Where2Buy Metal WoodStove Cook Top?

[meanwhile]

We are building a wood cook stove / brick & stone / similar to the Guatemalian Estufas. Where can I buy a heavy metal cook top? I need three "burners" or holes with lift off lids. Thank you.

[Pelenaka]

First thought that comes to mind is to recycle the top postion of an old cook stove.
I think I unintentionally may have been building a estufas instead of a rocket stove for canning. Either way it hasn't worked out very well.
Can you give me a better link than what I nab from an internet search. Something with a good pic please.

~~ pelenaka ~~

[meanwhile]

Hello Pelenaka! The Estufas was exactly what we were going to build! We found the plans via the Bread Hunter's Blog and then the Masons on a Mission site. I am glad you have pointed out your Estufas is not working well. What is it doing or not doing?

I do have an old Wood Cook Stove from the 1940's and I am thinking it might be easier and more efficient to just use it. I can set it beside the Wood Oven we are building and pipe it into the same chimney?

Do you have photos of your Estufas? I would love to see it.

Here is the Bread Hunter link:
http://www.ibreadhunter.blogspot.com/

Here is the Masons on a Mission site:
http://www.midcoast.com/masonsonamission/

Here is the link to the stove plans we were thinking about building:
http://www.guatemalastoveproject.org/stove-plans/

[Pelenaka]

Good links I am enjoying them.
Funny about building a Guatemalian stove. You see I'm half Puerto Rican. Well really only 1/4 since my Grandfather was actually a Spainard who married a Puerto Rican. Either way I am sure DH who is Scotch - Dutch will say that it was genetic. I'll give him my black Irish gaze then walk away.

What my canning/rocket/estufas stove is not doing is firing up hot enough to boil water. I take that back - it's boiling but on Hawaiian time. I had visions of going from a canner full of garden hose cold water to a rolling boil in 20 minutes(Amish style canner sits on two burners). I thought the whole point of not having a traditonal firebox was no need to build up a bed of coals & heat up the entire stove.

The orginal firebox of this stove was very deep over 12". It is shaped like a bowl, one sits inside the other. The area between is hollow allowing the the water to circulate against the heated firebox or the inside bowl. There are two openings on the back one for cold & one for hot water which would have been plumbed into a home's water pipes leading to the bath tub. The stove itself was referred to as a casttleman's ranch stove since it could be easily broken down for moving. It is also called a laundry stove. Unfortunetly it has crumbling areas that can't be patched enough to allow it for indoor use. I used it for a number of years as is for canning but there was always the issue of it being a wood hog and as I wrote slow. Ideally I would prefer to use campfire quality wood for canning instead of our good wood which we use for heating.

~~ pelenaka ~~
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.c...-i-havent.html

[meanwhile]

Oh wow - your stove is very much like the one we planned. Now, having read your comments, it does seem like I would be better off just using the old traditional American Wood Cook Stove. It is in good shape and has four "burners" on top plus the warming oven and then, of course, the cook oven. An elderly lady neighbor has promised to teach me how to use it if I will hook it back up! She still cooks on her wood cook stove - at least she does as soon as this horrible heat lets up.

I enjoyed your site and thank you for the links you sent to me. Your cook top looked great too. Although it may not heat up enough to boil the canning water fast, I bet you can cook most anything on it.

Thanks!

[Freeholder]

I may be wrong, but I always thought that the only advantage that the estufas had over a regular wood cook stove was the cost. Being mostly built out of local materials, it could be manufactured very inexpensively for regions where most of the population is very poor. Wood cookstoves, especially new ones, are expensive -- *I* certainly couldn't afford a brand new one! But in this country, since demand isn't very high, old wood cook stoves can often be had for a couple hundred dollars (if you have some way to move the heavy things), which makes them a much more practical alternative for us here. Given a choice, I'd take the wood cook stove, because you'll get less smoke in the house, and with the oven, it's more functional. During hot weather, you could always use a solar cooker.

Kathleen

[Pelenaka]

Thanks Meanwhile.
I take it that your cook stove is inside not a patio application like mine. As BJF wrote for us here in this country who has access & means for a proper wood cook stove then building an estufas might not be the way to go. I could however see it used if you were building from scratch or installing a perment outdoor kitchen. MEN had a very nice set up in their April/May edition.
If my next attempt at creating a rocket stove with laundry stove parts fails I may just turn the base (legs) into a ottoman, and sell or scrap the rest. Pity that can't be repaired. It would be a great cabin stove.

~~ pelenaka ~~
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/

[meanwhile]

Good morning -- Yes, we are building a permanent outdoor kitchen. (it is the next project after fixing this aggravating house roof!) We already built five different types of Dry Stack Outdoor Wood Fired ovens and / or cook tops but are ready now to do a full-scale "real" oven and the cook top.

I do already had an American made old wood Cook Stove (it was in one of our Cabins when we bought it and we have never used it) and so I will just use it and skip the estufas. I forget the brand but I think it came from Montgomery Wards. There is a metal tag on it with the brand and model. I can pipe it out the same chimney as the Oven.

We have not built a rocket stove yet. It sounds great too. Thank you. Have a good week.