Now what do I do with it? (Wood Cook Stove)
 

Well I have lived without an oven for almost 2 years now. I continue to love our non electric life and am very pleased with the way we have made our way through struggles and the things we have learned along this journey so far. One of my dreams was to have my own wood cook stove. I have been cooking on a propane stove that had 4 burners, but you could only use one at a time because flames would shoot out of the front of the stove if you turned on two burners. You also cold not leave the room while cooking. It got us through all these months, but I sure dreamed long and hard about a wood cook stove.

It seemed every chance we got to get one it was either falling apart when we looked at it, cost too much money or they sold it right out from under us to a family member or something. With us making the down payment on the farm a few months ago and struggling to get a regular wood heater hooked up so we would not freeze this winter, I had settled within myself that again, the wood cook stove would have to wait another year as money was too tight and we could not find one we could afford. So I started cooking on top of the wood heater. I missed my biscuits and cornbread terribly and was so looking forward to making an applesauce stack cake this winter. But I accepted the fact it was not meant to be again this year.

We headed out Friday to make the farm payment and ran into the guy that we bought the farm from. We got to talking and he asked me if I would like to have a wood cook stove. I ended up following him to his house, without high hopes because they generally fall through. He had a home comfort wood cook stove on a covered patio he wanted to get rid of. It had set there almost 10 years and his wife would not let him install it in the house. He wanted to sell it for what he had in it, $500.00. I have priced a LOT of them in this area and this seemed like a good price. I checked the stove over, the water reservoir, the grate, the ash box, rust, eyes, oven, everything. Nothing was rusted through. The stove was sturdy and sound, no pieces missing. It needed to be cleaned good, blackened on the top, a few minor things like that, but no major "repair". We made some payment arrangements and he wanted it gone as soon as possible. His wife was thrilled.

Saturday we got our dear friend Don, who is almost 80 years old, to drive us down in the truck to get it. I was not totally stupid, I knew a cast iron stove had to be heavy....I just was not prepared for HOW heavy. It took 6 of us to get the stove on the truck. I was so proud heading home with that stove I can't begin to describe it. We got home and Don, Chris and myself sat and stared at it in the back of the truck. How were we ever going to get it into the kitchen?

With 2x6's, subflooring, ropes, backing the truck up to the back steps, and more muscle power than I dreamed we had in us....we got it into the house. I think I pulled almost every muscle in my body! Can you believe I actually was able to lift one side of the stove by myself for a few brief moments? The whole thing was NOT easy but we did it. (We have pretty much just US to rely on and no one else to help btw)

So there it was, sitting in my kitchen. We got stove pipe and hooked it to the chimney in the kitchen. I cleaned it off as best as I could. I experimented with all the pieces and piddled with this and that. Then I sat down and stared at it I guess for an hour. I finally went to do other things and would venture back into the kitchen and sit down in my old straight back chair and stare at it. Yep....I finally got myself a stove...and I have no clue what to do with it!

Yesterday I got up bright and early and went into the kitchen and stared at the stove. I guess I expected it to do tricks or something, who knows. I pulled out my old Wood Stove Cookery book and read it for the 1045th time. So all those knobs all over the stove actually do have a purpose. They were not just put there to look at. They all control drafts and thing. Problem is, I kind of have no clue which draft which knob controls. As I read more and stared at the stove more, I realized, there is more to this thing than just building a fire and cooking. I started to wonder how many biscuits I would burn before I get it figured out. I have cooked on every form of heat you can pretty much imagine. I have a lot of experience cooking. But I have never cook on a wood cook stove.

So last night, after I had went back into the kitchen to stare at my stove again, I decided to build a fire in it just to see if it smoked horribly from anywhere. For the first time through all of this experience, I was scared about something. I think I knew I should have built a fire in it before I bought it, but stupidity struck and I did not. So I was terrified I had really messed up. I was also worried that I would fill the house with smoke or set the old farm house on fire. I did everything like the book suggested. I removed the two eyes and T and got the kindling laid exactly like it should be. I covered it up and sit and stared some more. Finally I said "well Chris, go ahead and light it". Maybe I was thinking that if things did go wrong I could blame it on his fire starting and not this dream come true stove. The Gods must have been smiling on me for a change however.

At first there was a wee bit of smoke that came from the eye right over the firebox. I adjusted the eye and it stopped. First question: The book I have says you can put cement around the eyes and cover it with ashes from the fire, sit the eye back on and the ashes will prevent the lid from sticking to the cement but the lid with conform to the cement and when dry will then be air tight. Has anyone done this before?

