What Are the Parts of a Cooking Wood Stove?
The wood cooking stove was the kitchen centerpiece that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers may have used before the days of common home electrical service. In modern times, these cooking stoves are seeing a resurgence in popularity as more people are trying to get back to basics and reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. Does this Spark an idea?
Chimney
The chimney is the duct that allows smoke to escape from the wood cooking stove. Smoke is made up of steam and unburned carbon referred to as creosote. When the smoke travels up the chimney, it cools and condenses. This condensed creosote will be deposited on the walls of the chimney and must be periodically cleaned out.
Firebox
The firebox in a wood cooking stove is a compartment that holds the fuel for burning. The size and intensity of the fire in the firebox depends on how much wood is used, what type of wood is used, the physical arrangement of the wood pieces in the firebox and how much air the fire gets.
Oven
A wood cooking stove is essentially the same as any other wood burning appliance. The main different between a wood stove and a wood cooking stove is the cooking stove has an oven.
The oven is a box inside the wood burning stove that is heated by the firebox. Temperature in the oven is regulated in part by the size and intensity of the flame in the firebox as well as by a damper that holds or releases air from around the oven box. To a lesser degree, the temperature for a dish in the oven can be adjusted by its placement in the oven box. The oven in a wood cooking stove typically does not heat evenly, with higher heat on the side next to the firebox and in the upper area of the oven and less heat in the lower area away from the firebox.
Hob
The hob of a wood cooking stove is the cooking surface on which pots and pans are placed. Unlike modern ranges and cooktops, the wood cook stove does not have burners. Round disks that look like they might be burners in the hob are called "eyes." These eyes are lids that can be lifted to add sticks to the firebox below or they can be set aside and a pot cradled in the resulting hole to allow the pot to heat up faster.
Temperature control on the hob is achieved partly through the size and intensity of the fire in the firebox, but also with the cooking container's proximity to the firebox. Pots or pans that need a high heat are placed directly over the firebox. For medium heat, the pot or pan would be moved aside just off the firebox, and for low heat, the pot or pan would be placed at the farthest point on the hob away from the firebox to maintain a low simmer
Damper
The stove's damper is a device that controls the amount of air that the fire has available for combustion. Opening the damper and allowing large amounts of air into the firebox will increase the fire's intensity and speed up the burning of the fuel. Closing the damper will cut off the air supply and choke the fire.
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