Rocket Stove: Renewable Cooking
 

Want to be more eco-friendly at home?

How about replacing an LP grill with a homebuilt stove that runs on sticks or woodchips!?

I am building a rocketstove. You can read all about it on EcoRenovator but here is a photo to tease you with!

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12797674340001

The stove in the photo is one built by a friend which I am modeling mine after.

You will bee amazed about how effective it is.

Last year I build a Rocket furnace to heat my basement in winter. Cost next to nothing, use only little amount of wood, and turn out at lot of heat. Very effective!

My father-in-law built one in his house the fire is in the breeze way and runs through the wall to a second chamber for a secondary burn. After that the heat is pushed through a mud/adobe couch to hold the heat and warm the house.

Here is the link to his rocket couch Rocket Stove | Northern Kentucky Landscaping from The Good Earth, Inc.

More work on the rocket stove.
I assembled and welded the main components.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12801044700001

See more photos at:
MobileMe Gallery

You know what's fun?! Cooking dinner without petroleum!
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12801044840001
MobileMe Gallery

Read more over at EcoRenovator

I need to learn how to weld and start doing some projects like this.

Yep, me too.
Seems like welding is one of those things that mostly just takes some practice. This project is pretty straight forward, so I thought it would be good for some welding experience. The welding isn't perfect, but I did it all myself! :thumbup:

Yeah, thats mostly what it comes down to, practice practice practice.

What type of weld did you do on the rocket stove?

The base, feeder tube, chimney tube, and upper tub/grill are all separate pieces.

The first day I worked on the stove, I cut all the pieces to size and to fit each other. Here's what I had at the end of work day one (a couple hours of an afternoon)
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12797674620001

The second work session, I did all the welding to put those pieces together.
The welder itself was a wire-feed welder (without gas).

Wow, that's kinda cool. I'm going to have to look around and copy you. I have a propane grill which I regularly use in summer, about 2 tanks a summer since we cook out so much.

And those are pretty good weld for gas-less flux core on your first time too!

Today, I stopped over at Greg's house again.

I didn't get too much done. I wasn't there long, but I did do up the grill tabs.

I cut some angle iron into three 1" pieces to put around the top edge of the grill. I arranged the tabs, clamped them in place, and Greg hit them with his arc welder.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12801819590001

These three tabs will hold a round grill, just below the top edge of the stove. That way, there's something to keep my sausages from rolling right off the grill!

Also, I'm getting a little jealous of Greg's fancy oak sideboard, so I dug up some materials at home that might make a nice little tabletop mounted to the stove.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12801819530001
(For scale, the aluminum square on the left is roughly 9", the wood table on the right is about 4' long.)

From left to right:

1) Aluminum plates with deck tread pattern - good for the industrial look. Thick enough to be pretty sturdy.

2) Stone (bee-zon stone?) A hunk of stone from the outside of a building that I got from a mason friend. I have more bigger pieces of it, and he says it's easy to cut. About an inch thick. Heavy.

3) Slate. Two natural edges, two cut edges. I really like the color. That might go great with the rusty steel look of the stove. Pretty big piece too. Not sure of the best way to cut it.

4) Hunk of wood board room table. Originally part of my "Pirate Bar", which no longer exists because my current home doesn't have a basement. I don't remember what species of wood it is, but it's a great color. Potentially, I could actually cut a hole the size of rocket stove right in the middle of this table top, and have the whole thing surround the stove.

The other thing I was considering is to use the threaded ports on the side of the stove to mount a table top. I would run a short section of pipe out to an elbow to a vertical section of pipe, to a pipe flange, which would hold the countertop material.

I don't have the pipe, nor could I hold the chunk of aluminum and the camera properly at the same time, so you will have to use your imagination while looking at this photograph.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12801819560001
Just imagine pipe coming out of that left port, then turning up to support the aluminum, which would of course be over more to the left, rather than actually sitting on top of the stove!

If I used the big wood counter top, I most likely would weld some mounting tabs right on the stove and mount it to multiple points on there.

Earlier today, I asked the guys about the best way to remove the paint that's on the upper portion of the rocket stove.