Then I noticed smoke coming from somewhere else. After careful examination, it was coming from the firebox door as it was not latched closed all the way. I fixed that problem and it stopped smoking. We piddled with drafts and such and after awhile I still realized I had no clue what I was doing. We did figure out what some of the drafts do however. It was a miracle! I sat a pot of water over the firebox eye and had not water in no time. I took a nice hot bath right there in the kitchen! I figured out if you turn that big knobby thing in front it opens the grates and dumps your nice fire into the ash pan! (Not a smart thing to do but at least I know what it does now lol). I read that instead of turning a knob like an electric stove to adjust the temperature, you adjust pot location instead. Also that you should always keep water in the reservoir. The pot you put on the stove to humidify the room, you can always add a few eggs to it so you will always have a snack for the hungry farmer to munch on while meals are cooking and if they don't get eat you can make potato salad with them. And if you lay your egg shells on the back to dry, you can crush them and feed them to the chickens for grit, to prevent them from turning into egg eaters. So I did pick up some good advice over the weekend. But this morning, I got up and found myself in the kitchen...staring at my stove again.

So more questions: It is not "rusted" bad anywhere but is discolored on top. Do I sand this down and just blacken it with something? Also do I have to season the top like I do my iron skillets and pots? Can I do this with lard or meat back? And most importantly for those who cook on these wonderful devices, do you have any advice or cool tips you can give to someone that watches her stove like some folks watch a TV? I know it has a better purpose than to provide hours of entertainment by just looking at it. So please share...anything, everything. I need to know what to do with this thing? Is there anything else I need to do before I really start using it to cook full meals in? I am craving hot biscuits so bad with my fresh butter and sorghum or home made persimmon or pawpaw jam. Someone please turn my stove into a stove and not a TV by telling me how to be less intimidated by it!!!


Picture of stove:

The only advice I can give is just use it.Experiment with it.It will take a little time to get used to it. I haven't had a wood cook stove since my girls were little but I sure do miss the Sunday dinners. Food tastes so much better. I would love to have another.

I cannot see on the picture where the Damper is. But see that little place underneath the oven, make sure this is cleaned out, if not it will prevent the heat from going around the oven an heating it properly. You will still have to rotate anything you cook in the oven because the side of the oven will always be the hottest near the fire. You can go at the surface rust on the top with steel wool and a bit of oil. I cleaned mine many years ago just once and now just wipe it down like a regular stove. Ok so open the drafts. Open the door on the left and open the firebox start your fire, sometimes I do start one like you did, but usually I just fill the fire from the top lid when it is going real well because there will not be any smoke coming out because there is enough of a draft to keep the smoke in. Put on bigger wood. As your fire gets going you can shut the door and shut down the draft, that makes more of the heat stay in the stove, instead of it making a direct line for the chimney. I never use my grate shaker as the ash falls thru well anyway.You know better of what kind of wood is aval. to you, but it does make a difference. Pine is good for something fast and hot but for a more even lasting heat oak, ash ect. is better. It takes a bit to heat the stove for baking. I also put a damper in the stove pipe for extra control of the stove. Do not seal the top with ashes or cement, there is no need, and this was never done. Having a correct draft will keep the smoke in the stove. Clean the enamel part of your stove with any rust remover, then after that I use Glass plus, for day to day cleaning. Don't be intimadated, you already can use a wood burner for cooking this is just a step up. Any more questions, feel free to ask.

First off, congratulations on your find! That is great. Next, please post some pics (if you can). Finally, check out www.hearth.com - they have an excellent forum section (like here) and there are many folks there who can help out. You may even find somebody in your area that could come and inspect the stove for you.

Congratulations on getting your dream stove. I though I'd found mine, until I discovered it had asbestos in it, that rust had released into the air chamber around the oven. Wanted to cry when it was loaded on a roll back to be hauled off as hazardous waste.

For your top, clean and oil it a little at a time. It will SMOKE. If you do the whole top at one time, it may run you out of the kitchen until it cures. Crisco shortening is good for this. After you use the steel wool, heat the stove. Use a paper towel to rub some Crisco into the section you cleaned. All you want is a very thin film. Use extra towels to mop off any excess that you have. Just be careful and don't burn yourself with that hot grease!!!!

Use a regular oven thermometer inside the oven to seel if the one on the door is any ways near being accurate. If it is fairly accurate, just watch it as you use the fire for cooking on the top. That'll help you gauge how much wood = x temp in the oven. It'll help you learn how long it takes for your oven to "pre-heat". Take's a while for cast iron to heat. That's not necessarily a disadvantage, since once it's hot, it holds the heat.

