing under on their way to the oven flue.

With a fresh load of coal going, sometimes blue flames can be seen all the way on the right side of the cook top when the round cover farthest to the right is tipped up. That's 18 inches from the firebed.

The pictures below are a bit blurry, but you can still see in the pix that the firebed is all blue flame from coal bed to the undersides of the top plates. In the first picture you can see the glow through the five primary slide damper openings below and through the four secondary damper openings above them. The second picture is up close to one of the secondary damper openings.

This morning, after 11 hours, there is still small blue flames slowly gyrating on top of the firebed.

These pictures show why a little 20 pound firebox can throw off so much heat. The range has more surface area than a base heater, combined with a constant supply of secondary air along the flame path that can automatically feed in small amounts of secondary air to burn off all the CO.

Paul

Very cool experiment! It proves what we thought was true all along.

Randy

Sunny Boy,now you have really ramped up my desire for a coal range with those pics. That is really neat the way you installed the mica in the secondary openings.I need a second chimney or to move the entire kitchen to where the chimney is. You stated that you no longer burn wood because you have learned better control of the stove,but do you still burn as long a season in the range as you did when you burned wood early & late ?

Dave, actually, we use the range even longer in the season now.

For a number of reasons, I gave up on the wood, but mostly because of the added work of having to cut locally available face cord "stove wood" to range wood lengths. Like with you, my old joints aren't up to all that. But that's only part of why we weren't using the range as early in the fall, or as late into spring. The other reasons have to do with knowing what it's doing and how to better control the range

1. Getting the new grates installed allows me to consistently clear ash on a daily basis. That gave the range more consistent firebed control which is where it all starts.

2. Having the mano plumbed in has been a major help. It allows me to better see how finely I can adjust and how slowly I can damper the range down.

Using the mano in combination with the temp gauges I have shows me better what affect different combinations of the six dampers does to draft and the heat output of different areas of the range. Before that, I was not using all the dampers and the ones I did use I was not using as well to control the range. Plus, before the mano, I never knew the safe upper limits of operating draft strength. Even with the outdoor temps up to 80 degrees.

3. Knowing accurately what the draft is doing, and better able to clear ash when needed, I've been able to learn what affect using different size coal has on operating temps.

4. The digital BBQ oven temp gauge that Lee (Lightening) lead me to has made using the oven much easier.

5. Insulating the rear heat shield has made the oven operable over a greater range of temps. In addition to less wasting of heat by heating the outside kitchen wall behind the range in clod weather, and less overheating the kitchen when using the oven in hot weather.

Gaining that knowledge of what the range is capable of, and now being better able to know and control what it is is doing, adds up to making it much easier for us to use the range over a much wider out door temp range.

And as you know, the easier something is to use, the more likely you are to use it.

Paul

Paul, Thanks for all that info,very interesting stuff.Very interesting coal burner & you have now taken that coal burner to the next level with the fire view windows. Very nice.

windyhill4.2 wrote:Paul, Thanks for all that info,very interesting stuff.Very interesting coal burner & you have now taken that coal burner to the next level with the fire view windows. Very nice.

Thanks Dave.

I've noticed one other benefit. The mica windows have made it easier because now I only need to glance in to see how the fire is doing - if it needs more coal, or shaking, etc.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:

windyhill4.2 wrote:Paul, Thanks for all that info,very interesting stuff.Very interesting coal burner & you have now taken that coal burner to the next level with the fire view windows. Very nice.

Thanks Dave.

I've noticed one other benefit. The mica windows have made it easier because now I only need to glance in to see how the fire is doing - if it needs more coal, or shaking, etc.

Paul

Do you have any issue with soot film on the mica when burning low temp fire ? My Crane will build a film on the glass when running a low temp fire... 150*-250* stove top

Dave,
Not so far. It's only been a little over 24 hours since I put the mica in.

Plus, the broiler door is a couple of inches off to the side of the firebed in sort of a "compartment", so that there's little, or no, exhaust flow near the mica. I think that if anything builds up on the mica it will be a dusting of fly ash. That's all that accumulates on the broiler door.

Paul

Paul, thanks for that info.We have left the fire die for the second time this season,so no "humidifier",no hot water pot,no WARM room,no bone warming radiant heat for now & of course no cookin with coal. We are still heating with coal via the EFM,but we really miss our WARM spot. SOMEDAY,we want to get a coal range & do like you,running it for many months of the yr.cookin & heating & of course that WARM spot.