Solid fuel stoves that you can cook on - suggestions?

[bumblebee]

Hi people,
I have just bought a lovely wooden boat, a 20 footer, and am planning to live aboard. The current cooking set up is a dodgy camping gas cooker, which obviously has to go - I'm not crazy keen on gas, have lived aboard before in the past and I hated the worrying.

Anyway, after a lot of thought and trawling about the forums here, I've decided to go for a solid fuel/woodburning stove. I want to be able to cook on it as well at using it for heat. The only stoves I've seen that I really like are those made by Navigator Stove Works across the pond. I really like them, but it would be a bit of an outlay and I was wondering if you sensible people had any better suggestions closer to home? No oven is okay, one hotplate is also okay. I know the boat will get hot in the summer while cooking, but I'm okay with that... I think! /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[fluffc]

Hi Bumblebee, and welcome to the forum /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Solid fuel stoves are okay for cooking on but you do need to change your menu. 'Quick' meals aren't possible - stews are more the vogue. I do boil a kettle on mine, but remove the plate in the top where the logs go in so that the flames touch the kettle: boils a lot quicker, but still takes 15/20 minutes or so.

Depending on your location, you may not be prepared to put up with the heat in the summer to cook. In reality the stove is okay for cooking on in the winter, when you would have it on anyway but lighting up just to cook will lose it's charm after a week or so.

The stove there looks quite qute - If using for cooking, make sure that your pots and pans will fit : higher narrower ones are better than the normal fat low ones.

 

[Anonymous]

On a 20 footer you are going to be pinched for space to keep the fuel which takes up more room than the equivalent gas or meths. If you don't need and oven, and don't like gas, then lots of people here swear by the Orego stoves. Personally, I like gas.

 

[wavelet]

You will not like the heat in the summer, especially to actually cook things, I would not consider it. I run a woodburning stove and boil rice or bake bread on top but it needs a good old roaring fire and I save bits of really dry softwood planks to do cooking with. It is a French barbecue, with a pot belly on four legs, then a flaring top section over which I made a circular hinged top with a hole for the chimney.
I always liked the look of the Navigator stove works ones but they are extremely small and you would forever be sawing. The photographs on their website are really appealling, especially the old bearded man hugging his Sardine Stove, but notice the coffee mug on top of the stove is nearly as big as the top of the stove itself! Mine only weighs about twenty kilos and many commercial stoves are three times this.
One main point is a wood stove, or coal, is a heart of the boat and brings a far greater pleasure than mere heat, a fire brings a deeply penetrating satisfaction at being independently comfortable away from bl***y marinas!The pleasure increases when you cook bread and realise you did not buy it from bl***y Tescos. Any how I digress. A stove I like very much the look of is the Boatman but it is heavy, but you need a big interior to enjoy bits of log and see the flames with an opening door preferably with a glass front. I've got mine going right now as it is a gloomy grey May day and it just feels great to be cheered by the crackling rumble of real flames.
If I think of any particular models I'll post ideas here, but I have put several stoves into boats, a Torgem was too big for a twenty footer and weighed about sixty kilos; a Nelson was designed exclusively for charcoal and never really worked well as the flue was too narrow and would choke itself right out; an antique French cooking stove was good and light; I made one stove from a steel pot I found drifting past in the harbour, cut a post box hole for loading it and bolted it straight onto the chimney, worked OK but it was much too tiny at about the size of a two litre beer bottle; now the barbecue adapted with a top is working really good and is a nice roundy friendly shape. I have seen them for sale in France in smaller sizes, just like little cooking pots in thin cast iron and cheap about twelve euros, mine was twenty seven euros with about ten euros for the lid to be cut out of steel and hinges welded on to open the lid half way across with the aft part where the flue comes out. I hold it down on an aluminium lined plinth with stainless steel welding wire through small holes tying it t the floor by passing around the legs.
Stoves are a bit of a subject with me, I really like 'em. If you are on the East coast of the UK let me know and you can have a butchers at my pot belly barbecue stove.

 

[l'escargot]

[ QUOTE ]
....I know the boat will get hot in the summer while cooking, but I'm okay with that... I think! /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
You may find the boat also gets too hot in the winter as well. Even a small stove is quite capable of belting out a couple of Kw which is a lot of heat in a 20 ft boat.

 

[bumblebee]

Thanks for the replies! I looked seriously at Origo stoves before plumping for a solid fuel, as the whole meths smell thing put me off eventually.
The navigator stoves are tiny, but I figured they would suit the boat and the amount of room available. They also do a 'drop in' meths burner for the summer months but then you are back to the whole smell thing - and with even more cost.
Excuse me while I scream quietly... Heh.