Next bake a skillet of cornbread in your oven. That's more forgiving than biscuits. After you bake a couple of those, you'll have a better feel for how hot the fire should be to maintain the heat in your oven.

Next make some biscuits. Don't worry about it if you burn a few. Just scrape off the burnt bottom and butter them anyway. I know they'll still be good!

For other cooking, just keep your recipes simple, at first. Boil some potatoes. Fry some bacon. Keep on making biscuits. Gradually work up to the complex, long cooking ones. You sure don't want to try to roast a turkey until you have hands-on experience with your stove. Bake some sweet potatoes first.

Agree about not putting cement around the eyes. If you have a good draw on your fire, you won't need it. Plus, you may do some cooking directly over the fire, with the eye removed. So, if you can cook with a "hole" that big in the top of your stove, you don't need to seal the tiny gap that may exist around the eyes. BTW, some older cast iron skillets were made to cook directly over the fire.

The hard part is over, IMHO. You have it in place, and it sounds like it's working as it should. Now, have fun with it. You don't have to tell us if you burn a pan of biscuits. (grin) Just keep practicing. I'll bet within a few weeks, you'll look back at this thread, and say "Yep, they were right, it didn't take long to make a good pan of biscuits."

Lee

when I got married in 1971 I walked into my first wood heated home ..we bought..with a Majestic cast iron wood burning cook stove with 6 top inserts, oven, warming oven and hot water supply storage and coils..i was astonished..

we did learn to love it..i always had a water kettle on it..my favorite was to cook right on the top..things like english muffins, pancakes, eggs, etc..on the cast iron..

i would never use anything non edible on the stove top to clean it..yes..do it like a cast iron pan..but remember some will burn off when you light it after that.

pick up an oven thermometer so that you can check the temperatures of the oven when you need to use it..the drafts around the oven will heat it fairly evenly but it isn't like a gas oven.

just watch things better.

you can always keep a pot of soup/stew simmering on the rear of the stove..

the top warmers of the stove were great for things like raising bread and putting hyogurt to cure on.

When we bought the farmhouse, it had a wood fired boiler in the basement and a wood cook stove in the kitchen. It would be a year until we could move into it, so all the pipes were drained.

Right after Christmas, my two BILs and I decided we’d go north 300 miles and spend a few days checking the place out. We figured we could close off the kitchen and sleep in sleeping bags on the kitchen floor. We would only have to heat the kitchen and the cook stove would do that.

Christmas eve and Christmas the area received 24 inches of fresh snow. We arrived late on the 26th. I got a fire going in the wood cook stove and it began to take the chill off. It took a lot of paper and kindling and I realized I didn’t know much about getting a fire started. I filled the tiny firebox and we climbed into our sleeping bags and quickly fell asleep.

About an hour later, the room was very cold and my fire was out. Wads of paper and dry cedar bark helped get a new fire started. The heat radiating off the stove felt good. First lesson: old wood cook stoves do not hold a fire for long. Lesson two: you can add wood every 45 minutes or you can start a new fire every hour, your choice.

But, just as before, the fire only lasted a short time and we awoke to a cold room and no fire. This process was repeated throughout the night. Outside, the clear night sky, millions of bright stars and a huge full moon was a beautiful sight.

The floor never did warm up and we all suffered through the night. We stayed in the sleeping bags and no one made a sound until the sun was up. I could see the big round thermometer on the clothesline post in the yard. It read minus 40! So, the basement below and the bedrooms above were 90 degrees colder than the kitchen. No wonder the floor was cold.

So, my first lesson on operating my wood cook stove was done at night in very harsh conditions. Later, I learned to control the heat, operate the oven effectively, treat the stovetop and clean out the ash from various areas. It became second nature to me.
I’ve been away from the cook stove for a few years and it has taken me more time to get used to an electric range than it did to learn how to use the wood cook stove. It became habit to set the cast iron skillet on the stove, get the fire going and then start peeling the potatoes. I burned up a couple frying pans on the electric stove that way. Plus, I never needed a timer on the wood stove, when the wood burned out, it shut itself off. Lost a couple muffin tins in the electric oven before I got into the habit of setting the timer.

I have no advice, but I just had to say i love it! Thanks for the pic, now Im staring at it,lol. Would love updates on your cooking and baking ventures.
Bev

I am no cook.

But I have cooked on wood cook stoves a couple of times, but neither looked like the one you have, I think you have the deluxe model!