The general consensus was just to run a hot fire to start to burn or bubble it, then scrape and sand the rest later.

I ran a fire in the stove tonight, with the lid on, spaced out by some angle iron to let the air through.

Think this is too hot?

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12801959910001

That is all from natural convection - no bellows, no fans, no blowing air in.
This thing is about half a step from being a forge!

I can see why they are often made from concrete! :thumbup:

Haha, nice!

FYI, in case anyone is intimidated by the above construction, you don't really need such a production to enjoy a rocket stove. I made a table top sized one from sheet metal, I spotwelded it but it can be made w/screws or careful folding of tabs, or a reused can of substantial size like below. It is also great camping, has a little grill on top, can boil 1 liter of water with 180 grams of sticks, and makes for very consistent results.

at home it sits on a couple bricks on a metal porch table for cooking chunks of what-have-you, or just a quick fire fix.

this isn't mine but its about the same size, I don't have the extension, just a grill a couple inches above the inner can outlet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0rywiPHZEw

Absolutely! Some rocket stoves are quite small. They can be made from sheet metal, cement, brick, and other materials. Apparently, the best-selling one in the world is about 9" tall and made of sheet metal and firebrick.

Mine is going to be a replacement for a traditional American LP gas grill, so I wanted it at standing height. A friend of mine already made one real similar, so it was easy to copy the design.

In the above video, it's worth skipping to about 4:21 to see the duct-work extension put on that stove. It's pretty cool.

yes sir, that looks like a solid piece of work you have there, it could easily replace a gas/charcoal grill and be a lot of fun for many years :)

I stopped over at the hardware store and picked up two pieces of pipe, an elbow, and a flange.

Then I returned them, and got the RIGHT size!

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12802800940001

Since the stove has two ports in the sides, I unscrewed the one and then screwed in the pipe, elbow, other pipe, and flange. That "sidearm" will be the support for the side table.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12802801210001

But what to use for the tabletop?!

In the style of American Idol and America's Got Talent, YOU get to VOTE on my tabletop!

Here goes!

Aluminum tread plate.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12802801420001

Steel tread plate.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12802801640001

Beezon Stone. (I have bigger pieces, use this one for an idea of the color and texture.)
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12802801810001

Slate.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12802802010001

Wood countertop. (imagine a hole in it for the stove to go through.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12802802490001

Well, what do you think?
Besides the table on the left, I think I will also add a smaller table on the right - at least something big enough to hold a beer! :thumbup:

What do you plan on using the table for? Just holding stuff?

Most gas grills have a little table space on at least one side. I usually use that to hold a plate that I carry food to and from the grill on.

It's nice to have a place to set the plate down on while loading and removing food from the grill.

It might also be cool to do a wok top for the stove. In that case, I may even want to be able to have a cutting board right at the stove.

Also, I need some place to set down the tongs, grill fork, and other outdoor utensils. Those might be nice to have hang somewhere.

I like the slate with the curve, you could also just have another pipe stick out the other side and use that to hang your tongs ect. just not sure how hot that would get. I wonder if you painted the chimney with ceramic paint for exhaust manifolds if it could hold up to the temp and help hold in some of that glowing heat.

I think I might try making a coffee can version after vacation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-BQMpaW-E0

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

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.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811874690001

With the bolts through the wood, I could mark where the holes in the metal lid would go. Then I drilled the two holes.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811872190001

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811872480001

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811872530001

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811872570001

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.)

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811872790001

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811873060001

Here's the stove with the new "Natural-Edge" stone just set on there.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811872840001

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.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811873270001

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12811873380001

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!

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.)

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813117550001

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.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813117240001

To make a small table for the right-hand side, I welded a section of 1" pipe to some scrap steel tread plate.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813116400001

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813117930001
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813118590001

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.)
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813120790001

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813121000001

So, here's how the more-or-less finished grill looks.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813121420001

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.
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813123020001

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12813120490001

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

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!

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12815633410001
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!
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12815633100001

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

Its looking good Ben!

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

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.

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

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! :thumbup:

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.

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.