Thanks David!
It has been great to get the info out there about rocket ovens and how they can give you a powerful way to cook.
The
plans of Permies are awesome ( I
should follow them some day :-) perhaps on one of my next builds... ) But the allure of doing it my was was too great, and I ended up with an oven that costs less, and takes much less time to build.
Thanks for the tip about using different types of wood for longer burns, In my experiments I have used fine twigs and larger wood, much depends on what the latest wind storm brings down to the ground or, how fast I can replenish my reserve when friends turn up.
The advantages to the rocket oven that I see:
1) You can cook on cloudy days when
solar cooking is not available.
2) When power goes out, you now have an option to cook, if the power grid ever went down those that have these will be glad they did as they do not need propane.
3) Large volume of cooking area, I have done 4 cookie pans now that I have two racks in the system. I have found that the top rack takes longer to cook than the bottom as it is futher away from the heat in my setup.
One idea I have had as I flipped thru pintrest is to make a pan that would go in the bottom of the inside barrel where you could put charcoal under the racks, I have seen others cook with charcoal in the bottom of the inner barrel, and I think I would love to test to see how much charcoal it would take to cook a pizza, verses using the rocket flame.