If I didn't know any better I would just use stove polish on the top, I got mine at ACE hardware, I like the liquid better than the paste.

CLR might take the rust stains off the front, soft scrub might work, or Ajax.

I would mask those handles off and spray paint them with black high temp paint.

Just build a fire and cook, you will figure it out, you can't hurt it...

I wouldn't use any coarse powdered cleaner on the enamel. I made that mistake one time with enamel and ruined the finish. It would have been better to have just left the stains where they were. If memory serves I used Comet. (big sigh for that mistake.)

I use stove black on my stove in the shop. It does a good job of keeping it looking nice. Personally, I wouldn't use it on the top of a wood cook stove. It stinks when it's first fired up after use. I don't know what chemicals are in the wax component of stove black, so I wouldn't want to take a chance with them. If the stove top is treated like a cast iron frying pan, I wouldn't hesitate in picking up that pork chop I dropped on the stove and putting it in the frying pan. If I used stove black, that chop would go into the trash can.

I don't know how hot those handles get when cooking. If they get hot, treat them just like the top. If they don't get very hot, or if you prefer, clean them up with steel wool, then use grill paint to paint them. Be sure you mask off everything, from the floor to the whole front & top of the stove before painting. The overspray from cans of spray paint can get everywhere. (Don't ask me how I know that, btw.)

Read the directions on CLR to see if it's safe to use on enamel. If it is, that's what I'd try first. I've been planning to check on that for some old white enamel cookware that's stained. And I have a Hoosier style kitchen cabinet with the enamel pull out shelf. There's some stains that regular washing doesn't remove. Thanks, as this thread has reminded me about CLR is a possibility for those stains.

Lee

Disaster
 

Disaster, but I won’t give up…maybe.

I was so excited yesterday. I got some encouragement from the thread and was anxious to try it out for real. I have always said I will tell the good the bad and the ugly in our homesteading story and this one certainly falls into the bad and ugly category. I got off work half a day and could not wait to get home. I have been boiling water one pot at a time on the propane stove and could not wait to get several going for dishes, laundry, a bath, mopping and even cook supper. I got everything set up, carried in some extra wood for the day. Lit the fire and sat in my favorite chair and stared at the stove…..as smoke started coming from the eyes over the firebox. I thought, OK, it will start going up the chimney in a second. Then it started coming out of the next two eyes, then the final two and then the water reservoir and oven and I was turning this knob and that knob and trying to figure out what draft was what and nothing worked. No smoke was coming out of the chimney, it was all coming into the kitchen.

I panicked and called Chris in Tellico. We were trying to remember which draft was for what purpose. I had to make this phone call from outside, as out cell phones do not work in the house. I ran back in to turn more knobs and the kitchen was filled with smoke. I had done something terribly wrong. I opened the kitchen door and smoke began bellowing out of the stove and out the door. It was so bad actually, that the cats ran into the house and immediately turned and ran back out of the house. I made another phone call and when I went back in the living room and library were filled with smoke. It was horrible and my entertainment of watching the stove like a TV turned into a horror movie. I grabbed a gallon of water and pulled the lids off the firebox and poured the water on the fire. Of course, that led to more smoke, but not only more smoke, something else even more entertaining. It poured out of the ash box into the floor and I had nice ash filled water running all over my kitchen floor, rugs, etc. The smoke stopped coming out of the stove, I opened every door and window in the house and I went outside, sat down on the porch and cried for oh….an hour I suppose. I felt like I was a hopeless homemaker with not even enough skills to heat water for dishes. After my pity party with the dogs on the porch, I had to go pick up the grandkids form school and take them home, pick up Chris in Tellico, make a trip to my daughter’s house as it was her birthday and then got home last night about 7pm. I did not even want to face the reality of what I had done. And yes…I was discouraged….very much so!

Things came out of my mouth like we need to get rid of this thing before I kill us with it, we cannot live like this and I can cook on an open fire, a fire pit, with sterno a candle, you name it and I don’t have enough sense to cook on a modern wood cook stove! (Well yeah it is not like totally modern, but I spent weeks cooking our meals in the fireplace just recently so the stove was modern for me). I was discouraged, no other way around it.

Chris felt like it was an easy problem to solve. I was just about ready to sell the stove and go back to cooking over the fireplace.

