Rocket Stove: Renewable Cooking

[dcb]

They are a lot of fun, you will never look at a pile of sticks quite the same way

[bennelson]

Last week I did some more work on the stove.

The main thing was making the cut-off tank top into a real lid.

To start with, I dug through my firewood pile to find a stick of oak that was about the right size for a handle. I purchased two carriage bolts that would be long enough to go through the handle, past the thickness of my hand, leave room for the port thing in the top of the lid, and through the metal with enough length for a nut on the other side.



With the bolts through the wood, I could mark where the holes in the metal lid would go. Then I drilled the two holes.


For spacers, I needed some sort of hollow tube to go around the bolts, between the lid and the handle, and it needed to be heat-proof. I found some scrap soft copper tube, which already had the proper patina for the project, and cut two pieces to length.


The copper tubes go over the bolts, with a washer at the top. Then the bolts go through the lid, with a nut and lock washer on the bottom.


I test-fit the whole thing, then dissassembled, cut the wood handle to a shorter length, rounded off the edges with a router and sandpaper, and then did final assembly. Later, I also rubbed down the oak with mineral oil for basic sealing and color.


For the side-table material, I really liked the blue-green slate best. The only trouble was that two edges were natural, and two were square-cut. Since I liked the natural shape, it made sense to just make the cut sides more natural.

I tried a hammer, chisels, a different hammer, etc. to see what tool worked best to shape the edge. In the end, smacking the heck out of it with a ball-pien hammer, then using the SIDE of a chisel to rub back and forth, seemed to work best. I ended up with a natural edge with no rough spots. A little sandpaper worked to finish it off.

(Wearing safety glasses and work gloves is a no-brainer here. In the one photo, I only had my gloves off to work my camera.)





Here's the stove with the new "Natural-Edge" stone just set on there.


I still need to make some angle-iron welded to the pipe flange for a permanent mount.

I also welded tabs on the lid that line up with the tabs inside the grill. That way, there is about an inch gap all the way around to let the smoke out. If I rotate the lid, the tabs don't line up, and the lid closes all the way.



I also stopped over at the tool store with a coupon and got one of those remote-read-laser-spotting digital thermometers at a good discount.
It was fun to point the laser at different spots and see the differences in temperature.


I still need to mount to slate table-top. I also plan to make a utensil/beer holder on the right side, and need to get a real grate. Although the smaller size Webber replacement grill would fit in there, it would be just a little small. I would rather make something custom myself.

In the department of "Tales of Safety", I realized exactly how dangerous angle-grinders can be. While I always wear safety glasses and work gloves, and keep my face out of the path of rotation of the disc, accidents do happen. I was using a BIG HEAVY grindstone - one of those really thick ones - weighs a couple of pounds. Somehow, it shattered. A big hunk hit my leg at 4500 RPM! Yeow! I now have a softball-size bruise in the middle of my right thigh, and it's every color of the rainbow!

Be safe when working on projects people! Protective gear is important!

[bennelson]

I did some more work on the stove today!

The big fun news is that I was searching Craigslist and found a good used welder. I got a Lincoln wire-feed MIG, complete with the gas setup. I am a total novice when it comes to welding, but I figured it would be best to get something at least a little better than the "entry-level" model.

With the welder, I could now do some metal-working for the side tables.
For the slate counter on the left, I wanted some sort of metal under-support, as the stone itself is somewhat brittle, and wouldn't be able to take a lot of weight.

I welded the pipe flange to a hunk of scrap steel. (For those of you familiar with my Electro-Metro project, this is the same metal that we made the front grill area battery tray with.)



No, not the greatest welding.... Yes, I will practice more..

I laid down some JB-Weld between the metal support and the slate top, and clamped them together. I have no idea if it will weld or not, but I think all the holes in the metal support will give a little more gripping surface area.



To make a small table for the right-hand side, I welded a section of 1" pipe to some scrap steel tread plate.


One suggestion for making the tables removable was to use sections of pipe that would slide over the top of the upright pipes. The size coming out of the tank is 1&1/4". The next size up, 1.5" isn't quite big enough to slide over. 2" is too big - it has too much slop to it. Plus, 2" pipe starts getting more expensive for elbows and flanges. However, 1" pipe slides nicely INSIDE the 1.25" pipe, and it's cheaper to boot!

The 1" pipe is welded to the steel, and slides INSIDE the 1.25" vertical pipe.



Here's what the slate table on the left looks like from below. (Note that the wedges are a temporary support while the adhesive cures. The steel support is NOT perfectly flat, and the wedges kept it from shifting while I set everything up.)


Here's the right-hand table from below. I drilled a hole through both pipes to insert a bolt to prevent the table from spinning.


So, here's how the more-or-less finished grill looks.


The only thing I can say now is that the BASE LOOKS TINY compared to the rest of the project. I might have to change that.

Also, the base had a hole in it from when it was a farm implement. I used the new welder to weld it shut with the piece I cut off from the side table.

[bennelson]

I'm still not done with the stove yet, but that's no reason not to cook!

It's hot, so cooking outside makes more sense than cooking in the kitchen and having to turn on the air-conditioning to fight it!

Tonight, it's going to be sweet corn and stuffed chicken breast!
I tossed the stock pot down into the stove to boil water with some old scrap wood bits.

I just ate some of the corn. It is SOOOO good! I think that fact that it was cooked without petroleum makes it taste that much better!


You can also see that I added a magnet to the right-hand table. That holds my tongs (which are metal with a wood handle.)

Sooooo gooooood!


OK, time to get back outside and cook the chicken...

[Daox]

Its looking good Ben!

How much wood would you say it takes to cook a meal for you and the wife?

[bennelson]

I really haven't measured that yet.

As it is, I have about a cord of tiny little pieces of wood, so I'm not too concerned about efficiency.

Maybe what I could do sometime is start with a set amount of wood (more than what I know I will need) and photograph and/or weigh it before and after.

[Phantom]

Instead of boiling the corn pull back the husk leaving it attached remove the silk recover with the husk and toss on the grill.

[bennelson]

Grilled corn works great too!
Since I am still experimenting with the rocket stove, I am trying as many cooking techniques as I can.

I hadn't boiled anything yet, and that's how we usually cook corn in the kitchen, so I thought I would give it a shot!

I also grilled stuffed chicken breasts tonight, so grilling was covered for the evening as well.

The only issue is that the rocket stove seems to do a really good job of cooking at high temperatures and fast, but that's really not what you want for extra-thick pieces of poultry.

The stove "pulses" very well, but I haven't figured out the "glide" part yet.

The best I could come up with was to put a piece of flat steel plate across the bottom of the grill as a "heat spreader" so that the stove was now INDIRECTLY heating the chicken.

I then put the lid back on the stove and also tried using an upside-down cast-iron frying pan as a tighter lid over the chicken.

Whether the rocket stove lid is on or not seems to make a pretty big difference.

[pletby]

Awesome project Ben! I always get a kick out of your self photos! I'm working on a small tin can version to get a handle on the basics.