 

[jeanne]

I have been shipmates with an alcohol stove, a paraffin stove, a gas stove, and wood burning stove, used solely for heating. I don´t remember the meths one smelling, and it was very efficient - but meths is not cheap. Next came paraffin, for quite a long period as we didn´t like the thought of gas on the boat. In UK that was OK, but clean fuel is getting very difficult to find elsewhere. And beware dirty stuff, or any with water in it. Distastrous for the burners. And in my opinion paraffin requires the most, and filthiest maintenance. Plus, the possibility of a flare up is not unusual whatever the purists say. After over 25 years, we succumbed to gas. What a relief!! Clean, very hot, and instant.

As for the wood/solid fuel burner (especially in a 20fter) - forget it. The amount of fuel required would take ALL your stowage....we do put a kettle on ours, it never boils, but is OK for coffee. Frying an egg would take forever! Most of the heat comes from the body of the stove - yet another danger as you move around a small space. And although it heated our 33fter well, we still had to open the hatches at times as we started to swelter.....And at times, when lighting it on a windy day, it smoked us out.

Go for gas - but take care with the installation.

 

[Anonymous]

I love the smell of meths...takes me back to the days of Mamod steam engines, silver service restaurants with meths flambé burners,... but each to his own. Pure ethanol is almost odour-free. I wonder if one can buy ethanol. At the present price of meths you might as well have pure C2H5OH and drown your sorrows if the food is no good /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Gordonmc]

If you are determined not to use gas or spirit for cooking consider a Cobb barbecue and use it in the cockpit.
A handful of charcoal briquettes or Oz Heat Beads will give four hours cooking time... with the right timing you can roast, steam, smoke and, with a wok, fry. When the cooking's done put on a kettle for a cuppa and washing up water.
I have a charcoal cabin heater which uses the same fuel (plus some peat) and am currently fitting a spirit oven/hob. I suspect I will still use the Cobb for most cooking, especially the brekky sausages.

 

[tobble]

The minimum baot article in PBO suggested getting meths from France - doesn't have the purple dye which causes the smell when burnt.

I live aboard with a Taylor's paraffin stove, bloody marvelous, and a Taylor's heater. expensive, but pretty good. Ideally I'd have the taylor's stove and a small wood burner for heat, but space and cabin layout precluded that option. one big avantage of my heater I've recently discovered is that it can be taken down and stowed in a locker/garage when not needed.

barbeques are great when it's warm and dry, wouldn't really fancy cooking outside in a January snow storm!

 

[Searush]

Get a decent sized boat & you could use a chiminea - need to bolt it down tho'. If the boat is big enough you could always cut spare bits off it for the cooking.
/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[bumblebee]

Thanks people! Due to the fact that I'll be alongside in a yard with electricity from the shore available, I'm now considering a smaller woodburner perhaps one not specifically designed for cooking on (but that could perhaps be used to heat stuff at a pinch) and a 2 ring electric cooker. Does this sound more feasible?

 

[tobble]

depends what they charge for electric, and if you'd be botherd by not being able to cook if you go sailing... could be a reasonable interim solution though. another option no one has mentioned yet is diesel heating, but this is not an option I have really investigated myself. I like the idea of having one fule for heating, cooking and motor, although I guess you may have an outboard...

 

[richardandtracy]

Before I had to sell up, I had one of these http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/produc...-2/brand/clarke.
I rigged it up to have a balanced flue and welded the whole thing together to reduce the chance of fumes & water getting into the cabin. At a pinch it could be used for cooking, but it wasn't too good. Tended to burn thick stews and took ages for the veg. Only suitable for single pan.
The stove was, I think, cast steel not cast iron from the way the thing heated up all over (even to the bottom of the feet) and how easy it was to weld. Be careful to have an insulator between the feet and whatever stove you get unless your boat is steel.
Had a 36 footer, and it felt like the stove took up a fair bit of room.

It was great, though, being able to burn all our rubbish to heat the boat. I also rigged up a little polythene melter & glass cloth wick so that molten plastic could be used as a fuel without excessive soot.

Regards

Richard.

 

[Sans Bateau]

Have'nt read the whole thread, so if it already been suggestd, what about an AGA?

 

[Black Sheep]

Don't forget a carbon monoxide alarm!

I too am tempted by the thought of a solid fuel stove & the romantic thought of fuelling it from driftwood... but given some of the stories on here & elsewhere wouldn't consider it without a CO alarm.

 

[diarmo]

sardibe- porcelain enamale or NOT

Learning lots reading this forum. thanks to all.

I am thinking of buying a sardine stove ( just for heating - 30ft sy) .
My question is:

what are the advantages of spending extra money on a porcelain enamel version, also if somebody could explain what this actually is?

thanks
Diamro