This morning I left for work and shortly afterwards I got a phone call from Chris. He studied the knobs and drafts and read a book. He also did something I did not do, something Don told us we needed to do and I thought it was an extra step that was not so much worth the thought. Chris had every draft turned exactly like I did yesterday. He got no smoke in the kitchen other than a time bit from the eye over the firebox. He has managed to heat water and the stove is warm. Amazingly the house is smoke free as well. So yeah, that does not do much for my homesteading self esteem! LOL The one thing he did that I did not do was wad up a newspaper and place it on top of the fire and light it when you light the fire. Now this made no sense to me and I figured it was just one of those things old people did for some superstitious purpose or something. But Chris’ fire worked and mine did not. Don explained it like this…

The chimneys in old houses draw heat through them. IF it is hotter outside than inside, they have a tendency to draw that heat from outside, into the house. That explains why on hot days when the house was cool inside, you could smell the fireplace really heavy. If the house is warmer than the outside, the chimney pulls the heat up and out of the house. The newspaper burns fast and instantly heats the stove pipe and the smoke goes out, therefore it becomes hotter than the outside and it draws all of the smoke out the chimney. Don is going on 80 years old now. I would figure he probably knows what he is talking about in most situations. What I blew off as superstition or something like that, apparently was sound advice. Therefore Chris’ fire worked perfectly and mine did not.

Do I feel like an idiot? Of course I do! LOL Actually, more like a failure I suppose. Now whether or not the newspaper thing is true, I have no clue. I guess time will tell. But for now, the stove is working perfectly, probably ticking along this morning, nice and warm, making coffee for Chris, heating water for dished (and to clean up the horrible mess I made yesterday!), keeping the kitchen nice and warm and Chris is there to enjoy it while I am at work! I am sure this will be one of those laughable experiences in a few weeks, like the gutter that did not work right so I used it as a shower, Like the house that was not squared exact so things did not fit as they should, the mushy dill pickles and the deer hide that was supposed to turn into a warm throw and ended up being insulation for the outhouse. It is not so very laughable today. But tomorrow is another day….or at least Scarlett said so!

Just chalk it up to experience. And, be assured that you're not alone. I won't tell you about the time I forgot to open the damper in the fireplace before I started a fire. I won't tell you about those dark stains on the stones around the fireplace. If you saw them, you'd simply think that's the natural coloring. At least that's what I hope you'd think. BTW, I couldn't hear my own ears when all the smoke detectors went off that day.

And... burning newspaper is true. (Or, starting off with a small amount of kindling.) Heat rises. As it rises it pulls cool air from the room into the fire. That's what starts your draft. When I build a fire in my woodstove in the shop, I open the flu damper wide open. Build the fire and close the front draft until I can hear the intake of air. The air rushing in helps fan the flames which in turn puts more heat into the air that can "rush" up the flu. As the fire becomes estabished, I start closing the damper in the flu to slow down the air flow. Adjust the front draft, as needed. Object at this point is to slow down the fire so that it doesn't burn too quickly and overheat my stove. Only experience in working with it taught me how much adjustment to make and when to make it.

Something else you may want to check is the height of your chimney in relationship to your roof line. If it's too short and the wind is in the right direction you can get a backdraft. If memory serves, the chimney needs to be about 3' above the roof line. (I need to look it up to be sure.) If your chimney is a bit too short, the problems you had yesterday may not have not have all been your fault.

Yes, in time you'll laugh about your adventure yesterday. I know I'm speaking from experience for a lot of things that I've had to teach myself over the years. I'm proud of you for coping with it, yourself. I'm afraid that some folks would have run from it, rather than dealing with it. The results could have been far worse, in terms of soot damage to your home. From what you said, I doubt that the fire itself would have gotten out of control. It probably would have burned itself out. Or, finally established enough draft to pull the smoke up the chimney. If it was a backdraft, or it couldn't establish that draft because of the damper settings, outdoor temp, etc. the soot buildup could have been awful around your house. Personally, I'm glad you did what you felt you needed to do. Even if it did put a mess on the floor. That's far easier to clean up than soot infested drapes, bed linens, and furnishings.

Lee

I'm sorry, but you did OK. That happens to me when I light my woodburner. The wind sometimes causes a downdraft and I have to open a window to eaqulize the air and then the pipe gets hot enough to draft correctly. Don't have that problem on my cookstove.You can get alittle fire extingusher. It's not good to put water on cast when its hot-it might crack. And Never put water on hot grease.I see those 3 Knobs on the top there, they must be dampers? I guess you are going to have to mess with them to figure which one is going to direct the heat arround the oven. While you are sitting there with you stove, you should do more writeing, you are very good. I bet by the end of today you will be a Pro with that stove:-)

For some reason the pic did not show up yesterday when I looked at this thread?

Anyway, I'm sure you'll quickly figure out the stove - also, check out the hearth.com forum I posted before.

Chris called me at work to brag. LOL He has the right so I cannot complain. It is raining today so he was not able to work. So he is home enjoying the stove. He said he had already heated water and did the dishes. He also enjoyed making a good hot pot of coffee and was sitting on the porch with a hot cup of it as we talked. He tested out the oven and figured out which draft goes to that and got the oven nice and hot....further teasing me by asking how you make biscuits because he wanted to try it out lol.

Ah...experience....don't you wish we were born with it sometimes? But then if we were, we would not have much to talk about when we are sitting in our chairs in the evening enjoying the heater, sewing and finding things to laugh about.

I am going to clean the stove up, scrub it down good this evening and try seasoning it with some Crisco or something like that....AFTER I try baking some cornbread. I am hoping to be able to use the stove effectively when his mother comes this week. She already frowns on our lifestyle, I certainly don't want to make her worry even more about me turning her son into a "hillbilly".

I am reading this thread carefully and jotting down notes to take home with me. I plan to utilize a lot of the information you all have shared in this thread. Thank you so very much!

While the very basics are the same for all wood cook stoves, each one has it's own little differences.

Many stoves have a lever near the base of the stove pipe that is marked open/ closed. Open it lets the smoke/heat go dirctly from the firebox to the stovepipe. Closed it forces the smoke/heat to go around the oven. So, you start the fire with it open, but once it is burning, and drawing, well, you can flip it to closed and the oven will start heating up. If you are just frying an egg, don't bother. If you want to heat the room, flip it closed and open the oven door.

CLR will get the rust stains off the white finish. Sold everywhere. Non abrasive.

Just show us the pile of fried potatos, country ham and lightly browned biscuits. Have fun.

It is beautiful! Congratulations. Find an older neighbor who has used one, invite them over to give you lessons. Have fun!

I am really enjoying your blog Forest Breath. DW and I have just purchased an old farmhouse ourselves that needs to be completely redone and its very interesting seeing what you guys are doing.

As for stoves, when I got divorced years ago I ended up living on a fishing boat and decided to clean out the old Dickenson diesel stove before winter set in. It was full of soot that I had scraped out and I proceeded to vacuum it out with a shop vac...only I hooked it up wrong and I blew soot all over in the small cabin. I was really upset and mad at myself but when I got to my girlfriends house to get some rags and clean up she burst out laughing and said I looked like Al Jolson. We have been together for 15 years now and married for 11 and we still laugh about that. I think you will find your stove adventures just something else to look back on and enjoy in hindsight.

Stove
 

Allen McGonigal and i picked the twin of your stove up and set it in the back of my 1949 dodge pickup in 1976..he said it took four good men to get it out of the house..50$... goofy ex never learned to shut the dampers down when not actually cooking..got tired and didn't have the time to split a full rank.. of wood for it EVERY week:grump:...she enjoyed a ROARING fire in it all winter:grump:...would rather feed it than the heating stove:grump:...So i sold it the next spring:clap:..Twenty years later i was completely out of patience with a woman who couldn't walk the walk and moved her out also..;)

I have had a good laugh reading some of the adventures folks have shared in this thread. I too was able to laugh about my experience several times last night.

I got home and felt instant intimidation from the monster sitting in my kitchen. This coming form someone who lived on a creek bank for 8 months in the late 70's and lived on crawdads and frog legs! Someone who spent 5 weeks alone in a wilderness area! I found my feelings of fear to be ridiculous and headed to the kitchen with a plan.

I added some wood to the firebox and decided I would cook some cornbread and if it appeared to be working, I would finish the meal. I placed the iron skillet on the top of the stove to heat up while I mixed the cornbread up and then put it in the oven. A few minutes later I opened the door to see what was happening inside. The cornbread was rising perfectly in the pan. So I trot out to the root cellar in the rain and gather up some October Beans, Apples, Potatoes. In no time I had the beans boiling on top of the stove, potatoes were frying perfectly and the apples were stewing slowly on the other side. I even had a big pot of water heating for the dishes afterwards. Checked the cornbread again and it was doing great.

My grandson was there and I was explaining to him where the stove came from and how it works as he helped open up pickled beets. Chris noticed the firebox door was not shut all the way and proceeded with tools to slam it and pound on it and then it hit me....I have cornbread in the oven. I dreaded opening the door but managed to make myself do it. Sure enough, it had fallen with the beating and banging. Chris apologized and said he wold eat it anyway. I was thinking, you are darn straight you will eat it anyway! LOL

A little while later, my daughter showed up to get Perrin and had no intentions of eating, although I wanted her to real bad. After all it was our first meal with the new stove. She came into the kitchen and saw the bowls I was placing on our little table, hot beans, taters....she decided to eat.

So the four of us crawded around the tiny table and ate our first meal prepared on the new stove! Perrin, who refuses to eat anything but peanut butter spoons, ate a bowl of cornbread. It was delicious, even the fallen cornbread was not bad! I snapped one pic on my cell phone when everything was cooking and forgot to take a picture before we ate, but I did manage to get one of the aftermath! Every bowl was emptied and with hot water ready for the dishes, I was done with the chores in no time and had more time than I expected to relax in my chair and think about how great it was to cook supper! This weekend, I will tackle biscuits, gravy, country ham and fresh eggs!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...1110091631.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...1110091728.jpg

Yay for you!!
I bet it tasted amazing! You'll have such a cozy winter cooking and staying warm.

YEAH! I knew you could do it! That last picture proves it.

Now, you're all set. Your biggest hurdle is behind you. Enjoy your stove.

Lee

Blog, what blog?

I need a link.

Just think how happy that old stove is now that another family is cooking wonderful meals on it again! Beats sitting on the porch for a decade of neglect :)

i'm very proud of you FB..what a great job..

you could also have another draft problem occaionally..when the winds get just right you might get occasional downdrafts..so be prepared for them to happen once and a while even when you do everything right.

yeah..warming up the chimneys is important ..and water in the ashes..not a good idea

one time we had a fire in our chimney in the winter and BIL was throwing snowballs down the chimney to put it out..worked..but did make a mess

http://www.choosingvoluntarysimplici...in-my-kitchen/ Found a link for you. Never heard of the Potato peelings deal.

Good for you! What a blessing to be able to cook and clean up so quickly after doing everything the "pioneer way" for so long. Makes you appreciate it more, doesn't it?:)

How wonderful. I had a wood cook stove for almost 31 years. Unfortunately, it needed a lot of repair work. which I didn't have the money for. So we were able to sell it. But I still miss it. You will have to learn how your stove works as no two stoves work the same. You will learn the best way to start it and how to juggle your pots and pans around the stove to find the best spot for each. The stove looks in pretty good shape and with a coating of stove black it will look great. Our stove was made by Wood and Bishop in Bangor, Maine and dated 1912. Yours looks newer and probably has a long way to go before major problems.

Enjoy!!
RenieB

I had a "smoky" day with mine, too, and had to put the fire out, but someone recommended good old baking soda, so I kept a big box nearby, and just dumped some of that on the fire I wanted to put out. You'll sure like it better than dumping water on the fire! Doesn't seem to hurt a thing, and smothers a fire very quickly.

Dumping water on hot Cast Iron can be catastrophic.

There is no data to back up the belief that burning dried potato peelings or an aluminum can can remove cresote. Please only depend on real methods, dry wood, running it hot regularly and a chimney brush.

Forest, was looking at your pictures, again. Just wanted to say that I like your enamelware and your hammered pot.

BTW, I have two cake plates, just like yours. One was my Mom's.

Lee

first off before I forget. My uncle was a brick layer, the best in southern ohio, in my own opinion of course. haha He told me to save some of my potato peels, let them dry and then put a few in the wood stove once a month. They will pop and that scared me the first time, but they work fine. The reason he told me this was my chimney caught fire one night. Back to the stove. I love it. When I was little, back in the 60's my grandma had a wood cookstove. Hers had a back on it that had a shelf come out above the stove top. She kept the matches and salt and pepper there. I loved her cooking on that thing. No one could make biscuits like hers. When I got married in 1980, I found a stove just like hers. I loved it but not the husband. When I left him, he sold my stove. I knew he was a jerk. LOL I would love another stove like that. Still dreaming and hoping. I also agree with whoever it was that said something positive about your writing. You draw such lovely pictures with your telling of the story. You ought to consider writing stories. I've sold a few to different magazines, and if I could do it... Glad you got your stove.

Sunday I started making the jerky. I got the stove going and it worked just so perfectly. I made pancakes for my grandson and Chris some coffee and cocoa for myself. I heated water for chores and got a pot of stew going. I actually started it on Saturday. Later, Lunch was done in no time and we sat down to a nice hot bowl of deer stew and some quesadillas. I love to lay bread right on the stove to toast, so I will not be putting stove black on the stove at all. I am going to season it with lard or Crisco and just hope for the best. I like toast made right on top of the stove and toasted flatbread as well. I could not do that if I used stove black on it. We finished lunch and I got the jerky on the racks. It dried perfectly. I put some more wood on the stove last night to finish up some of the jerky. It was perfect this morning when I got up and already cooled. Chris still had coffee on the stove that was warm so he had a few cups yesterday evening. I am going to have to really watch myself though, because I realized that hot chocolate is so good and keeping a pot of water on the stove all day makes it very easy to make myself a cup! I BAKED BISCUITS last night! I went out for awhile and when we got home all I had to do was add some pine to the stove and the fire got going again. I opened the oven draft and it started getting hot. I baked a pan of biscuits so I could just heat one on the wood heater this morning for breakfast. Of course I could not resist one last night, well OK..you dragged it out of me….two..I ate two large biscuits before bed with butter and molasses. I was in heaven….certainly in heaven….life was as near to perfect at that moment as I could have ever gotten it to be. Cutie laid beside me and waited patiently for me to be done and hoped I had not got every drop of the butter and molasses from the bowl. I saved her some and she licked it dry. I am pretty good about being able to describe things…but there are no words in any language that can describe the pleasure of a hot biscuit straight from the oven of a wood cook stove, covered in real butter and sorghum molasses! I think my last supper, if I were to have one, would be that with a slice of country ham, some home made gravy and fried potatoes. No matter the time of day or what day it is, everyone’s life would be perfect with less stress if they could eat that meal at least once a day with a glass of fresh, cold, raw, skim milk! Think about your life with no stress, every bill has been paid off, you own everything you need and do not owe a penny on it, your car is running perfectly, the kids are all behaving, nothing needs fixed, nothing needs to be done. That old dusty book you have wanted to read for 17 years and 4 months is in your hand and you have not a care in the world and are sitting beside a cool stream, peace, quiet, no interruptions, comfortable and can just remain there as long as your heart desire and your life, your mind, your body feels perfect. THAT my friends is the feeling you will get eating a fresh, hot biscuit baked in a wood cook stove with fresh butter and sorghum molasses! Try it at least once…. Your heart will smile.



So yeah…I fell in love with the stove. I feel like I want to name her something. We bonded together. We have an understanding now and a certain respect for each other. I will take care of her as she will take care of me. I would give up my man before I would give up my stove…(I think). LOL



This morning I got up and the jerky was done to perfection on the racks, cooled and I placed it in bags. I will put it in jars and label it this evening when I get home. I love my kitchen so much, it is small, the floor slants down towards the chimney area, the sink matches the floor, but the cabinet is level so it is like some weird optical illusion. I have a stick stuck under one of the windows to prop it open just an inch to let some of the heat out (and smoke in case the stove decides to betray me again). The cats sit on a table outside and stare in the window, waiting for me to open up the 100 year old screen door that I refuse to replace, and throw them a scrap of something good to eat. A brown blanket hangs form nails between the kitchen and living room to keep most of the heat in one or the other of the rooms, or may be opened up (unhooked from one of the nails) in case we want both rooms warm. The door going to the east and to the root cellar, has no knob on it and we have a rope stuck through the hole with a knot on each end and pull the rope to open that one door. If you stand in front of the stove it is two steps to the table, three to the cabinet and 3 to the sink, 4 to the pantry. (not that I count them or anything). Yesterday it smelled like oranges, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, allspice because I put it all in a pot I don’t use much and filled it with water to steam on the back of the stove all day. It will be a permanent fixture there and only changed or added to as needed. I love it. The kitchen is my favorite place in the house and now that I have become friends with the stove….I hope to spend a lot of time in there. While I am off for the holiday, I will attempt my first cake! If I am successful, I will make a seven layer applesauce stack cake and put it in my the cake dish on my Mam-maw’s table and sit and stare at it all day, remembering her cakes on that same table and getting all warm, from the memories…and the stove!

I am so overly happy with my stove. Thanks everyone for the encouragement and advice in this thread, it has honestly helped an old woman bond with her stove!

Aww, I'm so glad for you. We had hunters a weekend ago. One man said he hasen't eaten anything so good since his Grandma died 9 years ago. You sure could name your stove, ya gotta feed them and take care of them. Maybe you'll soon get to cook a Turkey and some biscuits.

You are really doing well with that stove and yes, I would give it a name. Your house sounds really cozy. It will be nice and comfy this winter with a pot of stew or soup on the stove.